Event Management

Proven Strategies to Drive Event Engagement

Eventually Learning Team

01 March 2022

Read time 5 minutes 30 seconds

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The covid-19 pandemic has led to a drastic change in almost all industries and the event industry is no exception. With the digital space being the most significant channel of engagement in the event management industry, let us look at the various strategies and practices in driving Event Engagement and how helpful they can be for marketers.

Pre-event engagement

To start off, it’s important to not just create but also drive up the buzz and anticipation for your event. Social media can go a long way in helping you achieve your target.

Ensure an exciting content plan is in place

Creating an event specific content plan is key to increasing the quality and quantity of engagement activities. To structure this, one can use the existing content strategy in place or can create an additional strategy which is in sync with other initiatives you may have thought of already. The content that features in your event specific plan needs to be educational in nature and relevant to the various stakeholders who are going to participate in the eveny like attendees, speakers etc.

Moreover, the content plan should be structured in a way which enables it to direct a sizeable amount of traffic to the event website/landing page.

Create a space for conversation amongst community members

Over the past few years, especially since the onset of the pandemic, attendees in particular have been accustomed to having an active presence online while facilitating online discussions. Making people feel involved is a pre-requisite to drive engagement in this day and age. Even prospective attendees may judge the quality of an event based on the sort of discussions happening around it.

The idea is to promote more meaningful real-time conversations which eventually drive up engagement.

Engagement during the event

Social Media Updates

The ability to use social media to one’s advantage during events plays a significant role in driving up internal as well as external engagement. It is the ideal platform to expand your event’s reach while your event is happening.

You can provide live updates using social media to keep the masses posted regarding the timeline and happenings of your event. Platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook can be used to cover the event live while it’s happening whilst interacting with attendees via tweet, hashtags, quotes etc.

The tweets can also form an event thread once the event is over which would allow any attendee to read about all the details like quotes and timelines of the event in one place.

Gamification of the event

The age where event attendees were content with an event experience, which doesn’t necessarily involve interaction is long gone. Engagement can be driven up by the introduction of Gamification.

Gamification does exactly what the attendees desire – techniques that generate competition & offer rewards. By incentivizing attendee participation, engaging them through various avenues like voicing their opinions, talking with the speakers, participating in raffles, live polls and surveys, the ultimate goal of an enhanced event experience is reached.

Virtual photo booth

Photo booths are a great way of reinforcing event marketing campaigns. Most attendees find photo booths invigorating and be it team, group or individual photos, they captivate everyone’s attention on social media.

By providing photo booths that in a way speak for the brand, via images and logos of the event’s sponsors is a great way of indirect brand promotion.

With each click that gets uploaded on social media platforms, all stakeholders associated with the event promote themselves to a bigger pool of viewers resulting in increased engagement.

Post-event engagement

Testimonials

What is the need for engagement once the event is over? Well, post-event engagement strengthens your brand value and lays the groundwork for your upcoming events!

An effective method to drive post event engagement is to post quotes, keynotes from high profile speakers who were present at your event.
Another proven practice to increase engagement is by capturing brand mentions through which you can showcase the best event reviews of the event.
Influencer coverage of an event is the new-age press coverage. By inviting well known social media influencers to your event, you stand a chance of highlighting how a particular influencer covered your event.

Wrapping Up

When it comes to events, marketers may often be faced with unique issues that require ever so evolving solutions.

Attendees want to feel involved and since time is at a premium, they would want to leave your event knowing that they learnt something new and gained valuable and relevant insights that help them in the future.

Engagement is the centerpiece of any event be it virtual, hybrid or in person and integrating strategies that catapult engagement defines the ultimate success of the event.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is event engagement measured?

Event engagement can be measured in the following ways:

Analysing your website traffic
Creating an event app
Using push notifications
Event hashtag tracking
Tracking social media growth

How do you measure event engagement virtually?

To measure engagement virtually, we can calculate the engagement rate by counting the sum of interaction activities for.eg (Total answers in chats, Q/A, polls) and then dividing it with total number of attendees in the session.