Audience engagement is one of the most important aspects of virtual events. It takes a lot to pull off a great virtual event with enhanced engagement and interaction. The world has shifted to online event platforms to host most of the significant events that couldn’t be skipped.
A virtual event platform is well-equipped with countless features that help you host a memorable online event. The question is, what does it take to host a successful and efficient virtual event? And, the answer consists of several aspects, one of which is excellent audience engagement. In this blog, we have curated the best virtual event engagement ideas that can effectively magnify the success prospects of your event. Let’s begin by understanding the essence of a virtual event.
What Is A Virtual Event?
As the name suggests, a virtual event is an interactive event that takes place over an online event platform. There are a lot of elements that overall build the whole essence of a virtual event. The reason the concept of hosting events online is gaining prevalence is for the advantages that come with it. Virtual events have countless benefits in many prospects. From saving your costs & minimizing the carbon footprint to making the execution and data collection easy, virtual events render you with various advantages.
Following Are The Top 10 Virtual Event Audience Engagement Ideas To Get Your Online Event Going:
1. Make Your Online Event Interactive
A virtual event is all about interactivity, as all your attendees look forward to it. The more easy interactivity you provide your attendees, the more your attendees feel engaged in the event. A virtual event service provider renders you with the features to make your online conference, fest, or meeting more effectively interactive. There are various tools you can incorporate in your virtual event like live and pre-event polling, multi-channel communication, quizzes, challenges, trivia, chat rooms, etc.
2. Provide Dynamic Networking Opportunities
Out of many major reasons behind participants registering and attending your event, networking is one of the most significant reasons. Every attendee looks forward to maximizing their contacts and generating leads. Therefore, to ensure the success of your virtual event, it’s significant to incorporate efficient networking opportunities. Following are some of the top networking tools provided by Dreamcast virtual event platform:
- Virtual Networking Tables
- AI Matchmaking
- Networking Lounge
- B2B Meeting Scheduler
- Advanced Search Filters
- Business Card Exchange
3. Invite Professional Entertainment
Your attendees look forward to engaging in the event and have a memorable virtual event experience. Bringing professional entertainment on board will add to the much-needed fun at your online event. It is not just an effective engagement strategy but also ensures a great event experience for your attendees.
4. Add Gamification Elements
Gamification is one of the best tools to create an exceptional event in the virtual world. Various virtual event platforms are well-resourced with top-notch gamification tools to add to your online event. It not only keeps your attendees engaged but also enticed throughout the event. Following are some of the top gamification ideas for virtual events:
- Virtual Scavenger Hunt
- Virtual Escape Rooms
- Virtual Tic-Tac-Toe
- Crossword
- Dart game
- Spin the wheel
5. Social Media Contests
Organizing social media contests is a profitable idea when it comes to maximizing your event’s reach. Apart from keeping your remote attendees engaged and motivated to attend the event, it also helps you gain more registrants. At any virtual event, you will introduce an event-related hashtag. Your attendees can use these hashtags while posting anything related to events, be it about a contest or their images. Therefore, make sure that you provide your attendees with creative opportunities to post about your online event.
6. Photo Booth
Who doesn’t love capturing moments and sharing them with their friends and family over social media platforms? Most of the participants in any event like to click images on the event venue. The engaging feature of a virtual photo booth provides your attendees with a branded event frame to capture their virtual event experience.
7. Social Wall
While attending any virtual event, your attendees tend to post social media posts and stories. These posts might be related to the social media contests you organize or a snapshot of the virtual event venue they are a part of. A social wall is where everything your participants post or share on their social media is curated, collected, and represented on a common wall. Adding a social wall to your virtual event will not only keep your attendees engaged but also enhance your event’s reach. It is so because the people who see the social wall would want to see their post on the wall too. It will motivate them to post, and the cycle goes on.
8. Signature Wall
A signature wall is one of the many fun virtual event ideas. It renders your attendees a chance to share their experience or whatever they want to say about the event on a single virtual wall. A signature wall is another great engaging element provided by a virtual event platform.
9. Include Valuable Sponsorships
Sponsorship components at a virtual event can be an excellent way to add more value to your event. Not just from the perspective of your attendees but also from the overall success prospects of your event. Bringing sponsors onboard does not only minimize your expenses but also ensures zero compromises and more value. It is so because the sponsors have a primary aim of promoting their brand through sponsorship activities. Following are some of the top sponsorship ideas:
- Sponsored swag bags
- Sponsored jam sessions
- Sponsored meals
- Sponsored games
- Sponsored coffee break
- Sponsored entertainment
10. Promote Personal Social Groups & Ice-Breaking Activities
Creating social media groups and chat rooms before the virtual event goes live can help your attendees start interacting. Through this idea, you can easily arrange ice breaking activities to ensure that your remote attendees interact and connect when the virtual event day comes. You can also share important event details on these chat groups to ensure that your attendees don’t miss out on anything. These social media groups can exist even after the event, so people remember the event experience for a longer time.
A Quick Checklist To Ensure Engagement At Your Virtual Event
- Provide as many interactive opportunities to your global audience as possible
- Include diverse sessions in your virtual event agenda to ensure that the event doesn’t get boring
- Provide breaks in between the sessions to make sure that your attendees don’t have a tedious event experience
- Include exciting games in the virtual event to add a fun element to it
- Incorporate ice-breaking sessions and activities to ensure that your attendees interact well during the event
- Promote valuable sponsored activities to enhance the engagement prospects at the virtual event
- Encourage your attendees to participate in the social media contests to not only magnify the engagement but also maximize the reach of your event
- Provide excellent networking opportunities to get the interaction going and help your attendees generate valuable leads
- Include on-event announcements to keep your participants updated about the event proceedings
- Execute an efficient event by including live polls, trivia, and Q&A sessions to collect valuable event updates
Looking forward to hosting an engaging and successful virtual event? Reach out to Dreamcast and be calm about the execution!
