In recent times, hosting events virtually has become a widespread norm in businesses and organizations worldwide. Although virtual events like webinars were already growing more common, the pandemic made them particularly indispensable.
Virtual events are here to stay, and businesses will continue hosting events online when possible. After all, hosting virtual events during the pandemic has shown us its various benefits.
However, regardless of how cost-effective and convenient it might be to host your events online, the practice has several challenges. If you plan to host a major virtual event, you should definitely keep these challenges in mind and plan to overcome them.
One of the most significant downsides of virtual event hosting is that attendees tend to lose interest relatively quickly, which can ruin an event’s success.
Knowing how to build better engagement for your virtual events will help you keep your audience engaged throughout the entirety of the event.
Audience engagement challenges in virtual events
Audience engagement has always been important, even before virtual events were a thing. However, its importance has come to the limelight, especially in the age of virtual event hosting, along with its own set of challenges.
So, why is audience engagement especially challenging during virtual events? Well, attending these events can be a little exhausting, and it’s easy to start zooming out.
Especially when the attendees aren’t physically present at the event, they might get easily distracted by their surroundings. This is why retaining their attention can be particularly daunting when hosting virtual events.
Tips to boost audience engagement during virtual events
While audience engagement during virtual events is a challenge, it isn’t impossible. The next time you host a virtual event, try out the following tips. These should help you engage the audience much more effectively.
Keep it interactive
One-way communication is one of the biggest audience engagement challenges and can make it incredibly harder during virtual events.
Besides the fact that it’s boring to simply sit through an event and listen, nobody enjoys being unable to ask questions or voice their opinions. Make sure to take feedback, questions, and other input from the audience at regular intervals. It will help keep them attentive and engaged.
Host polls
Speaking of interactive virtual events, do not forget that polls can be excellent tools to collect feedback and engage your audience. Firstly, the audience would feel valued and appreciated when you invite them to participate in a poll. Secondly, you can use the polls to understand your audience’s interests.
This would help you plan accordingly and cater to their needs better. Polling is already becoming very popular, with more than 81% of virtual event organizers using polls to enhance their events.
Know your audience
Before you host the virtual event, carry out adequate research on your audience. Information such as their age bracket, interests, language, and special accessibility needs is extremely valuable when planning the event.
Try to understand how exactly they engage with the products and services you offer so that you can shape topics accordingly. Knowing your audience is crucial in keeping them engaged during a virtual event.
Incorporate a community chat
It’s much easier for the attendees to stay engaged in the event when they can chat with other attendees, hosts, and special guests present in the event.
Consider hosting a real-time live chat during the event for this purpose. It will allow everyone to get into quick discussions and rapid Q&A sessions. Leading digital experience platforms like Viafoura offer versatile community chat tools that run smoothly across different devices and sophisticated features.
Build a virtual environment
You don’t necessarily have to host the virtual events using the default themes available on the platform. In fact, it’s better to build a virtual space that resembles an actual physical space, such as your conference room, company lobby, outdoor meeting areas, or anything suitable.
If possible, even add features like virtual exhibit halls, photo booths, and auditoriums for the audience to explore. The more immersive the virtual environment, the easier it will be to keep your audience engaged.
Gamify the event
This may not be suitable for every virtual event, such as extremely formal webinars and meetings. However, when possible, adding relevant gamification content can make the event fun and engaging.
Games like trivia, quizzes, and puzzles foster interaction among the audience, draw their interest and make them curious about the event. You could even add a scoring and leaderboard system to make it competitive.
Why is audience engagement so crucial in virtual events?
Of course, the biggest reason behind capturing the audience’s attention is to make the event a success. However, there are several other direct or indirect advantages of having a great audience engagement strategy too.
Word-of-mouth marketing
A successful event is great for your business, as attendees would be more likely to spread the word about your brand if they enjoyed the event.
If you manage to host a unique virtual event that creates a lasting impression in the attendees minds, they may start following your brand on social media. In fact, they might even share your posts, which essentially results in free marketing.
Brand image and awareness
The virtual events you host are essentially a part of your brand’s image. The way you engage the audience during the event will directly impact how they see your brand.
You can even share the event’s highlights over social media, a part of your social media strategy. This will help spread brand awareness, which is crucial for any business to succeed.
Retaining attendees for future events
Many of your attendees will be unlikely to come back in future events if they find your virtual event to be tedious and stressful. However, a fun and interactive event will not only retain them for future events, but they might also invite their own contacts.
Endnote
Quite essentially, you need to put in all the necessary effort to guarantee audience engagement during virtual events. Regardless of the challenges, it’s an important part of successful virtual events, and ignoring this can cause your events to be a major failure.
Just like social media audience engagement, you cannot afford to compromise on audience engagement during virtual events.
