1. Don’t Ignore Social Outlets.
Social media is here to stay and there is nowhere better to have access to all of your social forums than in your mobile event app. Use pre-set Twitter hashtags to reflect the name of your event and keep the conversation flowing by replying to attendees who use the hashtag. Encourage attendees to share photo memories by promoting photo sharing – where they can “like” and comment on other user photographs.
Keep your social media presence strong before, during, and after your event and your attendees will be sure to participate in the fun!
2. Encourage Participation from Speakers and Exhibitors.
Attendees will struggle to become participants without your speakers and exhibitors on board. Be sure your speakers and exhibitors are aware prior to the conference of how they can engage and interact with attendees through the event app. Have your speakers engage with attendees during their sessions by utilizing live polling and sharing the results in real time – this is share to strike up a conversation. Attendees will be sure to have questions or comments at the end of a session. Rather than awkwardly passing around a microphone and putting the spotlight on one attendee at a time, inform them they can ask questions straight from the event app, which the speaker can then answer based on the question ranking.
As for your exhibitors, encourage them to promote appointment scheduling in order to develop one-on-one relationships with attendees. With these guys on board, you will be sure to create a more interactive experience for your attendees.
3. Promote Attendee-to-Attendee Interaction.
Conferences are often focused on the attendee to exhibitor/speaker/sponsor relationship. By creating relationships with other attendees, they will be more likely to strike up conversation about the conference and create excitement amongst each other. Be sure to promote the messaging function in your event app where the users can converse with one another. Whether they are making plans, sharing feedback on a session or simply catching up, they are creating relationships built upon your event!
4. Let Them Know Their Voice Matters.
There is no better definition of a participant than an attendee sharing their feedback which single-handedly benefits the course of the conference (or next years, for that matter). Send push notifications to your attendees to encourage them to take the mobile survey you’ve created within the app. Help them understand just how valuable their feedback is to help your conference grow and improve. Once they see their feedback put into action, whether it be a suggestion that was accepted with open arms or simply words of praise, they will know for sure their impact was made.
Providing attendees with an event app and understanding the best practices for using one is the key to creating a more interactive experience at your conference. With the proper marketing and promotion, all of these things can be achieved to transform your attendees to actively engaged participants! For more information regarding the benefit of event apps please visit www.eventpedia.com.
