Understanding the Value of Social Features in an Event App for Associations

Attendees are the foundation of any conference or event. Their willingness to support and fund events and programs, while advocating for the association’s goals and success, are what makes attendees the ultimate stakeholders. Meanwhile, more and more attendees are supporting technological trends at events and conferences that enhance their opportunities to network and be social. With attendee engagement at the forefront of prevalent topics in the association arena, it’s important to understand how mobile event apps can turn “attendees” into “participants” and lead the social revolution.

Social media has become the driver of this revolution. Thanks to social outlets, attendees are able to engage themselves through event apps before, during, and even after an event. Likewise, exhibitors, sponsors, speakers, and event organizers utilize social media to network with attendees. The discovery of the hashtag has played a huge role in the social media frenzy by grouping together people of the same interests, sparking conversation amongst them.
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The challenge with social media is the exceptional number of outlets available this day in age. The list goes on and on – which means the number of social apps downloaded to a particular device does as well. An event app on the other hand has the power to integrate multiple social outlets into one central area. Whether they be the big players such as Twitter or Facebook, photo and video-sharing outlets, or direct messaging tools, an event app eliminates the need to open multiple apps which typically results in more incentive to utilize the social outlets. Think of it as the ultimate networking tool.

Social media may be at the core of attendee engagement, but attendee feedback is equally as valuable. Standard mail or email surveys do very little to engage attendees – they’re often ignored or completed post-event. The sole purpose of post-event surveys is to understand how the event was perceived and where to improve for next time. However, imagine the social impact of giving attendees the opportunity to provide feedback instantly.
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Event apps have the ability to do just that. With live polling, attendees can share their input in real-time, rather it be about the overall event or a particular session. Attendees’ active participation in the outcome of the event or session is both engaging and rewarding, but also helpful for associations in retaining those attendees and evolving to improve based on their feedback.
For an in-depth look at all of the social features available in the Eventpedia app, click here.