Four ways to effectively engage business-to-business communities at virtual events.
Anna Anisin, founder and CEO at Formulated.by, took on the challenge of engaging B2B communities at virtual events. Here are some snippets of the article posted on Forbes. To view the full article, click here.
Know Your Audience
Don’t try to guess audience preferences. It’s quite easy to approach this issue:
• Talk to them: The easiest way is to talk to your target audience. Post questions on social media and engage in online forums. Ask them what their goals are. Then, ask them what they struggle with daily.
• Research them: You can also conduct audience research. Which web pages and blog posts do they engage with most? What questions do they ask your support team? Again, visit online forums in your industry to get a feel for their challenges.
When you know your audience, you can create content specifically for them. This kind of content is easy for them to engage with because it’s what they want.
TB Note: This is an important note that we usually share with our clients. To help you find the best speaker, we need to understand your audience members. There are no “one size fits all” speakers, and we want to help you select the best possible one for your event.
Visit our Virtual FAQs page to help you on your journey to booking the perfect speaker for your event.
Encourage Participation
The easiest way to boost engagement at virtual events is to encourage audience participation. Most B2B conference attendees will jump at the chance to connect with keynote speakers and ask them questions. Many of them will be happy to connect with their peers, too, via creative networking sessions. You can make this happen with the right tech.
But it goes deeper than these things. You need to make time for audience participation. Ask your speakers to set aside 15 minutes at the end of their keynotes to field questions. Send polls and surveys to attendees throughout your event — even if it’s just to ask simple questions like “What have been your favourite sessions so far?”
Participation and engagement go hand in hand. If you can encourage the former, the latter will naturally follow, and your virtual event will be better because of it.
TB Note: Participation is a great way to grow your networking connections. Use the technology provided to allow for breakout rooms!
Need some help engaging your audience? Contact us today and we’ll help you find some good strategies!
Invest In Technology
Many virtual event platforms feature audience engagement tools. Use them. For example, ON24 allows for virtual sponsor booths where event attendees can visit and interact with industry folks during online conferences. Then there’s Hopin, which includes engagement features like native chat, moderated Q&As and event polling. You can also use external tools to boost engagement. For instance, dedicated Slack channels allow virtual event attendees to network with each other between sessions. Modern technology simplifies virtual event engagement with simple-to-use tools that make it easy to interact with B2B audiences.