Reading time: 6 minutes
The attention span of the average person is only 30 minutes. After that, it is difficult to understand further complex relationships. A break is needed here to be able to recharge mentally.
A pause doesn’t have to mean that your participants need to stand in the corner and get bored. You want just to lighten the mood a bit and that is best done with conversation.
This means that your job is to fuel networking among your participants between the lectures. To make this even more successful, here are ten tech ideas to increase interaction at events.
Automated Data Collection with an Event Management Platform
Even before the event you already have a lot of information about your participants and speakers, but do you use this data? An event management platform collects and analyses this data for you and simultaneously generates suggestions on how you can address individual participants based on their interests.
Many tools also provide you with live tracking so that you can record and analyze the behavior of your participants on-site at the event and afterward. For example, you can detect movement profiles and preferences for individual references and sponsors. The newest trend is facial recognition, with the ability to click back on emotions. All of this data can be used to send very individualized messages and offers to each participant.
One such provider that you can look at is doo.
Disclaimer: The new European General Data Protection Regulation makes data collection and analysis difficult for European events.
Survey Tools for Feedback and Participant Integration
Surveys, especially live ones, are still one of the hottest topics in the event world. There is no easier way to integrate participants into an event than to address their questions live on stage or to get a sense of the public’s interest through opinion polls.
In the past, feedback was primarily in the foreground, but today it’s about the live component. Organize small quizzes, elections, and polls. Get an opinion on a topic or have the participants ask their questions anonymously to the speakers.
In addition to surveys, if you want to present your speakers, sponsors and the programme digitally then you should take a look at LineUpr. We offer all this at an unbeatable price. If you are only interested in surveys, Sli.Do is a provider worth looking at.
Event App as Digital Program Booklet
Everything is becoming digital. Of course, this also applies to the distribution of information. Whereas in the past all events had been set on printed programmes and flyers, most of them now use a website to showcase the agenda and the speakers.
One step further than a website is an event app. Here the entire program with speakers, participants, sponsors, and locations is presented in an individual app. Like a digital programme booklet that your participants always have in their pockets.
Of course, here we can only recommend that you try LineUpr. We offer top value for money and are the must-have tool for any event with up to 1,000 participants. If your events are a bit bigger and you want unique features adapted to your event, then EventMobi would be a good solution for your events.
Networking Apps for Getting to Know Each Other
Most people find it challenging to address strangers. It’s often hard to know what to say and sometimes everyone is already involved in a conversation. But as an event manager, you know that the success of your event depends on networking.
Some tools help you to simplify networking among your participants. These matchmaking apps automatically connect participants with the same interests or by coincidence and replace the “icebreaking” step.
Popular matchmaking apps are Topi and Match-App.
Messenger Apps as a Digital Discussion Medium
We all know WhatsApp from our private communication, but you can also work with messenger apps at events. If you want to initiate multiple discussions in small groups with different thematic focuses at your event, then the arguments and insights should also be documented.
There are also apps that enable to work on common goals and tasks in groups and make insights visible even after the event. A provider of such a solution is Worksup.
Chatbots as Contact Partners
As an event manager, you often get the same questions. In the long run, this can be very annoying, so that chatbots can take a lot of work off you. Use these automatic responders for the typical standard questions. You can define beforehand possible questions and the answers that the chatbot should deliver. So that there is more time left for the essentials.
A Chatbot provider is, for example, die Krallmann AG
Social Media Walls for Opinions
Of course, instead of using survey tools, you can also use social networks. Both Facebook and Twitter offer you the opportunity to have questions answered by your participants. On Twitter, you can even generate one or more streams to your event by giving your participants a hashtag. You can now view all messages that contain this hashtag directly on-screen.
This is most successful if moderators, speakers, and event organizers themselves use this medium and demonstrate its use to the participants.
Crowd Streaming for More Coverage
Be sure to record your important and popular event content with video and audio. You could also offer live streaming via Facebook Live. It is crucial that your participants can review the content later.
At the same time, you can use this content later for marketing purposes. Usually, two months before the event, many conferences offer the opportunity to see all the presentations of the previous year by logging in with your email address. You can easily collect potential subscribers and can then continue to send them samples through emails, etc.
Another very important point is good Wi-Fi, so that your participants can also create records for the event and distribute them over their networks.
Relaxed, Feel-Good Atmosphere for Better Networking
Your participants must feel comfortable at your event. Only then can they openly approach strangers. This also means that you can create areas where it is a little quieter. Offer, for example, a lounge with drinks and a smartphone service station there to recharge batteries.
While their smartphones are charging, your participants no longer have any digital distractions and can quickly engage in conversation.
Positive Memories to Take Home
Mobile photo booths have been around for ten years, but they are still a useful addition to any event. At the end of the day, every participant wants to take home something personal and a snapshot with the new acquaintances is perfect. Also, you can use these images for both your presentation of the event, as well as to approach the photographed person in the next year. A win-win, so to say.
What is your opinion on the 10 Tech Ideas? What other technologies do you use at your events to increase interaction? We are looking forward to your feedback!
“Technology” Icon created by Nithinan Tatah from “the Noun Project“.
