Did your event engagement not quite rocket like you planned? Well, you’re not alone! But don’t worry, there’s good news. This blog is a one-stop shop for unique event engagement ideas. We have discussed why event engagement is essential and what you can do to make your event more engaging.
Engaged attendees mean happy attendees! When people have a great time at your event, they will likely return next year and associate with your brand.
That’s the power of event engagement; it’s the key to creating an experience people will rave about long after the event is over.
So, let’s delve deeper and understand how to make your next event unforgettable.
19 Event Engagement Ideas to Win Your Attendees in 2024
1. Tailored Invitations
2. Social Media Engagement and Event Hashtags
3. Surveys and Polls: Find Out What Your Attendees Want
4. Pre-event contests and giveaways
5. Live social media wall
6. Photo Booth
7. Gamification
8. Engaging Keynote Speakers
9. Interactive Registration Process
10. Experiential Sessions
11. Monitor Engagement
12. Use Push Notifications
13. Professional-Level Brand Promotion
14. Have Some Fun with Event Spirit Day
15. Make New Connections with Networking Opportunities
16. Post-event testimonials
17. Surveys and feedback forms
18. Follow-up emails
19. Host a social media contest to fuel post-event engagement
What is Event Engagement?
Event engagement is a strategy used by event organizers to increase the interaction and participation of event attendees for event success. It can help brands give better experiences to their clients and enhance brand reputation. Event engagement is not just a buzzword; it’s a critical factor in event success.
Understanding and analyzing your attendee engagement can significantly improve your event planning and execution, leading to better connections with your audience.
Why Event Engagement Matters
Event engagement isn’t just about keeping attendees entertained; it’s about creating a dynamic experience that fosters connections and leaves a lasting positive impression of your brand.
Here’s why prioritizing engagement is critical to a successful event:
1. Boosts Brand Perception:
Engaged attendees are more likely to see your brand favorably. Interactions with speakers, sponsors, and each other generate positive buzz beyond the event itself.
2. Measures Success:
Engagement metrics like participation levels, social media activity, and feedback surveys provide valuable insights into the event’s effectiveness. High engagement signifies a successful and impactful experience.
3. Drives attendee value:
People attend events to participate and connect. Engaged attendees actively participate in sessions, network with exhibitors, and make valuable connections, ultimately getting more out of the event.
4. Personalization is Key:
Tailoring the event to your audience’s interests creates a more meaningful experience. This can lead to higher attendee satisfaction, increased likelihood of future participation, and positive word-of-mouth promotion.
By prioritizing engagement, you can transform your event into a powerful platform for brand building, connection, and lasting value for your attendees and your business.
Build An Attendee Engagement Strategy
With so much going on, such as exhibits and multiple sessions, attendees can easily get distracted. So, how do you keep them focused?
For starters, it can keep attendees engaged, allow them to focus on creating content that interests them, and encourage them to think creatively about how to deliver it.
Additionally, you can incorporate Social media wall displays at your event to keep everyone updated and your events lively. These walls can help you showcase authentic content created by your attendees using features like SnapUp.
Use gamification elements to keep attendees motivated. Gamification involves turning sessions into games, often with incentives, encouraging participation. Below are some ideas you can include in your event planning checklist and hit the success bar.
Best Event Engagement Ideas
Boost attendee participation and satisfaction with the below-mentioned practical event engagement ideas and create a dynamic and impactful event. We have provided event activation ideas that you can use to make the most of your event.
Pre-event engagement ideas
Get everyone excited early on! This makes people anticipate your event and creates a buzz. Make potential customers eagerly count down the days until your event! This might include social media posts, banners, hoardings, announcements, etc.
1. Tailored Invitations
The first event engagement idea on our list is to customize the invitations to make everyone feel special at your event.
Create a website for easy registration, shoot personalized emails, and keep them updated through text messages about the event.
2. Social Media Engagement and Event Hashtags
We live in a fast-paced digital world where social media plays an important role. Using social channels and running can help your brand grow wider. You can incorporate this trick into your event engagement plan as a brand.
Start hashtag campaigns and ask your followers to participate and create content. Reshare authentic user-generated content, like a live Twitter feed, on your social media to help you connect with your audience.
3. Surveys and Polls: Find Out What Your Attendees Want
Using social media to reach your brand goals can be highly beneficial. Try to engage with people by running surveys and polls online.
Ask questions, doubts, and what your event attendees want. This will not only help you connect with them but also let you offer them a personalized experience.
4. Pre event contests and giveaways
This hack can improve attendee engagement at events. People love free stuff, so use this tactic to lure them to your event and make them participate in activities.
Offer VIP tickets, access to the host, and more to event guests to keep things exciting. Keep a last date for entries and bookings to create a sense of urgency.
On-site event engagement ideas
It’s crucial to maintain attendee engagement and enjoyment at the event. Here are some on-site event engagement ideas to help accomplish this objective.
5. Live social media wall
Incorporate social wall in your event to boost attendee engagement. These walls can feature live social media feeds from Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, as well as user-generated content and campaign feeds.
Encourage people to share pictures and use your event hashtag to be featured on the screen. These digital social wall displays enhance the event experience and provide valuable insights into what resonates with your audience.
Setting up AI-powered social media walls at events is a great way to make your event feel more modern and keep people engaged.
The AI technology can automatically filter and display relevant content, ensuring that only the most engaging posts are shown. You can personalize your wall’s look to match your event’s theme and keep it moderated to maintain a positive brand image.
6. Photo Booth
An event photo booth is another event engagement hack that can help you get access to a broader audience.
Ask people to share their clicks on social media and use your branded hashtags. In addition to an event photo booth, you can use a custom backdrop with your logo and color scheme to maintain a brand presence.
7. Gamification
Another excellent idea for event engagement is event gamification. This helps you interact better and makes your audience’s experience more enjoyable.
Create tasks or games that allow people to collect points, which can be redeemed later for prizes or giveaways. You can use AI-powered social media walls to run quizzes and learn their thoughts.
8. Engaging Keynote Speakers
Are you looking for impactful conference engagement ideas? Well, this one can work wonders for you. Collaborate with industry leaders or celebrity speakers who can help you bring about change and reach broader audiences.
Additionally, this trick can help you host interactive workshops and conferences while keeping things lively throughout.
9. Interactive Registration Process
Use personalized QR codes to make your guests’ arrivals smooth sailing. This can make their check-in experience seamless.
But do you want to make things even more exciting for higher event engagement? Enable attendees to accumulate points or rewards by completing registration tasks, like scanning additional QR codes at different stations.
10. Experiential Sessions
Use this engagement idea and provide your event attendees with experiential sessions. Allow them to take demos of your products and services.
Event engagement technology allows people to try out your product, which is a great way to get people to talk about your offerings, learn about your brand, and share their thoughts and what they want to see. This will allow you to improvise and perform better in the future.
11. Monitor Engagement
Are you planning on hosting a virtual event and want to know about virtual event engagement ideas? Well, look no further.
Consider using a tool that gives you valuable insights into your event engagement for virtual or hybrid events. This data can help you make better decisions in the future, and presenters can use these insights to engage attendees more effectively during virtual or hybrid sessions.
12. Use Push Notifications
Push notifications are another way to keep your event engagement high on the bar. Busy people attending your event might need to remember what they signed up for!
An event schedule is excellent, but reminders are even better. Emails or a mobile app can ping attendees when sessions start and remind them about fun activities outside the talks.
13. Professional Level Brand Promotion
Make your event engagement a big hit and increase your brand awareness by strategically placing marketing materials!
Banners in high-traffic areas, branded badges, and an event website/app showcasing your brand and your sponsors will ensure attendees see them everywhere they turn, leaving a lasting impression long after the event ends.
14. Have Some Fun with Event Spirit Day
Banish the boring with themed spirit days to see great results in your event engagement! Rock company events with friendly competition and get creative with costumes.
To up the excitement, hand out badges or stickers and award prizes for the most enthusiastic participation or creative outfits.
15. Make New Connections with Networking Opportunities
Events are all about meeting new people! Promote your event as a chance to connect with industry folks and encourage interaction during presentations. Use a social media hashtag to build a buzz.
By focusing on connections, your event becomes a memorable networking hub, leaving a great impression on your brand.
Post-Event Engagement Ideas
The event is still on the road. Let’s focus on what comes next: continuing the conversation after the event. We’ll look at ways to stay connected and strengthen relationships among your attendees even after the event is finished.
16. Post Event Testimonials
Remember that your event engagement continues even when the event wraps up.
Collect praise from event attendees: Ask for testimonials and feedback after your event.
Show testimonials and visuals of your event guests! Share positive feedback on your website or digital screens to build trust.
17. Surveys and feedback forms
Surveys are goldmines for brand event engagement. Get feedback from your guests and learn what attendees liked (and didn’t).
You can also ask for ideas about what they want in the future. Find out what they want to see next. Keep your event engagement high! Use feedback to improve future events.
18. Follow Up Emails
Sending personalized follow-up emails can help you stay connected with attendees after the event. Send a thank-you email with a recap of the event, highlights, and information about upcoming events.
You can strengthen your community even more by thanking attendees for their presence, showing appreciation, and offering a discount for next year’s event.
19. Host a social media contest to fuel post-event engagement
A post-event social media contest can help you gather all the content created by the attendees. You can flaunt this feed on your social media channels and website.
Being active on social media for events can help you build trustworthy relationships, increase website dwell time, and increase your sales effectively.
Conclusion
Event engagement plays an essential role in the success of your event. Interacting and learning more about your attendees is crucial to enhancing their experience.
Implementing the best event engagement tips mentioned in this event engagement guide can effectively boost results and improve your upcoming events.
Keep in mind that unconventional ideas work best when it comes to engaging with attendees.
So, without delaying any further, get going and integrate these event engagement ideas into your plan.
