Looking for ways to increase virtual attendee engagement at your event? This guide includes tips on:
- Adding Group Chat for Your Attendees
- How to Randomize and Raffle
- How to Embed Real-Time Surveys and Polls
- Collecting Attendee Data through Embeddable Forms
Add Group Chat for Your Attendees
The EventHub platform allows you to choose to enable chat on both Main Stage videos (if that chat is enabled from the streaming platform) and in Session presentations. However, our platform does not have a way for attendees to all message each other throughout the event, or to create different chat breakout rooms for them to find like-minded individuals and follow-up even after the conference.
This is where an external chat client can come in! We recommend using Slack or Discord, but there's no reason you can't use anything else, since it's all external. We at EventHub don't support this feature, so it will be up to you to choose the chat client and share with your attendees how to use it.
Regardless of what chat client you choose, we recommend adding a section of text in your Event Description on your Main Hall page on EventHub advising people to join the community chat.
For example, you can add something like the following:
Want to join your fellow attendees with live chat all the way through the event? We're hosting our chat on Slack! We have different channels for different interests, including live discussion channels to follow along together as we watch the keynote presentations and performers. Click here to join: <INSERT LINK>
Now you might be wondering, how do I host this group chat for my attendees? We explain this below for Slack and Discord.
Slack
Slack is a chat client that you can use either from a webpage or an app that you download on your computer or phone.
Slack uses "workspaces." A person with an account on Slack can be a member of multiple workspaces. Your conference will just be another one of these workspaces that someone joins, and within that workspace you can have different "channels" (essentially chat rooms).
You can learn more about getting started and what Slack is on the Slack Introduction here.
Once you set up a Slack workspace for your event, you can get the link to share with folks to join the workspace following the steps outlined here.
Discord
Discord is a chat client that you can use either from a webpage or an app that you download on your computer or phone.
Discord uses "Servers." A person with an account on Discord can be a member of multiple servers. Your conference will just be another one of these Servers that someone joins, and within that Server, you can have different "channels" (essentially chat rooms).
A major difference of Slack and Discord is that Slack is all text based (sending written messages) and a Discord channel has both text channels and voice channels. This means that some chat rooms may be text only, but then others might have a voice component where people are verbally chatting with each other (no video).
You can learn more about getting started and what Discord is on the Beginner's Guide to Discord.
Once you set up a Discord server for your event, you can get the invite link to share with attendees by following the steps outlined here.
How to Randomize and Raffle
We recommend using Wheel of Names--it's free and easy to use! It can be used for contest, raffles and more. Enter names, then spin the wheel to pick a random winner with a customizable look!
How to Embed Real-Time Surveys and Polls
There are many websites where you can create a survey or poll to collect responses and update results in real-time. For example, we have created surveys with Swift: Real-Time Audience Polling, which generates this iFrame code that you can embed as a Widget. For more information on using Widgets, please refer to our help article on embedding here.
Collecting Attendee Data through Embeddable Forms
If you need online forms for newsletter signup, generating leads, distributing surveys, collecting payments and more, you can use a platform like JotForm. It's a free online form builder, and you can be creative with the ways you use it! For example, we like to suggest using it to collect sweepstakes entries from your attendees -- nothing more exciting than giving away cool prizes! If you want to embed your form as a Widget on your page on EventHub, follow the steps outlined in this help article.
Comments
0 comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.