We all use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and even LinkedIn. But while you use those services a lot, do you really know how to engage your audience on social media?

Attendee engagement is our main focus this year and part of that is interacting with them way before the event starts. Below we have a few tips for engaging with people at all stages of your event.

If you’re the type who wants to watch instead of reading below, jump into our free audience engagement webinar!

Up-And-Coming Rules for Event Marketing

With the rapid evolution of the events industry, are you aware of the new rules when it comes to event marketing? For example, events are no longer one-off affairs and a constant connection with your community is a must. You also need to establish a working partnership with your speakers and influencers, allowing better presentations and a great way connect to them with your audience. Content marketing is also becoming more prominent, giving you audience mindshare without needing a big marketing budget. And while it’s important to collect and understand data, collecting and responding to feedback can also get you ahead by building audience loyalty.

Improve Your Event through Gamification

Gamifying is not all about games. At first, this might sound like just adding silly little activities at intermission. However, digital gamification is going to be both a source of fun and a source of value. You don’t always have to create something new to gamify, using existing activities and venues could go a long way in engaging your audience. For example, you could fill up break time with a scavenger hunt through the various booths in your venue. Further, incentivize the games with prizes and you’ll have your audience buzzing with excitement!

Use Event Metrics to Get a Thumbs Up from the Boss

Bosses by nature are very data-oriented. You can’t wow them with something as abstract as “the event was awesome!” You need to learn what he or she wants to hear, then get the numbers you need. This guide gives you the top metrics bosses want from you. One example would be registration trends, which allows them to see how the event is growing over time. Check-ins will help filter out the no-shows, and net promoter scores will show just how share-worthy the event is in the eyes of participants. There are also metrics related to email, social media, and others that can guide you to creating a praiseworthy event.

Have you ever used VR for event planning?
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Guests: More Than Just Attendees

Most events nowadays are centered around creating a worthwhile experience for their attendees. And part of that is by not referring to them as attendees anymore but as “guests”. Guests are different in that they are not just people who go to an event and leave, they are integral parts of the event who deserve to have an exceptional experience. This means staff needs to treat them with top-notch hospitality, and each part of the event should revolve around them. This may be a huge adjustment in your thinking, but trust us it’s worth it if you want to improve attendee engagement.

VR Is Your New Friend in Event Planning

While VR has been a staple of many events, using it for event planning isn’t something that’s seen widespread adoption. However, the convenience of virtual reality apps can help bring an edge to your planning. For example, assessing venues or sending mockups would be vastly more convenient if done through VR. You can also use VR to check spaces that are still under construction, so you can plan ahead and integrate its features into plans for future events.

Are You Tech-Stressed? Here Are Things to Watch Out for

As an event planner, you’re exposed to different types of tech every day. While technology can help make things easier, those that require a lot of manual intervention could take their toll. If you feel your head pound when using a piece of tech, or are frustrated when they just won’t sync up, then you might be suffering from tech-related stress. That’s even more if you are on the customer service hotline regularly! And believe it or not, feeling like you’re not using your tech to its fullest extent also means you have to take a step back and re-evaluate your technology strategy.

The Boons and Banes of Team Building

Team building activities are very important when they succeed in helping the team become more collaborative and cohesive. Unfortunately, not all team building activities are successful. Many participants may find their activities of no value, or at best not right up their alley. This guide gives the lowdown on what is good and bad team building (as well as what isn’t team building at all). As a key takeaway, a team building experience has to be positive and reinforcing. Find out just what that takes, plus a few sample team building activities!

What does it really take to engage social media audiences?
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Audience Engagement Masterclass

Audience engagement is all about connecting with your attendees and giving them a great event experience. With that, we’re sharing a masterclass that will give tips, tricks, and technology to help out with this elusive art. The class will also include guests from live polling platform Slido, and interactive wearables company, Klik. The event will also feature advice from other experts on how to craft an engaging time for your attendees. It will be held in London on April 5th.

Understanding Engagement for 2018

Engagement is a huge term thrown around by many in the events circuit, but what does it really take to engage social media audiences? Here are the five main components of engagement, which is best remembered through the five vowels AEIOU: Ask, Expression, Incentive, Offer, and Utility. Once you have all of these elements down, your social media campaign will be abuzz with real people communicating with your brand, and following your every post. These five factors take care of engagement across all levels, from the emotional to the practical.

Get Back Your Email Sanity with Sanebox

Inbox zero may be a distant goal for many, but it’s still a goal. Luckily, tools like SaneBox exist to help out. SaneBox is a service that monitors your email and learns your emailing behavior. It can understand which messages are important, and which are not. The app also has powerful filters, the ability to create digests, response trackers, and more. It is available for any device or platform. Best of all, there’s nothing to download! For event professionals who have to wrestle with dozens of emails an hour, SaneBox brings some much-needed email automation so you can get your sanity back.

Tech stress might be new to you but the methods for dealing with it certainly aren’t new. Taking breaks, reducing your reliance on them, and doing things slower are all excellent ways to deal with stress, tech-related or not.

What’s your go-to solution when you’re stressed out?