IRORI Online Vol. 1: Redefining Social Activities
COVID-19 has changed the landscape of our work and lifestyle. With virtual workspaces exponentially rising, we must step up to engage with our audience and community. With this in mind, BARK premiered its first-ever session of IRORI Online.
IRORI concept was inspired by a free interaction space with those you admire at an interpersonal level. The focus is to delve into deeper and practical subjects with experts invited as guests.
On 20th April, IRORI Online Vol. 1 aired live with our guests from Peatix, Airmeet, and the Blink Community. Volume 1 focuses on “Redefining Social Activities” to address the shift in engagement and community building.
Here are some key takeaways from the event for those who missed it!
Speakers
Yuji Fujita
Peatix, Co-founder & Chief Marketing Officer
Responsible for all sales, community management, and marketing at Peatix. Prior to joining Peatix, Yuji was the youngest manager at Amazon Japan’s Seller Services team, where he focused on client acquisition for its Marketplace division.
Lalit Mangal
Airmeet Co-founder
Airmeet is a remote startup dematerializing conferences and meetups, bringing all tools for meetings online. They recently raised a $3M funding round led by Accel India. Lalit is an entrepreneur with both technical and business backgrounds Lalit previously co-founded CommonFloor.com, which got acquired by Quikr.
Shin Chan
Community Manager, Blink Community
Born and raised in Taiwan. Extremely open-minded and has an experienced ability at building and maintaining good relationships with people from different cultural backgrounds. Currently working at a coworking space, Blink Community, as a community manager to build a valuable community and has insights into various demands of organizations and people.
<Moderator> Chiho Numata
Studying Earth Sciences at the University of Tsukuba, she has an interest in environmental and global issues. Previously, she lived in the United States until middle school, moving to Japan to complete her schooling. A great baker.
Key Notes
Shift in work after social isolation
Q1) How have things changed for each speaker after coronavirus?
- Lalit: The pandemic has thrown a spotlight on startups and platforms that enable virtual communications. The road map for 8 months has been crammed into 8 weeks to respond to the high demand and expectation.
- Yuji: The focus has shifted to supporting online events and adapting to hold large community events virtually. The number of published events has fallen by 50% but the audience outreach per event has risen- 10x for some cases. Communicating and engaging with our community members have changed.
- Shin: We frequently held events offline and had interactions at the co-working space. Doing online events has been a new phase for us to challenge.
Tackling Offline to Online
Q1) What are the differences in experience between real and virtual events? What are the key points to keep in mind?
It is tougher to connect interpersonally without full-body gestures and harder to understand the atmosphere.
In virtual events, to compensate for the lack of face-to-face communication, we must utilize different tactics to keep the audience engaged.
Q2) Which place, online or offline, would be a good place to begin building communities?
It depends on the form, role, and field of community. For business communities, one should start from online to gain large traction, however, the transfer of knowledge is lower. The ideal balance for knowledge transfer and audience size must be considered for a designated field.
For podcasts (Peapod by Peatix), because it is online, the audience is much higher than offline. One event can gain 3000 to 5000 listeners.
Q3) How to redefine an immersive experience?
To create an immersive virtual experience, the topic has to be focused on a use case and relevant for the audience. Build experience around the topic. Additionally, increase interactivity and engagement within the experience.
Q4) How do you keep the audience engaged online?
Audience engagement takes more effort online.
1. The hosts must ask questions or actively respond with comments, and the audience should also react by using buttons. Audience engagement is significantly higher when you pick up a lot of comments and questions. Interactivity increases retention rates.
2. A certain level of unpredictability should be kept to intrigue the audience. Once a mind can begin predicting the event’s flow, it naturally becomes disinterested. On online, people multitask while listening or working and can sway away. Thus, we must give a variable reward.
Q5) Is there any specific community that cannot be moved online?
Events where the essence is experiential over knowledge, it’s tough to move. It is easier for communities that have information and interaction at the core.
Q6) How can communities and social events be sustainable online?
· Work with people personally to understand their needs and address them.
· Online streaming to continually stay in touch with your community.
· Podcasts can be interesting if you want to focus on voice and reach out to new community members, else live streaming is great to keep people connected.
Next Up…
Are you ready to ride the big wave of diversifying workplaces?
Speakers with experience working in top global companies will share insights into this global movement. Join us online!
