Event networking: meeting the audience expectations
If a couple of years ago the principal reasons for attending events were mostly educational, nowadays networking and interaction with the people who work in the same field, as well as collaborative problem solving is what gives conferences real value. Undoubtedly, learning is still important, but having a chance to meet great people, who can help you grow professionally, often works in synergy with the benefits of educational sessions for many attendees.
This change in attendees’ preferences together with the development of technologies that facilitate networking, has transformed live events and made planners rethink and redesign their approach to organising face-to-face meetings. The tech conference Collision, for example, used an algorithm that allowed investors and start-ups to easily match. Similarly, Oracle OpenWorld started to look beyond the standard conference formats and decided to redesign common areas into organic attendee-to-attendee engagement spaces.
This change in attendees’ preferences has transformed live events and made planners rethink and redesign their approach to organising face-to-face meetings.
For those who attend a conference better networking results in new valuable contacts and leads, whereas for organisers in an overall positive experience and loyal future visitors. That’s why keeping the importance of interaction in mind, event organisers should take an active role in assuring plenty of opportunities for easy and effective networking.
Let us split the event networking experience into three parts and identify what attendees are looking for at each stage of the event. Also let’s try to find out how organisers can respond to the visitors’ expectations and guarantee the best interaction experience possible.
BEFORE
Audience expectations
Usually attendees start to show interest in an event weeks before it actually takes place. In preparation for the meeting they start monitoring social networks and other online channels in order to find information about who else will be attending the event, which speakers are going to be of particular interest to them and for the best way to start a conversation with other attendees. They will want to establish connections and engage in conversations way before the event is live.
Organiser’s actions
So how can organisers improve networking opportunities at this stage? The answer is by creating an online community — a place where event attendees can share their thoughts, exchange ideas and have access to the network of like-minded people who are going to the meeting. Luckily, nowadays a variety of technological tools easily allow to connect attendees online through event apps, groups on social networks or simply by using a dedicated event hashtag on Twitter or Instagram.
Building a website for a particular event is also a good idea. First of all, it will guarantee simple access to event information, and secondly, it will help to market your meeting to potential customers. Today, in order to create a microsite it is not necessary to hire a team of programmers and designers, many of event tech suppliers offer this service, sometimes as a complementary one to the app development.
Furthermore, at B2B events, the attendees might want to connect on LinkedIn or follow each other on Twitter, therefore, one must make sure that attendees’ and speakers’ profiles on your event app or website include links to their respective social networks’ profiles.
DURING
Audience expectations
When people arrive on-site they are looking to make valuable connections, ask questions and the opinions of industry thought leaders and discuss problems and challenges they face with like-minded people. The main obstacle here is that some attendees might feel uncomfortable asking questions in front of a big audience and it can be intimidating for them to approach a group or join a discussion.
Organiser’s actions
Online discussions prior to the conference often contribute to more productive face-to-face networking on-site as the attendees might have already met and interacted with some of the conference participants.
However, this doesn’t mean that networking opportunities cannot be improved even further with the implementation of conference networking spaces, optimising the format of the event and including networking-focused activities such as ‘table topics’ discussions or discussions via event apps. A good idea for improved live interaction might be to split delegates into smaller groups or organise “brain-dating” sessions during which the attendees are paired with each other based on their interests or areas of expertise.
Technology, and event apps, in particular, can be an extremely useful tool when it comes to networking and interaction at the venue. Features such as 1-to-1 meetings, direct messaging or discussion boards facilitate communication among all of the stakeholders making it easier to take the first step and start a conversation. Integration with social media enables attendees to share their live experiences with the online community and make new connections there.
The Q&A feature or the possibility to leave comments on presentation slides helps to establish a meaningful dialogue between the speakers and the audience leading to even more networking and interaction.
AFTER
Audience expectations
After the event is over the attendees for sure will try to follow up with their new connections, potential clients or partners. They will want to develop further relationships through communicating online or simply stay in touch with people with similar interests. In addition, they might want to discuss several topics further or talk about new ideas and collaborative projects.
Organiser’s actions
At this stage, event organisers need to make sure the attendees have access to the list of the participants with links to their LinkedIn or Twitter profiles. Event app profiles with the social media links, bio pages on the meeting microsite or a simple list of emails could be a great solution to this.
Do not forget to nurture further communication through publishing relevant content in the online community, engage attendees to participate in group discussions on social networks and encourage them to keep interacting online and face-to-face.
The meetings’ priorities are changing pushing the educational content to the second place and making interaction even more important for attendees. Stepping away from a standardised conference approach and moving towards new event formats will provide the audience with the opportunities for quality networking and active participation. Knowing what attendees expect to get in terms of networking at each stage of the event can help planners to meet the audience expectations and take the networking experience to a whole new level.
