Open Forum

Hello everyone! We're here with the next edition of Tip of the Week. This week, we'd like to dive in on a topic that was featured in a Cvent webinar back in June – how to foster the sense of community in a virtual setting. As the Online Community Management team here at Cvent, @Megha Jetley and I have some experience there, although it can always be interpreted differently for an actual live event.

Check out our webinar and keep reading for the key tactics to embrace community in a virtual setting:

• Chat:
  • Chat should be enabled during every virtual session, whether it is entirely live or simulive.
    • If it is entirely live, have dedicated moderators there to manage the chat through the Attendee Hub on the back-end and reply as needed. Encourage them to spark conversation and share interesting facts to get the conversation going, too.
    • If it is entirely live, feed some of the chats to the speaker so they can call them out in their presentation. This makes the attendees feel seen and heard and makes it feel extra engaging.
    • If it is simulive, your speakers should be jumping in directly to the chat. This gives them a chance to connect with their audience in a way that may not even be available during in-person sessions.
  • Keep things human and personable – use @ mentions when responding directly or asking another person a question. Encourage emojis to be used to react to chats, whether it is to emphasize a great point, show that it made you laugh, or a smile or heart to show you enjoyed the message. Anything can be used here – it is all about the openness amongst the attendees and with the speakers, as well.

• Polling:
  • Asking polling questions is a way to allow attendees to connect to each other and learn more. Whether it is a personal question, a question about their organization & events, or their thoughts on the future state of the industry, it gives each individual attendee the chance to voice their opinion, and then see how it relates to others in attendance.

• Q&A:
  • In-person events offer a lot of space for attendees to speak directly with presenters, whether that be hallway chats, in-person appointments, evening networking events, and more. Since that is not as readily available in a virtual setting, offering a space for Q&A is crucial to attendee satisfaction and engagement. This can be done through written responses in the Attendee Hub or live during the session with the speaker. 

• Networking:
  • We have learned in the past year and a half that virtual networking can be done many different ways. It is up to you as the event planner, or community manager, to understand your audience and organize networking activities that will fulfill their needs. Using the Attendee Hub offers many different capabilities, whether that is breakout sessions via collaborative sessions, 1:1 appointments, virtual booth meetings with exhibitors, Community features such as the Attendee List, and more. We have seen many creative solutions from the industry.

• Gamification:
  • Gamification brings engagement and fun to your virtual event, while bringing attendees together to foster the sense of community. Using the Game in the Attendee Hub is a great way to incentive attendees to take various actions throughout the event. 

If you watched the Product Roadmap session at Cvent CONNECT last week, you heard about some additional features coming to Attendee Hub that will take your community experience to the next level: Discussions and Speed Networking. Stay tuned to Product News here in the Community to hear more about these releases.

Questions for You:

• What other ways do you bring a sense of community to your virtual or hybrid events?

Let us know below! #CventTip

Hello everyone! We're here with the next edition of Tip of the Week. This week, we'd like to dive in on a topic that was featured in a Cvent webinar back in June – how to foster the sense of community in a virtual setting. As the Online Community Management team here at Cvent, @Megha Jetley and I have some experience there, although it can always be interpreted differently for an actual live event.

Check out our webinar and keep reading for the key tactics to embrace community in a virtual setting:

• Chat:
  • Chat should be enabled during every virtual session, whether it is entirely live or simulive.
    • If it is entirely live, have dedicated moderators there to manage the chat through the Attendee Hub on the back-end and reply as needed. Encourage them to spark conversation and share interesting facts to get the conversation going, too.
    • If it is entirely live, feed some of the chats to the speaker so they can call them out in their presentation. This makes the attendees feel seen and heard and makes it feel extra engaging.
    • If it is simulive, your speakers should be jumping in directly to the chat. This gives them a chance to connect with their audience in a way that may not even be available during in-person sessions.
  • Keep things human and personable – use @ mentions when responding directly or asking another person a question. Encourage emojis to be used to react to chats, whether it is to emphasize a great point, show that it made you laugh, or a smile or heart to show you enjoyed the message. Anything can be used here – it is all about the openness amongst the attendees and with the speakers, as well.

• Polling:
  • Asking polling questions is a way to allow attendees to connect to each other and learn more. Whether it is a personal question, a question about their organization & events, or their thoughts on the future state of the industry, it gives each individual attendee the chance to voice their opinion, and then see how it relates to others in attendance.

• Q&A:
  • In-person events offer a lot of space for attendees to speak directly with presenters, whether that be hallway chats, in-person appointments, evening networking events, and more. Since that is not as readily available in a virtual setting, offering a space for Q&A is crucial to attendee satisfaction and engagement. This can be done through written responses in the Attendee Hub or live during the session with the speaker. 

• Networking:
  • We have learned in the past year and a half that virtual networking can be done many different ways. It is up to you as the event planner, or community manager, to understand your audience and organize networking activities that will fulfill their needs. Using the Attendee Hub offers many different capabilities, whether that is breakout sessions via collaborative sessions, 1:1 appointments, virtual booth meetings with exhibitors, Community features such as the Attendee List, and more. We have seen many creative solutions from the industry.

• Gamification:
  • Gamification brings engagement and fun to your virtual event, while bringing attendees together to foster the sense of community. Using the Game in the Attendee Hub is a great way to incentive attendees to take various actions throughout the event. 

If you watched the Product Roadmap session at Cvent CONNECT last week, you heard about some additional features coming to Attendee Hub that will take your community experience to the next level: Discussions and Speed Networking. Stay tuned to Product News here in the Community to hear more about these releases.

Questions for You:

• What other ways do you bring a sense of community to your virtual or hybrid events?

Let us know below! #CventTip