Best ways to calculate audience engagement at live events

What sets apart a good event from a great event? What is that one major factor that plays a vital role in rating the success of your event? In one of the previous blogs, we spoke about ways through which you can increase footfalls at any event. However, the majority of your event’s success depends upon the engagements your attendees are a part of.
Here’s looking at a few fail-safe ways to calculate audience engagement at your live event.

1. Brand popularity:
Goodwill, irrespective of an exact count, can truly create wonders for any brand. It helps a brand gain an upper hand over competitors through its designated fanbase. Make this work to your advantage; use data analytic tools like Google Analytics to calculate the traffic and action generated at your website. Create content related to the event through blog posts that will give you an exact idea about the topics that gathered maximum traction. Another way is to post your website links by associating with different websites. The more backlinks you have pointing to your website, the more popularity your brand will gain.

2. Social media actions:
Literally, any social event, be it any scale has a social media presence in today’s scenario. From sharing posts to uploading live videos to creating snap stories, social media engagement talks a lot about audience interest at the location. Tracking engagement requires 3 simple steps.

a. The perfect hashtag – Give your event a perfect, easy to remember hashtag and encourage your target audience to use it in every post they put.

b. One communication for all – Social media handles in recent years have become one of the most reliable sources to gain and share knowledge for any event. With that said, keep your social media handle easy to access and promote it on almost every form or mode of communication.

c. Instagram it – Instagram unquestionably is one of most preferred platforms for sharing event experiences. Plan your event in way that incites an urge in your attendees to share their experiences through various posts. Photo ops that resemble social media handles will clearly give them a clear indication about the channels to share their exciting moments.

3. Involve your audience:
Like we said before, a good event becomes a great event when your audience feels engaged. One of the strongest ways to do so is by involving them in the process of your event. Have live polling, catchbox sessions (throwable mic where the person to whom the box is thrown catches it and uses it as a mic) or even gaming breaks (could be ice-breakers as well) at your event. The fact is the more you make it experiential for them, the more they feel connected and wish to come again in the future.

4. Attendee feedback:
Every event that enjoys a huge amount of success also has its share of minor loopholes or areas of improvement. And the best people to learn about the drawbacks are the ones who attended it, isn’t it? Though in the era of digital medium, a survey always works wonders in getting the most honest feedback. Have a mix of open- and close-ended questions and make sure to use language as per the nature of the event.

Gather all you got…
Once you have everything on your plate, it’s time to organize all the information and use it to the max. The more uniformed you stay in following these four-pointers, the easier it becomes to derive an accurate outcome. Moreover, such information also broadens your learning curve and helps in creating more immersive experience for your attendees and at your future events.