Gamification on Virtual Event Platform: A Guide for Event Planners

Why is it important to Gamify a Virtual Event?

Gamification had always been one of the fastest growing trends in the events industry. For years, planners and organizers discovered numerous ways to engage attendees, entice sponsors and generate ROI through gamification at events.

With the shift to virtual, event gamification has become even more popular. 

It is bringing spectacular engagement opportunities for remote attendees in the virtual environment. But a small gap from the planner's end could be understanding the utility of gamification in the virtual ecosystem.

If you are an event planner scratching your head as to why virtual event gamification is important for you, here are a few things you need to understand first.

• Gamification works on the principle of rewards and reinforcement, the desire to compete and win.
• With the sense of fulfilment and positive rewards, your attendees will seek the behaviours you want them to show.
• With physical events, attendees get an abundance of opportunities to network with fellow attendees. To maximize networking at virtual events, planners need to get super creative with their gamification plan.
• Gamification can be the most authentic way to lead audiences towards interacting with each other and exhibitors as well. 
• It also reminds them that they are not attending a webinar on their screens just by themselves, rather they are attending a virtual event with other people from across regions who share similar interests.
• Participation and engagement is the heart of gamification. But what is gamification even without rewards and incentives? The spirit of gamifying your event may get you carried away but your focus must be on planning startling sponsorship deals.

Benefits

• Sponsorship opportunities:  Virtual event gamification gives sponsors a great chance to exhibit their logos and branding on the contests or competition. They can also sponsor prizes and gifts to maximize their branding opportunities
• Brand recognition: Most of the time sponsors participate in interesting gamification activities to get the attendees subconsciously chanting their brand name by the end of the event. Gamification on virtual allows immense opportunity for sponsors to get brand recognition.
• Data collection: Collecting data of leads, attendee behaviours & understanding how the attendees move through the virtual event space is one of the added benefits of virtual event gamification. The data collected through various means can help planners with understanding what attendees require and plan future virtual events accordingly.

Gamification then and now: How can Event Planners cope with the change?

The Gamification experience of a physical experience is irreplaceable. Unceasing voices of competitive attendees chatting, huge leaderboards, team activities and the adrenaline rush of the entire experience; from announcing the contest to declaring the winners is unbeatable.

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Nevertheless with the changing ecosystem of events industry one has to succumb to the shifting circumstances. Here is how event planners can cope with changes in gamification patterns for Virtual Events

• Embracing the change

Moving from in person to virtual and hybrid events, planners must understand that the feel and experience of in person events cannot be replicated. Rather virtual events offer great opportunities of their own.

With virtual events, as many remote attendees can join the events without having to worry about the travel and logistics expenses. Virtual events in fact allow remote attendees to make the most of social media promotion, which in turn can bring more traction to your event.

• Defining the virtual event

A game or contest should be relevant to your virtual event. Create a contest that organically fits into the design of your virtual event. The next step should definitely be defining the target audience followed by the audience size and setting up the gaming agenda.

• Gamification without rules = chaos

Set up the gamification and define rules. Without streamlining and defining rules, it will be a hefty task to manage scoreboards and reap results from your event gamification. Convey the parameters of your game/contest clearly with a set of rules to the attendees via live chat, event wall.

You can also send a pre- event mailer with the instructions plus the prizes or rewards the attendees can get. Any form of audio-visual or written module that allows attendees to understand the motives of gamification on virtual event platforms can reap desired results.

•  Gamifying social media promotion!

Setting incentives and rewards for attendees to promote your virtual event on social platforms is never a bad idea!  You can be at your creative max.

Your gamification can be inclusive of contests where you can ask attendees to post pictures of your event, tag a friend,  like your event page and win prizes. Set-up a branded hashtag for attendees to use for everything they post pertaining to your virtual event.

Gamifying Virtual Events with Hubilo

Being one of the first players in the virtual ecosystem, Hubilo virtual event platform ensures to add zing to virtual events and exemplify the gamification experience. Here is how you can utilize real-time gamification features and create an unforgettable virtual event experience with Hubilo.

• Contests

With a designated wall dedicated to contests, you can run as many contests as you desire. The best part is there is no limitation or time-bound to it. You can run a pre-event contest and a post-event contest as well.

With live quizzes, polls, selfies, photo and video contests during the event, you can ensure maximum attendee participation and engagement. For instance, you can host a creative caption contest where you can ask attendees to write the most interesting and quirky captions for the pictures provided to them. The most creative caption bags the first prize which can be an online gift coupon/voucher from sponsors.

Similarly, rewards can be announced for runner-up and special mentions. The best part is attendees can access these photographs and captions and engage with other attendees by liking and commenting on their photographs on the contest wall 

•  Branded contests

Exhibitors and sponsors can make the best out of branding opportunities from branded contests. Incentives and rewards with the branding and logos of sponsors can create a lasting impact on the attendees ultimately increasing the recall value of the brand.

•  Customize leader board

The exclusive custom leader-board options for organizers, planners, exhibitors and sponsors is one of the most advantageous features on the virtual event platform.

Organizations and brands can set up their own contests and competitions independently and take the total ownership of the contest and rewards.

•  Assign points to different activities

Another inclusive facet that comes along with a custom leaderboard is that of assigning points to various activities based on your choice. You can make the experience exciting by adding points to various attendee activities like – viewing the profile of a fellow attendee, viewing exhibitor’s profile, attending a roundtable session, attending various sessions based on the agenda, posting on the event social wall etc.

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The accumulation of the points on attendees’ profile can get them a place on the leaderboard on the event reception wall by ultimately encouraging attendees to be more active during the event.

• Reward attendee activities

Based on the attendees’ activities during the event and their leaderboard scores, you can also set up various rewards and prizes for attendees based on your choice

• Gamification ROI

With the Hubilo virtual event platform, planners can easily measure the gamification ROI. Along with access to custom the leader board, planners can also quantify the analytics from the dashboard. 

Easy CRM integration to CRM like Hubspot, zapier, salesforce and freshsales, planners can also add reports and calculate the lead count from event gamification is another added benefit

Final note -

Virtual events surely provide a different experience from that of in person events; having said that virtual events don’t have to be necessarily dreary!Virtual event gamification undeniably adds zest to the event and keeps its spirit alive and should not be taken trivially. 

Having learnt everything about virtual event gamification from stem to stern, wouldn’t you want to gamify your upcoming virtual event?

Get the best of gamification for your virtual event with Hubilo.  Book a demo!