Hey, look here! Over here! We have a great session coming up next, don't leave midway!

Sounds relatable? Like you, 49% of marketers say they cannot hook and engage their audience to host a successful event. Even Markletic considers audience engagement the most significant challenge regarding virtual events, with interaction a close second. 

You can run great marketing campaigns and drive skyrocketing registrants, but it's no good if your event lacks the engagement factor. The best part is the answer is right there: your real-time engagement data!

Let's dig deep into what the heck it is and why you need it. 

What is engagement data, and how does it help you?

Engagement data gives you information about your audience's engagement at your virtual event. While some event techs like Hubilo offer deep data analytics integrated, other brands rely heavily on surveys and polls before and after the event. 

This data gives insights into your audiences’ minds and what works best for them. Let's understand this better with an example. 

Brand XYZ is hosting an event that invites content marketers to uplevel their game with video marketing, led by an industry expert as a speaker. There are outstanding registrations, and 60% of them attend your event. You had many ideas about their pain points, and your expert beautifully delivered that value. The fact that most of these attendees chatted about the insights shared by speakers and stayed attentive throughout the session proves that your event was a success. 

On the contrary, if none of your attendees engage with the content or most of them leave within a few minutes, it's an indication for you to level up your event experience. 

This is how engagement data helps you improve the overall experience for future virtual events. By understanding what topics or activities were most engaging for participants, you can tailor future content to meet their needs better. You can also use this data can help identify areas where participants lost interest so that you can make changes accordingly.

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Strategies to analyze, collect and use engagement data to boost engagement

You can use various techniques to analyze and collect engagement data during your virtual event. Here are a few of the most effective:

• Use polls and surveys to collect feedback from your audience during and after the event. EventMB study indicates that 70% of virtual event attendees are willing to complete post-event surveys to provide feedback. This is a great way to get specific and actionable data about what people liked and didn't like about your event and what you can do to improve things for next time.
• Use social media monitoring tools to track mentions, hashtags, and other social media activity related to your event. This will give you a good overview of how people engage with your social media content and what kind of reach your event is getting. Make sure to track the content and highlight the posts that ignite discussion.c
• Use participant tracking tools to monitor who attends your event, how long they stay, and what pages they visit most often. This data can help you identify which parts of your event resonate most with participants and adjust accordingly.
• Remember to ask participants for their feedback directly! You can do this through post-event surveys or by simply reaching out via email or social media after the fact. People's direct feedback can be invaluable in helping you improve your virtual events going forward.
• Use Google Analytics to track user engagement on your event website or landing page. This will give you valuable insights into how people interact with your event content and where they drop off.
• Last, dig into your event tech to know who would engage with the event most. See which discussion sparked attendees to get clicking to react. Analyze who the registrants were and how many came back or checked the on-demand video of your event. You can use analytics to monitor Q&A sessions and ensure audience members get the necessary information. Using real-time analytics, event organizers can ensure their virtual event succeeds. By tracking which sessions are most popular, identifying which topics are most engaging, and monitoring Q&A sessions, organizers can make sure that their audience is engaged and getting the most out of their experience.

What are best practices for leveraging engagement data in virtual events?

When hosting a successful virtual event, leveraging engagement data is critical to maximizing audience engagement. Here are some best practices for doing just that

• Use engagement data to inform your event planning. Before your event even begins, look at past engagement data to understand what has worked well and what hasn't. This will help you plan your event in a way that is more likely to engage your audience.
• Keep track of engagement data during your event. There's no use in looking at engagement data after your event is over – by then, it's too late to make changes. Instead, track engagement data throughout the event so you can make changes on the fly if necessary.
• Use engagement data to evaluate your event's success. Once your event is over, look at the engagement data again to see how successful it was. This will help you fine-tune your virtual events going forward and ensure they are as engaging as possible.
• Use your event tech to its full potential and garner all the possible insights. 
• Look at both quantitative and qualitative data when evaluating engagement levels. This will give you a more well-rounded picture of how attendees are engaging with your event.

How to use engagement data to maximize audience engagement

There are a number of ways to use engagement data to optimize audience engagement during a virtual event.

• Use real-time data to adjust your content: When you're presenting virtually, you can't always gauge the audience's reaction like you would if you were face-to-face. But that doesn't mean you're entirely in the dark - most virtual platforms have analytics that lets you see how people engage with your content. You can quickly adjust your presentation accordingly if you notice people dropping off or not responding to specific topics.
• Use chat features: During a virtual event, there will typically be a chat function where attendees can type questions or comments. This is a great way to get feedback from the audience in real time and ensure that they're engaged with the material. Encourage your attendees to use the chat feature, and be sure to answer any questions promptly.
• Create interactive content: One of the best ways to keep people engaged during a virtual event is to create interactive content. This could include polls and quizzes, live demonstrations, and hands-on activities. The more interactive your content is, the more likely people will stick around and participate.

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• Take advantage of social media: Social media is a great way to promote interaction and engagement before, during, and after a virtual event. 
• Engage across all the touchpoints: Use a pre-event poll or survey to have an engaged audience from the start. This will give you an idea of what your attendees are interested in and what they expect from the event.
• Encourage networking and interaction among attendees: By providing platforms for them to connect before, during, and after the event, you also create a self-sufficient marketing community for yourself.
• Improve event experience: Use post-event surveys to get feedback from your attendees on what they thought of the event and what could be improved for future events.

Conclusion

Event success is primarily associated with audience engagement; data is your shortcut to ensure the same. At Hubilo, we help you make the most of this event data and take your audience engagement to the next level. Marketers across the globe are benefitting from our innate data intelligence to plan, measure, and get relevant insights to develop winning strategies for better event experiences. 

Our easy-to-use tech platform is customizable to your brand requirements and offers extensive event experiences combined with data analytics:

• Customized dashboards
• Pre-event analytics
• During event analytics
• Post-event analytics
• Per-attendee analytics
• Multi-event analytics
• Sponsor analytics dashboard

Want to know more? Book a demo now and start your journey to an epic event experience.