Engaging Your Audience: 4 Ideas for Interactive Virtual Events

One of the biggest challenges virtual event and webinar organizers face? Audience engagement. For your attendees, the lure of attending an event from the comfort of their couch is undeniable. But how do you grab their attention and hold it through your entire event? We've got you covered with these four proven strategies that keep them glued to their screens!

Why is Engagement So Important?

Great question! We know the answer:

Because your event's success hinges on it.

Hey, we get it. Webinars and virtual events started to get a little stale as pandemic lockdowns wore on and digital fatigue set it in. Organizers found ways to innovate and stand out. Your software tools are just one piece of the puzzle; the absence of in-person interaction and the potential for distraction means you have to strategize, get creative, and turn your focus to delivering engaging virtual events.

At EventBuilder, we've specialized in providing businesses of all sizes with the tools and services they need to host compelling virtual events and webinars for more than two decades, so we also saw from the organizer's perspective the struggle with how to make virtual events more interactive, and how that challenge still applies today. Given the tight competition for attendee eyeballs, we've experienced firsthand some powerful reasons thoughtful engagement strategies fuel your event's success, including: 

• Increased Knowledge Retention - Interaction boosts focus and information retention compared to passive listening. When they remember your content, they remember your event and your brand. 
• Enhanced Brand Image - A really captivating event makes you look good and stand out, generating positive buzz around your brand, attracting leads, and fostering loyalty.
• Better Networking - Virtual event activities that encompass interactive elements give your attendees opportunities to make connections and build relationships with each other - a piece of virtual events that have historically been tough to master. 
• Measurable Impact - Ah, the power of data. Engagement metrics give you the info you need to track how effective your event was and what you can do to tailor future experiences. 

You want your attendees to be active participants! By prioritizing interactivity, you're maximizing the value they get from your event. Interaction = attendee value = success.

4 Interactive Virtual Event Ideas to Spark Engagement

Now that we've covered the benefits, let's dive into the good stuff: actionable ideas to bring your virtual events to life.

• Interactive Polling Throughout the Event - Ask your attendees thought-provoking questions and display the results on screen in real-time. This is a double win engagement strategy: you're keeping them actively involved and gathering data for insights on how to shape future event programming.

• Live Q&A Sessions With Speakers - Set aside time for live Q&A after presentations. Offer your attendees clear instructions to keep the exchange running smoothly and encourage participation. You may also consider pre-collecting questions to help maintain flow. 
• Audience Sentiment and Reaction Tools - Give attendees the power to offer immediate feedback with reaction tools, such as 'thumbs up' / 'thumbs down,' giving you the chance to gauge their reception of the content/presentation in the moment.    
• Audience Response Systems: With Teams app integrations, you can leverage audience response systems (ARS) such as Microsoft's Incentives Power App template, giving you real-time feedback and facilitating gamification elements (more on that later!). 

Pro tip: Encourage discussion among attendees with your platform's chat feature, and respond to comments and questions in a timely manner. Don't leave them hanging!

Breakouts and Networking Sessions For Audience Interaction

Virtual breakout sessions can offer a more intimate setting for focused discussions and networking. Some ideas to shine in this arena include:

• Topic-Specific Breakouts - Offer breakout rooms centered on specific themes or discussion points. This gives your attendees a chance to deep dive into a subtopic they're particularly interested in, and fosters a sense of community. 

Pro-tip: Your live polling tools are a fantastic way to gauge interest in your breakout topics in real-time. Bonus: the data you collect will help you refine your breakout room strategy for the future.

• Speed Networking Events - Facilitate quick intros between attendees using breakout rooms or dedicated networking features/integrations on your chosen platform. Keep things moving and dynamic by time boxing your sessions.
• Chat Rooms and Discussion Boards - Encourage ongoing communication and engagement with chat rooms or discussion boards. This gives your attendees opportunities to connect before, during, and after presentations. It's a good idea to assign moderators and/or conversation starters in your breakout rooms to set the overall tone and keep discussions going.

Want to take a deeper dive?

Download our free resource, "The Insider's Guide to Virtual Event Audience Engagement"

Gamification Elements to Spark Friendly Competition

Add a layer of fun and motivation by introducing some gamification activities. Here's a few ideas for how to incorporate it:

• Points and Badges - Award points for polls participation, quizzes, Q&A, and offer virtual badges or recognition for top scorers. A fun little dose of competition can add some spark to an otherwise standard presentation. 
• Leaderboards - Display a leaderboard in real-time to showcase your top participants, fueling engagement and playing to your attendee's sense of competition. 
• Virtual Scavenger Hunts - Hide clues throughout the event platform leading to hidden content or prizes to encourage exploration and interaction with different elements of your virtual environment.

Pro-tip: Don't let gamification take center stage and eclipse your event's core purpose. Plan relevant activities that enhance the learning experience.

More Engagement Ideas for Virtual Events

• Pre-Recorded Content with Live Q&A - Combine pre-recorded sessions - what we call simulated live event mode - with live Q&A sessions. With this approach, your speakers are fresh and present for only the interactive segments. 
• Live Polls and Audience Response During Live Streams - Capture the energy of a live event by adding live polls, audience sentiment and response options during your live streamed events. 
• Professional Speakers and Moderators - A dynamic and fun MC that connects with your attendees can make your event exciting and encourage engagement. 
• Content Interaction - Downloadable resources such as slides, handouts, and even swag can provide opportunities for your attendees to engage with your content even post-event.

Pro-tip: Content interaction is an often underutilized measurement of engagement! Collect data on what content your attendees interact with the most and gather insights into what types give you the most bang for your event investment buck.

Event Engagement Design By EventBuilder

Our EventBuilder event pros are ready to partner with you to design your events from concept to delivery and beyond - including best practices for virtual event engagement and how to make them more interactive for your event success. Book a strategy session today and let's get started!