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20 Ways To Drive Virtual Trade Show Exhibitor Success

White businesswoman taking notes during a virtual exhibit hall session

When planning a virtual industry event, the attendee experience will naturally be top-of-mind throughout your planning. But there is another critical audience to consider: your exhibitors. 

A worrying 73% of trade show exhibitors ranked virtual events as somewhat to extremely ineffective for them. Yikes! If you fail to meet exhibitor needs, you run the risk that those exhibitors will no longer partner with you for your events. Or even worse, they may go rogue and create their own events, undermining or competing with yours, as some event professionals warn. 

To get ahead of potential exhibitor dissatisfaction, industry trade show organizers need to significantly reinvent how they approach their exhibitor relationships to drive results in the world of virtual and hybrid events. 

Here is how you can create a successful partnership with your exhibitors to meet their goals while also satisfying your event attendees and partners.

What Do Exhibitors Gain From Participating in Virtual Events?

To tailor your virtual event experience to benefit exhibitors, your event planning committee needs to understand—and be able to express—what exhibitors can gain from participating in virtual events. Some of the benefits include:

  • Reaching new audiences without travel costs, boosting brand awareness
  • Opportunities to distribute product information to a new audience
  • Lead generation with a seamless handoff to digital marketing nurture streams
  • Social media engagement opportunities with event attendees
  • Potential ongoing partnership opportunities with event organizers

Virtual trade show exhibitors typically measure their success on new qualified leads, but other KPIs can be important to them, too. Total booth visitors, the number of one-on-one appointments held, access to product trials, and new social media followers can all signal a successful trade show exhibition experience.

To maximize your exhibitor’s potential to reach and engage your event attendees, your team needs to use an event platform that allows you to create public and private spaces that elevate your event partners. Most exhibitors can replicate the value of their in-person exhibitions online, but it may take a little extra effort on your organization’s part.

20 Ways To Delight Virtual Trade Show Exhibitors

Virtual event attendees need to explore and connect with your event exhibitors freely. But you cannot expect attendees to naturally flock to your virtual exhibition hall the same way they would at an in-person event.

Instead, after you’ve covered the essential ways to encourage engagement from virtual trade show attendees, explore each of these ideas to maximize the virtual trade show exhibitor experience:

Before your event:

  1. Connect with exhibitors through a survey and individual conversations to understand what they hope to gain from the event experience.
  2. Involve exhibitors and sponsors in planning some of your event activities, such as after-hours events or sponsored sessions.
  3. Prime attendees for ways they can engage with event exhibitors in all pre-event communications.
  4. Encourage attendees to pre-submit questions for exhibitor-led sessions. 

During your event:

  1. Arrange virtual and in-person scavenger hunts that encourage attendees to visit sponsor booths and do more than grab some swag and run. Ask attendees to snap photos or take screenshots of various spaces across your exhibition hall or follow clues that lead them from booth to booth. Small prizes like $5-$10 gift cards or vendor giveaways can incentivize attendees to participate.
  2. Create custom-made graphics that spotlight your exhibitors and vendors. Amplify these posts using your event hashtag and by tagging/@ mentioning the event partner.
  3. Conduct trade show raffles and giveaways featuring exhibitor products and swag.
  4. Interview exhibitors in live stream conversations to preview what attendees can gain by visiting their booth.
  5. Highlight trade show exhibitors and sponsors throughout your event platform, and on social media. For starters, this can include your event registration page, on your event interface, through sponsored sessions, and in the virtual exhibition hall.
  6. Build a virtual exhibition hall that enables attendees to browse trade show booths and later engage with those companies if interested.
  7. Provide an online green room where your attendees can have exclusive access to exhibitors and session presenters for Q&A and live demos.
  8. Allow attendees to make appointments with exhibitors ahead of time, in addition to general drop-in hours. 
  9. Send pop-up announcements in your event platform to encourage attendees to connect with exhibitors. 
  10. Build an interactive virtual Exhibition Hall directory where attendees can quickly browse and filter exhibitors based on their products and services.
  11. Provide a clear overview of each exhibitor, including what their company does and what value they can provide to attendees.
  12. Include a calendar integration so sessions and vendor meetings automatically become a calendar invite for attendees.
  13. Include dedicated exhibit hall time in your event schedule

After your event:

  1. Send a post-event survey to event exhibitors and partners to understand their experience at the event, including if they met their goals and feedback to help you better tailor future events to meet your exhibitor needs.
  2. Offer ongoing partnership opportunities with your event exhibitors to expand on topics they explored at your event. This can include webinars, live Q&A on social media channels, guest content opportunities, and more.
  3. Promote event session replays and exhibitor downloads across your communications channels to maximize the number of attendees that engage with your exhibitors.

Naturally, if you do these 20 things, your exhibitors will feel valued, engaged, and confident that you’ve done your best to create exhibitor engagement at your virtual trade show.

How to Survey Exhibitors to Refine and Measure Your Event ROI

The ideas above will help your virtual trade show exhibitors have a successful virtual event experience, meaning they are more likely to keep partnering with you and your community. But event planners need to be proactive in getting ahead of exhibitor needs throughout every step of the event planning process—and that includes well before and after your event ends.

The most effective way to please virtual trade show exhibitors is to survey them before your event to gauge their needs and afterward to see if you met those needs. These surveys should explore everything about how you can provide value to your event exhibitors and help them meet their goals. Common topics for event exhibitor surveys include why they chose to exhibit at your event, how they plan to measure their success, how they intend to engage your attendees, whether they are interested in partnering on social activities for your event, and more.

There are many options for hosting an event exhibitor survey, and many survey tools are completely free to use. A few survey platforms you can consider are:

To help you get started, we’ve created two free virtual trade show exhibitor satisfaction surveys in Google Forms. Download and copy our pre-event exhibitor survey and our post-event exhibitor survey to fast-track your process. 

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virtual events

How to Throw a Virtual Holiday Party Your Employees Will Love

White woman in a winter swaeter with holiday decorations behind her participating in a virtual holiday party

What will company holiday parties look like in the post-COVID era? 

Despite an initial revival of in-person events this year, many companies still won’t host in-person holiday celebrations in an effort to protect the health of their teams. Instead, more brands will host virtual holiday parties this year, in which the usual festivities like a gift exchange, holiday games, and company messages are coordinated through an online event platform—and we expect to see some incredibly inventive celebrations.

To help you adapt your company holiday party for an online environment, let’s explore how to host a virtual holiday party that your team will actually want to join. 

How to Plan a Virtual Workplace Holiday Party in Seven Steps

We recommend you start planning your virtual holiday party at least three weeks out from your potential party date. If you have less time than that, though, don’t worry—these seven steps will fast-track your ability to plan an engaging online holiday party for your team.

Step 1: Designate a Lead

Just like any other event planning process for your team, you should designate one person to oversee the holiday party planning process. In most cases, this will be a member of your human resources or executive support teams.

This event planning lead will help manage deadlines, pull in team support as needed, and partner with various departments to gain the necessary approvals and resources (like a budget). 

If you are designated the lead for your holiday party planning—don’t worry, it’s easier than you might think, and you don’t have to do everything yourself. This leads us to our next step…

Step 2: Form a Holiday Party Planning Committee

Depending on the size of your company, the holiday planning lead should create a committee with at least one or two other team members. Again, these team members will most likely be from human resources or administrative support teams, because they typically have experience with workplace event planning.

However, encourage any member of your team to join the committee if they would like to. The holiday season may be the favorite time of year for some of your colleagues, and they can infuse a natural excitement and sense of delight into your planning.

Step 3: Survey Your Team’s Holiday Party Wishes

Do you want to know the not-so-secret way to ensure you host a great workplace holiday party? Use feedback from your team members to guide your planning.

The worst way to throw a holiday party is to force everyone to attend at an assigned day and time that they had no influence in choosing, especially if it is after normal business hours. 

Create a quick survey for your team through Google Forms or your preferred surveying tool. At a minimum, cover these essential areas:

  • Would you like to attend a company holiday party? Or would you prefer time off, a holiday bonus, or a charitable gift in your name instead?
  • What are your ideal days of the week and times for a holiday party?
  • What days or times can you not attend a holiday party?
  • Are you interested in a voluntary company-wide gift exchange or similar activity?
  • What would you like to do at the virtual holiday party? Select your top 3 preferences:
    • Open conversation with colleagues in a large group setting
    • Open conversation with colleagues in small-groups
    • Structured, longer group activities 
    • Short, high-energy activities that take just a few minutes each
    • Gift exchange
    • Hands-on cooking or crafting class
    • Other (please explain):
  • Is there anything else we should know to make this event great for you? 

In addition to your survey results, have 1:1 conversations with team members to further explore their hopes for the holiday party. All of this information will help you understand how many team members will attend, gather ideas for the best virtual holiday party activities to host, and the technical requirements to accomplish them.

Step 4: Pick a Virtual Holiday Party Platform

The technology you choose to host your virtual holiday party can easily make or break the experience. Keep your attendee wishes top-of-mind as you explore options, and find a solution that enables your attendees to meaningfully connect and mingle. 

You will ask many questions similar to what you’d ask when picking an ideal virtual conference platform, including:

  • What type of customization is available?
  • How many attendees can this platform support?
  • Does the price scale with attendance?
  • Are there custom breakout rooms for attendees to network? Is there a limit to the number of these rooms?
  • Are there built-in networking components?

Step 5 (Optional): Designate a Theme

If desired, you can now pick a theme for your holiday party to influence the activities you host (we’ll dive into that next), what your team will wear, and how you design your invitations.

A theme is a “nice-to-have” element that is completely optional. If this is your first year hosting a virtual holiday party, it may be best to skip the theme and focus solely on meeting the needs of your attendees (unless a theme is a must-have for them). 

If you’re looking for inspiration on what theme to pick for a holiday workplace party, this article has a handful of themes and activities you can explore.

Step 6: Build an Agenda of Activities

This is where the real fun happens! Now that you have everyone’s feedback in-hand, and know what functionality is available to you, your holiday party planning committee can determine your holiday party’s activities.

Save the first 10 minutes of your holiday party for everyone to log-in and get familiarized with the platform. Then, kick off your celebration with a brief welcome from a member of your company leadership or your holiday party planning committee.

Depending on how long your party is and what your team has expressed in your pre-event conversations, you should offer a combination of open networking rooms and structured activities to appeal to the range of your team’s needs.

To help you, we’ve created a list of 10 workplace virtual holiday party games that work great online, with details on how to approach each of them. 

Step 7: Invite team members

You’re almost there! The last step to planning a holiday party is to get the word out to your team.

Ideally, you should send emails to each employee to personally invite them to the holiday party. Include the date, time, and log-in instructions, as well as any details about the series of events and how they should prepare. Send a calendar invitation to all team members once the email invitations are sent. 

Ask everyone to RSVP as soon as they know whether or not they can attend. Follow up with anyone you have not heard back two days after sending your initial email and invitations. 

Throw Your Best Holiday Party Ever on Frameable Events

By using feedback from your teammates to build your virtual holiday party experience, you are more likely to host an event that your team will genuinely love.

If this is your first time hosting a virtual holiday party, do not stress about making the experience perfect. Instead, focus on opportunities to celebrate your team and enable them to connect with one another in the capacity of their choosing.

We’ve built Frameable Events to support holiday parties for teams of any size, with fully customizable spaces that give your employees the flexibility and freedom they deserve at your party. Learn more about what makes Frameable Events the ideal platform for virtual workplace holiday parties and try it out for free today.

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virtual trade show

16 KPIs To Measure Your Online Trade Show or Association Conference Success

Businesswoman in hijab interacting at an online conference from her laptop

As industry membership associations and trade show organizers find ways to address lost revenues from the postponement of in-person events, many are turning to virtual experiences. Some are doing so with success, but others aren’t quite sure of their results.

87% of industry trade organizations that have hosted virtual events said they were successful. However, the definition of success is unclear, as 39% did not set an official goal. Without setting clear goals for virtual or hybrid conferences and gatherings, associations cannot understand whether their approach is providing value for their members and partners. 

To help understand whether your next virtual conference is a success, let’s review the top key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure the attendee and exhibitor experience during an industry trade show or membership association conference.

Example Goals for An Industry Association Online Trade Show

An industry association trade show involves two very unique audiences, each with different goals: your attendees and your exhibitors. Here are suggested KPIs for each audience, plus a few general event KPIs that can measure your event’s overall impact.

Attendee Satisfaction Goals for Trade Shows

Your association members or trade show attendees should be the primary focus of your event experience. How can you provide value to your attendees, connect them with the best resources to help them succeed, and foster long-term growth for them within your community?

Naturally, your team should focus on building an exceptional event agenda that directly addresses the needs of your membership. But to measure if your event was a success, we recommend focusing on these markers of the attendee experience:

  • Attendee satisfaction. Conduct a post-event survey to understand your attendee satisfaction and, most importantly, whether they feel the event met their needs as an association member. Use these survey findings to develop an engagement plan to delight your association members after your event is over.
  • Connections made. If your virtual event platform allows it, assess how many messages attendees exchanged with each other during the event.
  • Conference material downloads. How many attendees downloaded assets from your conference platform? Examine download data before, during, and after your event to understand how long attendees engage with the event content. 
  • Educational credits awarded. Assess the success of your event training and certification programs by measuring the total number of educational credits awarded. You can further explore this metric by reviewing the number of attendees who received educational credits and the average educational credits awarded.
  • Net Promoter Score (NPS). How many attendees would recommend the event to a colleague? Add a question to your post-event attendee survey to understand your event NPS. 
  • Next-year registrants. Host a flash sale for next year’s event tickets at this year’s price during your event. Monitor how successful this sale is to gauge whether your event experience generates immediate excitement for next year.  
  • Total attendees. How many people attended your event, in-person and online, and how does this compare to your year-over-year figures?

Exhibitor Satisfaction KPIs for Industry Events

Event exhibitors and sponsors are a vital part of industry trade show experiences. If you fail to meet their needs, they may quit supporting your event—which could be a major miss for your attendees.

Stay ahead of any potential exhibitor or sponsor dissatisfaction by tracking these KPIs:

  • Number of sponsors/exhibitors. Is your team growing its network of exhibitors and sponsors? Or has this number declined year-over-year?
  • Number of visitors to each booth. Regardless of whether the number of event sponsors grows, you need to ensure your attendees engage with these sponsors and exhibitors. What is the average number of booth visits? What does this data show about the type of exhibitors you should approach for your next event? 
  • Number of downloads of vendor collateral. Exhibitors and sponsors need to understand the quality of interactions they had with visitors. So check how many times attendees downloaded collateral from vendors, such as information sheets, product guides, or ebooks. 
  • Number of attendee meetings scheduled. How many attendees scheduled meetings with exhibitors?
  • Number of qualified leads. What is the average number of qualified leads that your vendors gained by attending your event? 

General KPIs To Determine Virtual Event Success

Beyond your attendees and exhibitors, your team should measure additional KPIs that showcase your more significant event impact. For example, was the event well-received by the media? Did you spark conversations on social media? Are you continuing to find new, diverse speakers?

At a minimum, we recommend tracking these trade show KPIs to assess your event success:

  • Diversity of speakers or exhibitors. Ideally, your industry trade show community should reach new people and companies each year. As you build your event schedule and series of activities for your conference, assess how many speaker or exhibitor submissions you receive from individuals or companies that have previously expressed an interest in partnering with you on your event.
  • Social shares/chatter. Monitor social media for posts about your event, and track the number of times that attendees used your event hashtag on social media. Ensure you have team members ready to support your event on social media, including answering attendee questions, encouraging user-generated content, and engaging with attendees.
  • Press attendees. Did any members of the media attend your event?
  • Post-event blog posts and press coverage. What content did people create about your event? 

Choose a Virtual Event Platform with Built-In Reporting Capabilities

Each of the above sets of KPIs is simply a starting point to help your team refine its virtual or hybrid event strategy. We recommend you connect with individual event attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors to discuss their feelings about your event and ways to improve their next experience. 

In addition to these one-on-one conversations, you will find that your event platform will either greatly help—or significantly hinder—your ability to uncover the KPIs you need.

We built Frameable Events to make it easier to track event metrics like total attendees, maximum concurrent attendees per session, how many attendees interacted with each other, and more. Learn why our customers say we’re an ideal platform for virtual industry membership association or trade show events.

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virtual events

4 Ways to Engage Membership Association Conference Communities Online All Year Long

White man attending a virtual event from his home office

Given the current state of industry trade shows and membership association events, teams must find new ways to generate revenue that would otherwise come from their traditional in-person conferences. 

But it’s not all doom and gloom. The best solution to overcome this challenge could also fast-track your community’s success. Savvy event planners are doubling down on their community by providing year-round engagement opportunities online, including member networking events, educational webinars, auctions and fundraisers, and more. 

Let’s explore how your organization can offer similar online opportunities to keep your community engaged without your usual slate of in-person events. 

How To Nurture Your Industry Trade Show or Membership Association Community All Year

Your community will weaken if everyone only meets once a year. Consistent events or webinars, content offerings, and other member-exclusive benefits are essential to spark engagement (which will help nurture and grow your community all year).

Plan a membership engagement strategy with at least one significant offering each quarter, like a webinar or virtual member meetup. Consider hosting an ongoing series like a weekly Facebook Live conversation or social activities such as a monthly trivia night. 

Start small with the number and diversity of offerings. Your team should experiment with just a few options at a time and strive to offer a great experience. Then, as your community begins to engage with these offerings, your team can refine your strategy.   

Consider any of these ways to engage your trade show or association community throughout the year (and we’ll explain a few of these in greater detail next):

  • Educational webinars
  • In-depth interviews with industry experts
  • Members-only discussions on social media
  • Participation in or access to exclusive industry research
  • Professional development opportunities, like training or certifications
  • Casual get-togethers and happy hours
  • Events and activities co-hosted with association partners and event exhibitors

Provide targeted content to help members overcome challenges

Not all of your community members will attend your webinars and members-only discussions. That’s OK, as you can reach these members through other targeted means.

Repurpose all your webinars and members-only discussions into blog posts that provide an overview of the discussion, plus a transcript and full video or audio recording of the conversation. Continue to spotlight this content across your channels, including your email newsletter, social media sites, and your membership website, to maximize the likelihood that it reaches your ideal community members.

Survey members to understand their needs

Survey your association members at least quarterly to understand their current priorities and how your association can help them accomplish their goals. Keep your surveys short and focused, and include open-response answers to ensure you don’t limit your community feedback to validating your team’s assumptions. 

Supplement surveys with one-on-one member conversations that reflect the diversity of your community. 

Elevate membership partners and vendors

Your association partners and vendors want to find new ways to engage with your association, especially given many exhibitors’ mixed results with hybrid event experiences.

As you plan your membership engagement activities, consider involving your partners and vendors in the following ways:

  • Offer a technology showcase day similar to a virtual exhibition hall, spotlighting select vendors and ecosystem partners. This can involve interactive booths, live demos, or casual Q&A depending on what will be most helpful to your members.
  • Use vendor and partner swag or product demos as giveaway items or raffle prizes for members that engage in your online activities.
  • Moderate multiple partners for a relevant panel discussion on a challenging tech topic.
  • Co-create content or co-sponsor research that provides an extensive look at a topic of interest for your community (ideally lending real-world challenges and solutions as relevant).

Host webinars and members-only discussions

As you build your yearly member engagement plan, webinars and members-only discussions will likely be the easiest (and most effective) to start with.

Brainstorm a list of topics to explore in these discussions and experts that can lend a credible perspective on these topics. Bonus points if these are experts that your community actively follows (or if those experts are part of your community).  

There are a few ways to build this list of content ideas:

  • Review the most-attended sessions from your last member event. What topics did your community rave about?
  • Collect any unaddressed questions or comments from your past event sessions. Can you address these in a webinar or discussion?
  • Conduct social listening within your online communities to see what challenges they’re facing and the topics they’re most excited about.
  • Review your association’s professional development and opportunities for continuing education. How can you extend this member value online?

You can easily host conversations on many social media channels, like a Facebook Live stream or a Twitter Spaces audio chat. Be sure to prioritize the channel(s) that your community is already most active on instead of trying to bring that community to a new channel or platform to host your content offerings. 

In addition to social media networks, you can explore a range of virtual collaboration and conversation options, like Frameable Events, to support your community webinars and discussions. 

Virtual Event Tools Bring Membership Association Communities Together

Your community may take some encouragement to join your initial member events, but these opportunities will gain traction if each one has a clear purpose and value add for your members. Actively listen to your community to learn how you can best delight them with online offerings. 

As you plan your events, your team needs to provide an effortless experience for your attendees. However, most virtual event platforms provide a mediocre user experience, leaving many attendees disengaged (and unlikely to attend your next event).

We’ve built Frameable Events to support any range of activities for your tradeshow community and keep member engagement at the heart of your event. Learn more about why we’re an ideal solution for monthly happy hours, webinars, and more!

Learn how to host a virtual networking session your members will love.

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virtual trade show

3 Tips For Hosting a Successful Industry Trade Association Virtual Event

Black woman attending a virtual event from her home office

Since the onset of COVID-19, the cancellation of many longstanding trade shows and industry events like Mobile World Congress, E3, and SXSW have dominated headlines—leaving many to question what the future of these traditionally in-person events will look like.

Industry trade associations, in particular, have faced unique financial pressure when adapting their events strategy, given that 27% of these organizations’ revenues come from meetings/trade shows, surpassed only by membership dues at 45%. 

To help trade associations and similar event organizers adapt their events strategy, let’s explore the latest data on how trade association members feel about attending in-person events. We’ll also discuss three common challenges that industry organizations face when creating new virtual or hybrid event experiences. 

How Trade Associations Have Adapted Their Event Strategies

Although it’s uncertain when in-person events will regain their momentum, 70% of respondents in a study from Innovatis Group, a leading association management, and engagement company, listed two top factors for when they will be comfortable with in-person events:

  1. A significant drop in COVID cases 
  2. Widespread vaccinations 

Restrictions like social distancing and smaller group sizes will play a smaller role, according to that survey.

Understandably, in light of these sentiments, the same report found 85% of organizations will increase their investment in virtual events over the next year to address the hesitation to join in-person events. Additionally, 72% of associations plan to create new forms of non-dues revenue, including educational opportunities available in a virtual or hybrid setting. 

Three Hybrid or Online Industry Event Challenges and How to Address Them

As more industry trade organizations explore virtual event opportunities to regain lost revenues from their canceled or delayed in-person events—and provide new value for their members—many teams will face a common set of initial planning hurdles.

When planning your next virtual or hybrid industry event, ensure your team fully explores these areas:

Challenge 1: Creating value for members in a virtual setting

First and foremost, your team needs to understand how it will create value for your event attendees. What do they hope to gain from the experience, and how can you deliver sessions, content, and networking opportunities to meet these needs? 

We recommend you survey your members ahead of your virtual or hybrid event to learn what they hope to gain from the experience. Seek to understand how comfortable your members are at the prospect of in-person gatherings, what challenges they face, and what resources they need to succeed. 

As you learn what your attendees expect from your event, your team can better tailor its goals to assess whether your event was successful.

Challenge 2: Transitioning an in-person event to a virtual event

Even if you have a clear understanding of what your association members hope to gain from your event, all teams are challenged with transitioning an in-person event to a virtual setting. 

Overcome this hurdle by designing your event to be entirely virtual, and then add a complementary in-person experience (if your pre-event survey suggests your community would like an in-person component) around it. 

Planning online-first will help your team map the various connections (or disconnections) within your event experience. Ensure there is a seamless journey for your attendees, from when they first hear about your event, register, join your event, and later access its replays—all while keeping networking and cross-platform engagement opportunities front and center for everyone. 

Challenge 3: Creating value for event exhibitors and sponsors in a virtual or hybrid setting

Keeping your event exhibitors and sponsors happy is vital to ensure long-term event success. If exhibitors or sponsors fail to see the value in partnering for your event, they will likely stop supporting your activities, limiting the potential value for your attendees. 

Spotlight your exhibitors and sponsors throughout your event experience to maximize their ability to engage with your attendees. Use social media to highlight sponsored sessions, coordinate raffles and giveaways to generate excitement, and incentivize your attendees to visit the virtual exhibition hall or exhibitor showcase during your event.

As with your attendees, it’s critical to survey your event sponsors and exhibitors to understand what they hope to gain from the experience and ways you can best partner with them for the event. 

Why Your Virtual Event Platform Matters

By addressing each of those three common challenges, your team can more effectively design an event that can replicate the value of your in-person experiences—potentially surpassing your pre-pandemic success.

But there is one final challenge that can make or break your virtual industry trade show experience: poorly designed event technology.

Many event platforms were built immediately following the pandemic, attempting to cash in on the rush to virtual platforms. Or, they are legacy tools designed purely for conference calls that event planners hastily adapted for large-scale events. The result? Overpriced tools that fail to meet your attendee needs—confusing user interfaces, garbled audio, and an inability for people to actually engage. 

We’ve built Frameable Events with the features that your event attendees need, all in an incredibly easy-to-customize interface. Learn more about why Frameable Events is the ideal platform for hybrid or virtual industry trade association events. 

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virtual events

Why Attendee Surveys Are Vital For Virtual or Hybrid Event Success

Black man attending a virtual event

Virtual and hybrid event experiences have come a long way since the start of the pandemic, and we are about to hit a new stride in the evolution of online events.

Event planners can access more advanced event technology than ever before, enabling more engaging virtual and hybrid events. These new platforms create the necessary space for everyone to mix, mingle, and reap the greatest reward from the event experience. And many platforms also provide data that can help event planners continuously update their strategy event after event. 

But your in-platform event data can only tell you so much about what did or did not work with your last virtual or hybrid experience. To effectively improve your event strategy with each iteration, you need to actively gather feedback on the full range of attendee experiences before, during, and after your event.

Luckily, the secret to gaining this insight is pretty straightforward: ask your attendees directly. Let me help you get started.

How to Gauge The Virtual Event Attendee Experience

Post-event metrics like attendees per session, the average number of sessions per attendee, and the average number of conference connections are crucial to review. However, these metrics only provide a glimpse at how to improve your next event.

Put your attendees front-and-center during your event planning by actively surveying and connecting with attendees one-on-one throughout your event lifecycle:

  • Before your event, gauge how long your virtual or hybrid event experience should last, preferred topics, and ideal ways to engage throughout the experience
  • During your event, use quick one- or two-question surveys that capture your attendee feelings at key points during the conference or immediately after sessions
  • After your event, measure the satisfaction of each event component and session, and see how many attendees would return to an event from your team

Sample Event Attendee Survey Questions

You can learn more about how to use virtual event attendee surveys to improve your online or hybrid event experience—including sample event survey questions for before, during, and after your event—in my recent article on MarketingProfs. 

Tell me, what are your favorite virtual event attendee survey questions? Tweet me @AARiggs.

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virtual events

All Successful Virtual And Hybrid Events Have These Five Things in Common

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Over the past 20 months, as the COVID-19 pandemic upended many of our in-person events and celebration plans, we all found new ways to keep celebrating all of life’s special moments virtually. 

We cheered on graduates as they walked the virtual stage, raised our glasses to our favorite newlyweds as they said their “I Do’s,” and even took our careers to the next level at virtual conferences, hybrid industry events, and online trade shows.

At Frameable Events, as we partnered with people across the globe on a range of events, at a time when human connection was more necessary than ever. We gained a deep understanding of what attendees expect at a hybrid or virtual event. It may surprise you, but we’ve found it all boils down to just five elements that are essential for your event success, regardless of what type of gathering you’re hosting. 

Five Must-Have Elements for Any Type of Virtual or Hybrid Event

Event planners can transition almost any traditional event component online. In some cases, the online environment may even enhance the experience for everyone involved. 

However, many event planners are still stuck on the idea of replicating their in-person event exactly as it was—just now in an online setting. This results in one-time talks streamed from the keynote stage, leaving attendees lost in a sea of webcam streams without a way to connect meaningfully with those around them.

When planning your next event, I challenge you to focus on enabling attendee engagement throughout the entire experience as your most important element. Engagement is the single most crucial factor that determines your event’s success. 

So how can event planners guarantee engagement at their next virtual or hybrid event? We’ve found these four elements are essential to your success, and they all help drive attendee engagement, too:

  • Limit the number of participants in each session or room
  • Ensure an equitable talk-to-listen ratio to help avoid listening fatigue
  • Give attendees opportunities to take breaks
  • Track metrics and analytics that help you assess engagement disconnects at your event

Enabling Virtual or Hybrid Event Engagement

In my recent article on Trade Show News Network, you can learn more about how each of the five elements we introduced above can affect engagement at your next event. I also share my advice on how to ensure a cohesive hybrid event experience (hint: you want to focus on virtual first).

What questions do you have about virtual event engagement? Tweet me @AARiggs.

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Categories
remote work

5 Ways to Support Your Employees with A Flexible Hybrid Work Plan

Is your team ready to transition to the hybrid future of work? If you haven’t documented and shared your hybrid work plan yet, it’s not.

The latest employee and employer survey data shows that most teams will introduce a hybrid working model once COVID restrictions are lifted, with a smaller percentage of companies planning for a primarily in-person workforce.

Despite the enthusiasm of many U.S. companies to return to the office this fall, growing concerns around the COVID-19 Delta variant (and any future variants) may postpone many team’s plans, as is the case for Apple.

Although it’s not clear when most teams will be able to resume office-based work safely, now is the ideal time to explore your team’s concerns about the future of work and partner with them to develop your hybrid work plan. We share five ways to get started.

5 Steps to Draft a Hybrid Work Plan for Your Flexible Workforce

Charting your team’s return to the office may feel like an impossible task, given the ever-evolving set of challenges and considerations your teams face. But if you solicit executive and employee insights to guide your planning, your team will be more forgiving of any missteps or hurdles along the way. 

These five steps will get your team started in building its hybrid work culture, including how to address your team’s needs throughout this process.  

1. Survey Your Team

Kickstart your hybrid work planning by surveying your team members to understand their expectations for the future of work. Use a mix of qualitative and quantitative questions in your survey, and supplement these findings with one-on-one conversations to drill further into specifics.

Preface all surveys and conversations with an explanation of how your team will use the information. Reinforce that you welcome all ideas as you will need your team’s honest feedback to best structure your team’s future work policy. 

You need as complete a picture as possible of your employees’ current challenges with remote work. Your surveys and conversations should explore all of the following areas for your team members:

  • Preferences for how many days a week they work in-office, if any
  • What type of work or activities do they feel is best conducted in the office 
  • Personal circumstances that may affect their ability to work during certain business hours
  • Whether they need more or different tools or resources to complete their work
  • If the team’s current success metrics align to support a healthy and productive work culture

2. Adapt Your Physical Space for Virtual and Distanced In-Person Collaboration

A recent PwC report found that only 13% of executives are prepared to permanently let go of their company’s physical workspace. But that doesn’t mean the office should stay exactly as it was.

Use your team survey feedback to assess what activities will be most common in your physical office. For example, do team members want an open layout for easy mixing and mingling? An array of small, private meeting rooms for someone to take a quick call? Socially distanced personal workspaces?

Once you have a sense of how many team members may be in your office at any given time, create new solo work and collaboration spaces that can accommodate the average number of employees. Consider implementing a desk hoteling strategy to optimize your layout further. It’s also essential to optimize your physical office space for hybrid work, not just for those who return to the office. And don’t forget to give shared spaces the technology they need to integrate into your virtual team spaces.

3. Reset Your Workplace KPIs to Reflect New Hybrid Work Norms

The shift to remote-based work forced teams to assess how to support a healthy and productive working culture. For most teams, this meant a thorough look at the team’s workflow and collaboration tools, common communications practices, and other traditionally unquestioned aspects of the team’s work.

Now, teams should review whether their markers of success align with what actually drives business value. According to a Citrix survey, 86% of employees said they would prefer to work for a company that prioritizes outcomes over output, meaning they want to be measured by the impact they can deliver to the entire business, not just their direct work output.

In your employee surveys and conversations, ask your team if they feel the key performance indicators (KPIs) they are measured against accurately reflect the value of their work, and assess if a different KPI is more appropriate. Review your list of new proposed KPIs, and ensure that your team can accurately track each KPI, or if you’ll need to adopt a new practice or tool to do so. 

4. Support Your Hybrid Work Plan with Digital Communications Guidelines

Communications guidelines are a vital aspect of a healthy hybrid working culture that most teams often overlook. Many teams adopted new virtual collaboration tools during the pandemic, but it’s essential to take this one step further and document what team members should use each tool to accomplish.

Some team members may overuse their virtual communications channels, possibly because they are used to getting quick face-to-face feedback in an office environment. Create guidelines that discuss which channels should be used for workplace communications, do’s and don’ts for using these channels, and general guidelines that explain how your team can preserve a healthy working culture online. 

You can start building your workplace communication policy guidelines based on these samples from Cutting Edge and JotForm.

5. Over-Communicate About Your Hybrid Work Policy

It is understandable for leadership teams to wait until their hybrid work planning is underway or the hybrid work policy is close to final before communicating these plans with the team. However, this may not be the right approach for today’s environment.

A McKinsey survey found that nearly half of workers feel that a lack of clear vision about the future of work from their employer is causing them concern or anxiety. To address this, create a regular communications cadence to keep your team updated on your team’s planning, and regularly invite questions or create open space to discuss these plans.

Start with your employee surveys. After the initial fielding and analysis, share high-level findings in a team email, and host an optional meeting to further drill into the feedback. Update your team at least once a month on any progress your team has made and upcoming opportunities to learn more. Finally, host an optional meeting each month for employees to ask questions about the future of work and for the leadership team to gauge the early sentiment towards their plans.

If appropriate, your team can create a hybrid work planning committee composed of cross-department team members of various levels. This committee will partner with your executive and HR team to assist in various planning discussions and represent each department or team. 

Remember, it’s better to keep your team in the loop on your plans and invite their feedback earlier on. Otherwise, you may unveil a hybrid work policy that fails to meet your team’s needs and amplifies their feelings of stress or anxiety.

Help Your Hybrid Culture Thrive With Intuitive Collaboration Tools

Once your initial hybrid work policy is created, and you inform the team of your plans, continue reviewing and adjusting your policy as new concerns emerge. 

To further support your hybrid work future, learn how Frameable’s suite of team collaboration and social connection tools can help increase your team’s productivity and provide data that can help you get ahead of potential workplace culture issues. 

Give your team the Class-A virtual office they deserve with Frameable Spaces.

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Categories
virtual trade show

Online Virtual Trade Shows: A New Way to Network

When it comes to networking, we’re all faced with the same fundamental question: how do we best reach and connect with new people? There’s nothing wrong with getting out and meeting people in person, but what about those who don’t have the time or budget for flying across the country or trekking locally? Virtual trade shows are a cost-effective and time-efficient way to network with other business professionals.

Over the past few years, virtual trade shows have emerged as a way for businesses to reach out to new audiences without committing to expensive in-person attendance. On top of this, virtual trade shows allow you to promote your business and product without the need for physical space and supplies.

What Is An Online Virtual Trade Show?

An online trade show is a way to reach a larger market by using the internet to broadcast the event. The trade show can be in many different formats, but it’s generally a video broadcast of a show floor with an announcer describing the booths and products available. Today, there are many platforms for these shows. Platforms range from low tech options like YouTube to Facebook Live. These are inexpensive but offer very few features. To high tech options like Frameable Events which has become one of the more popular choices. Frameable Events offers a wide range of features which help a trade show be successful.

Learn more about Frameable Events trade show features.

Virtual trade shows are a new way to show off products and services to potential clients. In a virtual trade show, the attendees are not physically present but view the presentations from their computers. As a result, they can browse from anywhere without having to be at a specific location. These trade shows are also more cost-effective than traditional ones because the only cost is for hosting fees which can be less than $1,000.

Benefits Of Online Virtual Trade Shows

It is common to have a stand-alone booth for a company at a trade show to promote its product or service in many industries. However, this is not always the best idea. Many trade shows have been replaced with virtual shows, where you can display products, and staff from different companies can view each other. According to a study by AT Kearney, “Exhibitors who participate in an event’s virtual component rather than a physical one report higher levels of sales leads.

Getting the word out about your business has never been easier or more accessible to so many people than it is today. With all of the advancements in technology and the advent of the internet, companies can reach a global audience that was virtually impossible in decades past. The traditional trade show model has been an industry standard for years, but there is a new option: the online virtual trade show with technological advances.

How To Choose An Online Virtual Trade Show Platform

Many emerging companies are using virtual trade shows as a method of generating leads and increasing sales. Virtual trade show platforms such as VTS, Digital Muster, and Frameable Events allow customizable options to best suit your business needs. The event’s details, such as the times and locations, can be set up in advance on these platforms.

Considerations In Choosing An Online Virtual Trade Show Platform

A virtual trade show is a live-streamed event that is hosted online. It’s a great way to showcase event services and products to an international audience. However, with so many different platforms out there, it can be challenging to find the right one for your company. With these tips in mind, you’ll be able to find the perfect platform for your needs:

  • Do you need audio and video streaming capabilities?
  • Do you need onsite chat moderation?

International trade shows can be expensive and time-consuming. To make the process less daunting, consider the following considerations in choosing an online virtual trade show platform:

  • Security features
  • Reliability
  • Analytics
  • Scheduling ability
  • Content management
  • Social media integration

What are the costs of hosting an online virtual trade show?

The costs of hosting an online virtual trade show can vary significantly depending on the size and complexity of the event. It’s important to consider the cost of these services, and how you can save money on hosting an event by using available tools.

The internet is a great way to find new customers and boost your company’s business. However, it can also be expensive if not done correctly. Hosting an online virtual trade show might seem like the perfect solution because there are no travel costs or convention center rental fees, but expenses can still add up.

Which type of trade show do you want to organize?

If you’re looking to organize a trade show, you need to figure out the type of event you want. There are three different types: regional, national and international. Regional events are typically for businesses in the same region and provide them with the opportunity to network and collaborate with other local businesses. National events span across a greater geographical area, making it easier for potential customers to attend.

Other considerations in choosing an online trade show platform

With the emergence of online trade shows, choosing the right platform can be a daunting task. With so many options available, it is crucial to consider your current needs and your anticipated future needs when choosing which platform best fits your business. When considering current needs, you should consider how much content you need to share, whether or not you will be bringing exhibitors on to interact with attendees, and what size you would like the final presentation to be.

In addition to the three primary considerations when choosing an online trade show platform, several other factors may need to be considered. For instance, if one is looking for a solution to help boost their company’s search engine optimization, it’s essential to know whether or not the site will include a features for SEO. It might also be pertinent to consider the amount of automation desired.

Frameable Events provides a fantastic suite of tools for anyone looking to host a virtual trade show. Book a demo today to get started.

Categories
virtual events

How To Engage Hybrid Event Attendees on Social Media

Business woman sharing her conference experience on social media through her phone

Congratulations! You’ve designed a compelling hybrid event schedule that thoroughly addresses the needs of both your in-person and remote attendees. All that’s left is to put on a spectacular event, right? Well, almost—but there’s still some pre-work to do!

As your team finalizes your hybrid event sessions and activities, it’s important to focus on a critical planning element that can easily make or break the attendee experience: social media.

From the moment you first announce your event on social media, your team needs to understand how to best use social media to drive event registrations and prime your attendees to gain the most value from social media throughout the virtual conference.  

Highlight Hybrid Event Attendance Benefits For In-Person and Virtual Attendees

Your team needs to explain how all your attendees—no matter how they choose to join—will access high-value sessions and engagement opportunities that make the most of each attendance option.

Tailor your conference website and all event promotional content to address the unique benefits of each attendance type, as well as how the two groups can connect throughout the conference. We recommend that you create a dedicated FAQ page on your event site that thoroughly addresses both types of attendance. 

At a high level, here are some of the benefits of attending a hybrid event in-person or virtually to highlight in your FAQs:

Hybrid Event Attendance TypeAttendee Experience Benefits
In-PersonIn-person conference experiences are beloved, and greatly missed, by many professionals. Emphasize the potential for human connection by joining in person, but also reinforce the CDC and local or state guidelines that will be enforced, plus any other ways your team will keep attendees safe.

Certain demos or activities are better coordinated with an in-person crowd, due to the energy level and ability for instant collaboration. Highlight these unique opportunities for attendees who join in person. This prevents virtual attendees from being disappointed or demanding a refund due to missing out on a specific in-person only activity.
VirtualFlexibility is a necessity for virtual attendees. Reinforce how your event is designed to fit within your attendees’ busy schedules, including details on whether sessions are recorded and later available for replay. 

A well-built virtual conference platform can greatly improve the virtual attendee experience. Spotlight the features of your event platform, including specific features that will help your remote attendees connect with the live experience. 

Make it easy to save your must-attend sessions to the virtual attendee’s calendar software of choice. It’s incredibly frustrating for virtual attendees who are excited for a session, and arrive with a question at the ready, only to see a notice that the session was held two hours ago thanks to the agenda only reflecting the live event’s timezone.

How To Promote Your Hybrid Event on Social Media

Social media channels are an invaluable avenue to market and promote your event with ideal attendees, especially given the potential reach of most social media channels. You don’t want to limit yourself to your existing mailing list and blog readers to promote your event when people can join from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. 

Share a steady stream of event promotion content to build excitement for the experience and drive registrations up until the day of your event. By engaging with your prospective attendees on social media, you’re also establishing those channels as a place for attendees to go during your conference to connect and engage with your team and fellow attendees (we’ll discuss that more in a bit).

Here are five ways to drive hybrid event registration through social media:

  • Tag confirmed speakers and spotlight their sessions. Announce sessions on social media by tagging the speaker and previewing their session. Include a video or image of the speaker to help “stop the scroll” on social media.
  • Create speaker, exhibitor, and sponsor social media kits. Share a social media promotion kit with all event speakers, exhibitors, and sponsors. Include event images and draft social media messages for Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn (at a minimum) so your partners can easily promote your event on their social channels. Consider including a unique registration discount code tied to each speaker, wherein they receive some benefit for getting people to register with their code.
  • Provide regular updates about your event’s COVID-19 safety preparedness. Although many people are comfortable attending an in-person conference, your team needs to address potential safety concerns early and often to reassure attendees who may be hesitant about joining an in-person experience. The goal is to provide transparent updates about your onsite plans to show your prospective attendees that you’re doing everything possible to protect their health.
  • Use an event hashtag. Create a custom hashtag to accompany your event. Ideally, this hashtag can be used throughout the year to reinforce a sense of community outside the conference. Research your preferred hashtag across channels to ensure it is not already commonly used for a different purpose. 
  • Share visuals and video sizzle reels. Visual content is more likely to be seen by your community on social media. Invest in custom event images and video sizzle reels that highlight what attendees can expect, both for the in-person and virtual experience. 

6 Ways To Use Social Media to Drive Engagement During A Hybrid Event

Your most engaged attendees will likely use social media to ask questions, share their learnings from the conference, and attempt to network with other attendees during your event. It’s important to prepare your team to effectively find and engage with this content in real time.

After you address these foundational ways to highlight your hybrid event engagement opportunities, follow these best practices to spark conversations and build excitement on social media during your hybrid event.

Create Event Attendee Social Media Groups

In addition to your registration website, your attendees need a central place to go to access all the relevant details about your virtual event and connect with other attendees. We recommend you create a private social media group to grow into an event community. Encourage attendees to join this group when they first purchase their tickets, and regularly promote this group during the event. Assign a staff person to monitor the community throughout the event. 

Enlist Social Media Moderators

Depending on the size of your event and the number of priority social media channels for your community, your team needs at least two team members solely focused on addressing attendee needs on social media. These moderators will engage with attendee content, including amplifying their takeaways, answering questions, and suggesting other sessions they should attend based on what they’ve enjoyed so far. They can also help create excitement by giving away prizes or other resources of value to attendees that are active on social media. Don’t forget to also have the moderators check in with the social media group to share photos and videos and post conversation-starters.

Build a Social Wall

A social wall is a live display of social media posts about your conference, typically centered around the event hashtag or geolocation tags. Your team should include a social wall in your in-person experience and on your hybrid event platform to provide in-person attendees encouragement to join the virtual conversation and help remote attendees feel part of the greater conference experience. You can check out these 10 social media wall tool options for your event. 

Share Polls, Quizzes, and Contests 

Encourage engagement and help attendees get to know each other by sharing polls and quizzes related to your conference. These can include fun facts about conference speakers or preview elements of upcoming networking opportunities. Consider having different types of activities—and prize drawings for completing them—for each social media channel. 

Host a Virtual Scavenger Hunt

Create a scavenger hunt activity that both in-person and remote attendees can join. Encourage them to snap photos or take screenshots during the conference, and share those images on social media to check items off their list. Offer a prize or swag bag for anyone who completes the list.

Use Twitter Lists

Help attendees connect with speakers and other guests at your conference by creating a public Twitter list that attendees can opt into. During registration, ask if the attendee has a Twitter handle that you can include on the list. You’ll want to create an additional list with all of your conference speakers. 

Cohesive Hybrid Event Technology Enables An Engaging Event Experience

Your hybrid event attendees need ample ways to connect with each other throughout your event and across the virtual communication channels they prefer. There are several steps your team can take to facilitate this, including creating a dedicated conference hashtag and actively encouraging conversations about your event on social media. 

But even the best-intended efforts can fall flat if your event platform simply cannot provide the interactive attendee experience that your attendees deserve. With the right hybrid event platform, your team can create beautifully customized event branding that highlights your event hashtag and includes a social wall alongside sessions to encourage engagement. 

Find out why Frameable Events is your ideal hybrid event platform.

Make every hybrid event a success

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Make every hybrid event a success
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