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How AI is Transforming the Conference Space

How AI is Transforming the Conference Space

Inspiring Design Trends for 2022

Inspiring Design Trends for 2022

Top 5 Social Trend Predictions for 2022

Top 5 Social Trend Predictions for 2022

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Tag: engagement

16 Feb
2022

How AI is Transforming the Conference Space

by Jodie | in Digital, Events, Industry, Support | on 16 Feb 2022

Artificial intelligence, and more specifically machine learning, is the ability for computer systems to take tasks that normally require human intelligence. While for many people AI can seem unnecessary for the daily tasks they undertake, there are in fact many ways that it can enhance your conferences and events.

Chatbots

You may have had a negative experience with chatbots in the past, but they are getting more sophisticated rapidly. In the future, they will save you a lot of time in the run-up to your event. Unlike you, who needs sleep and a social life, chatbots can be available 24/7 to provide support for your presenters, vendors, and attendees. Given a small investment of your time to train it on common questions, the chatbot will save you far more time so you can focus on the bigger tasks.

Curated attendee recommendations

Today, as an event organiser you cater to a wide range of interests by creating agendas that appeal to a broad audience. The sessions are generally tied together by a common theme in the keynote and spotlight sessions.

The demand for curated, personalised content however presents a great opportunity for us to improve the overall event attendee experience. Instead of leaving attendees to make their own decisions by going through hundreds of session summaries, we can facilitate meetings by organising schedules and directing attendees towards certain individuals during networking portions of digital events.

Data from virtual events

Switching to online events has given us a vast amount of data to work with and analyse with ease. For example, we can see exactly who attended a particular event and when they arrived/left. We can then use this to inform who is interested in what and feed that into a machine learning application to curate attendee recommendations (or of course manually curate it).

Voice recognition – multiple languages

It’s likely that your event will be attended by multiple nationalities, and to promote inclusivity we can use voice recognition to, in real time, display subtitles in various languages. Apps such as Wordly facilitate this, which attendees can download to their mobile devices to have easy accessibility in the language they choose.

Video recap software

You can also save your attendees the hassle of having to take notes or photographs of slides by using video recap software such as CLIPr. This allows your attendees to have a batch of searchable and indexed content from your event. Machine learning techniques can even help us to identify key topics and highlight sections of relevant content dependant on the attendee viewing it.

Facial recognition

Many of us use facial recognition every day to unlock our phones, but we can leverage this technology to even greater effect in the event space in several ways:

  • We can analyse the traffic flow of people in and out of the event, what stalls they are visiting and the ‘dwell time’ at these stalls.
  • For both logistical and health reasons, we can track occupancy levels in various sectors and monitor social distancing where necessary.
  • Focusing on faces, we can even monitor engagement with a particular event by tracking the emotions that play out on individuals’ faces as they watch, be it boredom, fascination, or agitation.

Of course, in all these cases attendees would need to be made aware of any monitoring happening and consent to its use. But having this data will give you a wealth of information to streamline your event offerings in the future.

In summary...

You don’t need to utilise all these techniques by any means in the future to run a successful event or conference, but as you can see even by adopting one or two into your workflow you can gain real benefits.

If you’d like some assistance implementing machine learning techniques for your event or conference, then watch this space; we are currently developing some exciting offerings of our own. We also have a bespoke matchmaking service to facilitate targeting networking for your attendees. Get in touch to learn more.

Tagged business, customer behaviour, digital, engagement, online events
25 Mar
2021

Improving engagement with your LinkedIn content

by Keely | in Marketing, Social Media | on 25 Mar 2021

Your LinkedIn feed is probably packed full of insights from companies and people, and it can seem like a mystery as to how some content gets to appear at the top of your feed. Meanwhile your carefully crafted content never seems to get any engagement. While there is no silver bullet to perfect engagement, there are some methods you can use to increase the chances of your content getting seen:

Publish content within LinkedIn

  • The LinkedIn algorithm favours content that keeps users on the platform over content that sends them elsewhere. So, add videos using LinkedIn’s native video uploader rather than YouTube for example and publish articles within LinkedIn rather than linking out to an external blog.

Use captions

  • Most people will be watching videos with volume low or turned off, so it is important that they are able to still understand what is being said.

Publish both posts and articles

  • A post view can just be someone scrolling their feed and not looking at the post, whereas people have to physically click a link to view an article. This is a greater indicator of active engagement.

Track comments

  • Comments, rather than views, are a better indicator of the success of your content as this shows that people are actively engaging with your content rather than scrolling past it.

Utilise text-only posts

  • Text-only posts have been found to outperform every other content format, so it would be useful to prioritise these in your content plan. Also making text-only posts visually appealing – by adding emojis and bullet points, for example – increases engagement

Use hashtags

  • The more you use hashtags on a LinkedIn post, the better it categorises content and highlights relevant posts to each user. This will increase your reach and ensure that your posts are being seen by the right people
  • You can also pin hashtags related to your industry to see the latest updates on your newsfeed. This will allow you to connect and engage with others in the industry.

Encourage early engagement

  • If no one reacts to your posts within the 60 minutes of posting, then the chances are it won’t perform well. Try to get 20 reactions or comments in the first hour of a post’s life by encouraging employees to engage with the content as soon as it is published. You also need to make sure to reply to any comments on your post swiftly, as this engagement all contributes to the velocity of the post overall.

 

The best time to post

A bit of experimentation is always required to find the best engagement time as no one business will have exactly the same client base/demographic. Having said that, we can make an educated guess as to when there may be more traffic:

Working hours

As LinkedIn is a professional network, its users tend to browse their feeds during the prime working hours of 9am to 5pm. So, it’s best to post during these hours especially in the morning, as people are more likely to have time to log on before getting stuck into their daily tasks.

Commuting hours

In the same vein, another potential target is commuting time – 8am-9am and 5pm-6pm. As people are getting ready or winding down many will scroll their LinkedIn feed to stay on top of industry updates.

As you can probably imagine then, there tends to be less engagement with posts on the weekend and evenings. It is also probably better to avoid posting on a Monday too, as people tend to be too busy catching up from the weekend to have time to spare on social media.

Remember that these are only guidelines – depending on your business you may find that your post engagement bucks these trends entirely! But they are a good starting point to go from.

Tagged audience, content, content marketing, digital marketing, engagement, linked in, marketing, social, social media, social tips, tips
17 Feb
2021

Virtual Events

by Keely | in Digital, Industry | on 17 Feb 2021
The ongoing pandemic has thrown the entire events industry into uncertainty; we can no longer set dates for in-person events for the foreseeable future. This is why it is a great time and resource investment to start thinking about taking your events online.
Whilst hosting virtual events is not an ideal situation by any means for most of us, there are several unexpected benefits unique to moving online. Here we have looked at 9 ways that virtual events can positively impact your organisation, whether during the Coronavirus pandemic or long after.

1. Capture a new and potentially wider audience

  • Provided that someone has an internet connection, they can tune into your event no matter the geographical location. This exponentially expands your reach and could even generate a new in-person audience sometime in the future!
  • What’s more, it is easier for attendees to fit virtual events into their schedule, dipping in and out of the day as they choose whilst also getting their own work done. The convenience of this is sure to please the crowd.

2. In-depth analytics

  • It goes without saying that it is much easier to track online engagement than in-person. Whilst you cannot physically track your attendees’ attention span, it is possible to get continuous insights into session attendance, resource viewing and networking connections made.

 

3. Cost reduction

  • Venue hire can cost tens of thousands of pounds a day, and additionally you must factor in the cost of food and drink, accommodation for speakers, and venue insurance. Virtual events can offer potential cost savings depending on your platform, promotional activity, and support requirements.

 

4. Easy to manage

  • When running a physical event, you will often find yourself with the impossible task of being in several places at once. In contrast, simply having one or two laptops on hand will allow you to control every aspect of your virtual event. This is also reflected in greatly reduced number of people that you will need to employ for admin and management purposes.

 

 

5. Easy to collect feedback

  • You likely send your physical attendees a feedback survey after the event has passed. This has a less successful response rate than gathering this feedback right at the end of the session, which is what many virtual platforms offer when a participant leaves a session.

 

6. Environmentally friendly

  • Physical events incur thousands of miles travelling, which of course has an impact on the environment. Virtual events negate this completely, allowing your organisation to play their part in the fight against climate change.

 

7. Increased engagement

  • This may at first glance seem counter-intuitive, but research has shown that people are 30% more likely to initiate a chat with somebody virtually than in person.
  • Additionally, it is possible to gamify the experience online, with quiz features, challenges and a points-based leader board for attendance and engagement with resources throughout the day.

 

8. Scalable

  • While in-person events are limited to the venue size that you hire, virtual event hosting plans can expand and contract. This allows you to focus on your reach without maxing out capacity.

9. Reliability

  • Perhaps the most crucial point – whilst there is still potential for technical failure, virtual events do not have to be called off for adverse weather, venue issues or global pandemics…

 

So, you need not see virtual events as a hinderance by any means. Some of us may even find we make a more permanent switch to online thanks to these benefits! Of course, there are many obvious benefits to running your events in person. But a hybrid of the two may be a mainstay looking into the next decade.

Get in touch with us today to see how we can help bring your event to life!

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Tagged analytics, business, digital events, engagement, events, manage, online, online events, virtual, virtual events, wider audience
06 Jan
2021

New Year, New Trends – What are the Key Internet Marketing Trends for 2021?

by Keely | in Digital, Industry, Marketing, Social Media | on 06 Jan 2021

2020 was the year that businesses, small and large, all over the world were forced to change their ways on how they operate, with many products and services moving to online platforms and employees continuing to work remotely as a result of the global pandemic.

In addition to this, lockdowns and isolation periods have also caused a change in customer behaviour, meaning all the necessary changes to digital marketing will continue to change and evolve throughout this year.

So, what are these changes to internet marketing and what is it that we need to look out for in order to engage new customers as well as to keep hold of existing ones? We’ve outlined 5 areas below:

1. Social Media Marketing

The pandemic has resulted in people spending more time online than ever before, so in order to keep earning a profit, it’s crucial that you commit to your social media marketing resources.

As we keep coming in and out of lockdowns, physically going to a shop to browse or buy is getting more difficult, especially when non-essential shops have to close. Many people don’t want to leave the house at all or unless absolutely necessary, resulting in the increased use of online platforms instead. This is where having a strong social media presence is necessary to reach your target audience, as well as ensuring that your company brand and products/services are getting noticed and then shared around by users and potential buyers.

2. Interactive Content

To get a higher rate of engagement in your social posts and/or website, you will need to increase the interactivity of your content. This is a good way to get your audience’s attention and engage with them, as well as showing that your business is up to date.

A few good ways to do this is by live sessions, surveys, asking questions and holding polls & quizzes. Another idea is to offer giveaways and create competitions to get people talking and sharing. A few prizes won’t break the bank, especially when it’s a great opportunity to build up the number of followers and potential customers.

3. Ensure your Business Information and Local SEO is Correct

One of the most essential things for small businesses is to ensure your company details and local listings are up to date and established across all platforms and search engines.

‘Google My Business’ listing is quite useful in giving valuable information about your company. Say you own a café for example, if someone is walking around a town and searches for café’s nearby, you will display on the search if your information is up to date – and obviously you would want the right contact details to be visible if they were to contact with any questions.

With this in mind, ensure that your local listings have a specific area to make sure your business is picked up and found in the ‘near me’ search, as well as keeping finer details up to date such as opening hours – you don’t want to be closed when you state to be open.

 

4. An increase in Voice Searching

Now that many people are using voice assistants like Siri and Alexa etc, it means that it’s not just text searches that your content needs to be optimised to.

With this in mind, you need to ensure that your content is available in both voice and textual cases, meaning a change in the types of keywords you use in your content. For example, when people speak to Alexa, they mainly use words like “why” and “how” in order to receive the answer they are looking for, so if your tone is more conversation-like, you are much more likely to be shown in voice searches.

 

5. Using Messaging Apps for Marketing

Messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are now two of the main platforms that this generation uses to engage with friends and family. However, with the ever-changing times there’s now huge potential for business as well, with Facebook continuously developing new features in this area, there’s a great opportunity to engage with a huge audience of where there is now over a billion users on both the above platforms alone.

Although Messaging apps are a huge part of communication, you still can’t be without the trusty email marketing platforms, which is also going to be a big part of 2021 as these instant messaging platforms are where people are most active day to day. And on the topic of instant messaging, live chat options are very popular for any questions from an extensive audience, so incorporating something similar using one of the common platforms could be a good option for your business.

All in all, digital marketing has no fixed approach or eternal rule book to abide by as it’s ever changing with the world around us, so all we can do is focus on our goals and follow the current trends where appropriate.

SEO and interactive content that gives informative and beneficial information to your market is crucial for engagement and maintaining your existing audience.

Dedication to your social media marketing resources and creating your own individual content by your distinctive brand will help to make a difference to your online presence.

We hope that 2021 is a better year for all!

(Images: undraw.co)

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Tagged business, content, customer behaviour, digital, digital marketing, engagement, interactive content, local SEO, lockdown, marketing, marketing evolution, marketing tips, messaging apps, online presence, social content, social media, voice search, voice searches
Copyright ViniRama 2017
  • Digital
    • Content Management Systems
    • E-Commerce
    • Re-Fresh/Re-Design
    • Responsive
    • Web Application Development
    • Web Design
  • Marketing
    • Brand Identity
    • Social Media
    • Search Engine Optimisation
    • Email Marketing
  • Graphic Design
  • Support
    • Hosting and Domain Management
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