In an event, meeting, or discussion, audience engagement is the most important aspect.

Communication works in two-way. Talking to your audience does not guarantee that they will listen. Therefore, you have to actually “communicate” with them, rather than just talking your way through an event or discussion.

So, here’s advice from our previous experiences. Engage your audience in a meaningful conversation. How?

To help you with that, here’s how you can grab your audience’s interest.

What do you do to engage your audience?

First, let’s talk about what happens in these kinds of scenarios. For example, if you’re holding a virtual event, there are a lot of participants in one venue.

Therefore, you can’t take care of these participants one by one. You can only hope you can address all of their questions as a speaker. However, you can avoid that by having a platform for your audience to speak out their thoughts.

The goals of these scenarios are as follows:

• Gather data insights/ideas for next events or discussions
• Answer questions
• Let everyone share their inputs
• Create a community
• Increase audience engagement

So, you would need a dedicated chat platform to incorporate your audience engagement strategies. Let’s talk about what you can do about those next.

Q&A sessions: Address your audience’s questions

Since the most important part is audience engagement, one of the things that you can do is host a Q&A session. What happens in a Q&A session? You can ask the audience what they want to know, to see, or ask any questions to be answered.

As the speaker or chat owner, it’s your job to ensure that everyone’s questions are answered. Here are some tips you can follow to hold a successful Q&A session.

1. Appoint a moderator. Admins, who serve as moderators, approve or delete the messages. They can also choose appropriate questions to be answered.
2. Make the Q&A public. Some participants are shy to ask or send messages. Allow anonymous individuals to send in their questions as well.
3. Ask everyone to submit their questions. Before or during the event, ask the audience to submit questions. Make them feel that you’re there to listen and answer the topics they’re unsure of.
4. Do your best to address all questions. If you find yourself answering tough questions, then this might be a sign of miscommunication. Consider answering them all to clear up the misunderstandings.
5. Gather feedback. Before ending the discussion or after the event, you might want to ask for feedback. This will let you know what’s working and what’s not. Also, this is your chance to answer follow-up questions if there are any.

By that, let’s talk about how you can get feedback from the audience with a powerful tool.

So, the next time you’re having an event or conference, you can use a moderated Q&A chat to address the audience’s questions.

Where can you get your own Q&A chat? Read this post to know more. 

Audience engagement in the form of chat polls

The Polls feature allows you to get your audience’s insights about any topic. It can be used for events, community discussions, or on a website with a dedicated chat platform.

It works as a chat poll where the audience can vote from four pre-defined answers. Chat owners can publish as many polls as they want, but the number of pre-defined answers will always be limited to four only.

After you have all the answers, you can then analyze these answers. As such, use these ideas for your future events, discussions, conventions, etc. It’s all up to you where and how you’ll use the data you’ve gathered.

Audience engagement has never been this easy. By using these strategies above, you can see an increase in engagement and traffic.

So, don’t go beating around the bush and set up a dedicated chat for your events and discussions.

If you have more questions, then you can reach us via Facebook and Twitter.

Digital events can be great. Why? It’s convenient, low-cost, and there are countless ways to connect with people worldwide. However, if you’ve ever attended boring meetings or classes, you would know that a digital event can also be a failure if not executed properly.

The key to a successful digital event is moderation. Hosts are in charge of moderating their events to ensure that participants are having the time of their lives. This entails interaction like answering questions and creating two-way communication rather than just holding a class to several attendees.

Before you host a digital event, follow these tips for successful moderation.

Moderation: Why is it so important?

Have you ever attended an event where the speaker doesn’t acknowledge the virtual events chat (or entirely disables the chat option)? One-sided events are not engaging. When there’s no medium or platform for communication, participants might as well watch a YouTube video.

Another common scenario in events is digital event hosts choose to disable live chats. This is because they’re scared of the messages getting out of hand. However, if you appoint a moderator and plan your event beforehand, it’s easy to keep track of messages.

Ultimately, it’s a win-win situation when you moderate your events. The more you interact and engage with your audience, the more likely to attend your future events.

The perfect tool for your digital event

Moderating a digital event doesn’t have to be expensive. You don’t need to download software if you don’t want to. So, here’s what you need to moderate your event.

• Within your event platform. Whether you’re live streaming on social media, YouTube, or a dedicated event platform, there should be a dedicated chat for your event where participants can send in their questions. In turn, speakers will answer them during the event.
• In a separate chat or page. If you don’t want to use a chat next to your event (might be too distracting for you), or if you need a place where everyone can connect before the event, create a page or site for your event. This can serve as a platform for your participants to connect, even after the event. Follow-up questions can be answered here.

Use your moderation tool

RumbleTalk has a dedicated chat for events. It’s called the moderated chat. It lets admins pre-approve messages. Admins serve as moderators of the chat. They are in charge of controlling what goes in and out of the chat room.

Non-admins users are free to send messages. However, they will only appear in the chat when an admin approves them.

Moderating your chat like this has a lot of advantages. Here are some.

• Spam and trolls aren’t likely to be entertained.
• Admins delete irrelevant questions.
• The chat is clean and straightforward.

Read this article to know more about the moderated chat: Moderated chat: The engagement solution for your live events

Need more digital event advice?

Check out the knowledge base where we post how-tos, guides, and videos to help you start with the platform. Additionally, you can visit our blog and read some articles to find some tips and tricks for your events.

Sign up now and get ready for your next event.

Leaders and organizations often ask their employees and community for feedback, but are there platforms that make them comfortable when giving their feedback? Chat Polls is one of the products that we use at RumbleTalk to give and receive feedback.

What is the Chat Polls feature?

Chat Polls is one of the products we have on the platform. It lets chat owners create polls. Then, the chatters can vote for their answers. Why is it good for giving and receiving feedback?

• Chat owners will know what their audience wants.
• Chatters can anonymously vote.
• Chat owners can send as many polls as they want to receive the data they need.
• Chatters have an outlet to vote and give their feedback on a specific topic.

If you want to know how you can use Polls, then you can read this article.

Where can you use Chat Polls?

Meetings or company discussions

Online meeting fatigue has taken over the world. Turning on your camera and wearing your headset is still a burden for some employees, event participants, or students.

However, if you use a poll, you can keep everyone connected without the need for a video meeting. For example, if you want to do a brainstorming session, then you can just create a poll. Input the different ideas and ask your audience what they like the best.

Virtual summits and conferences

Post-event feedback is critical to virtual summits and conferences. Therefore, polls are great for collecting feedback and your participants can stay anonymous. Here are some question samples that you can use for these kinds of events:

• Who was your favorite speaker?
• What kind of events would you like to see in the future?
• Which topics intrigued you the most?
• What can we do better?

After collecting the data, you can use the responses to enhance your next virtual event.

Community and membership sites

Website owners should always make sure that the community has a voice. When you launch a poll, you give them an outlet to relay their wants for the community.

Since it’s for the growth of the community, members should have a voice and be heard. Let them vote on what they want to improve or see in the community.

Creating a feedback outlet with Chat Polls

The future of communication is changing rapidly. However, when you try to change it up, you do your best to keep up with the trends.

For more tips and tricks on successfully hosting events or increasing audience interaction, visit our blog. Also, you can check out the knowledge base if you want to read guides about different features.

Need more custom features or plans? Then, contact our support team to start creating captivating experiences for your community.