Virtual and Hybrid events: 3 rules to engage your online audience

Are you working in communication, marketing, human resources or organizing virtual events for a living? If that’s the case, planning successful events has to be your number 1 goal.

It has to be a priority when you are designing your event.

What does engagement mean? Find out here 

Start by putting yourself in your attendees’ shoes.

During an event, an on-site audience and an online audience have 2 very different experiences.

How to unite and include each participant when they are not experiencing the same thing?

3 golden rules to ensure the engagement of an online audience

To engage a virtual audience and make sure they stay online until the end of the event,  think about the experience you want them to have when you build your event, and follow the 3 following rules:

• Adjust video quality according to participants’ Internet connection. Our first instinct would be to offer the best quality of image possible. In reality, it is better to provide a live stream with a video quality that can match attendees’ own Internet connection to avoid lagging and slow loading. Indeed, high quality streaming demands a high-speed connection that isn’t accessible to everybody. Streaming video methods such as Adaptive Bitrate can help with that issue. It helps deliver quality videos AND adjusts the quality of streaming to each and every one of the attendee’s Internet connection.
  
  
• Stream the event with high-quality sound. The sound quality of your events has to be flawless in order to keep online participants engaged from beginning to end. If the online attendees have trouble hearing, they will feel excluded and might leave the event.
  
  
• Stream the event with low latency. Using a low latency streaming method (under 3 seconds) will help online participants be as present as on-site participants. All attendees should be able to experience the same things at the same moment and should be able to react in real time, wherever they are in the world. 

By investing in good video and sound quality and by reducing the latency, you will maximize your online participants' engagement and create unity between audiences (on-site and online).

At Sparkup, we studied audiences’ engagement during events and found tangible methods to maximize it. You can find all of our tips in our ultimate guide and discover 11 ways to create more engagement during your hybrid and virtual events.

*source: Event Manager Blog, The virtual Event Tech Guide 2021