The creme de la creme of hosting a successful event is having an engaged audience—that can mean having ample audience feedback, or to have audience members engage with the content on social media. This is no small task, so we’re sharing our ultimate guide for boosting engagement—before, during, and after the event.

How to Encourage Feedback through Surveys

Every event planner’s dream is for each attendee to provide qualitative feedback after their event. Unfortunately, surveys aren’t always the most enticing task to complete. The likelihood of every single attendee completing one is very low, if not impossible. Luckily, there are ways to make surveys more inviting.

We should first discuss why attendees don’t want to complete surveys in the first place. For one, post-event surveys can act as a forced moment of reflection, rather than an organic, thoughtful process. And oftentimes, post-event surveys are shared with attendees too far after an event has occurred for them to provide valuable feedback. Attendees want to feel like they are contributing to the success of the event, while also getting something out of it themselves. 

You must ask yourself: as an event planner, how do we find harmony between when to issue the request, what questions will stimulate the most beneficial reflections, and what incentive can we provide in order to maximize and drive engagement? 

It starts with knowing exactly what information you’re hoping to gain from your attendees:

1. For a pre-event survey, responses will help you get to know the event audience – what are they looking to get out of the event? What type of content are they interested in? How do they prefer the content to be structured?  

2. A post-event survey will streamline your lessons learned for future events. 

3. Then of course a mid-event survey will help you to gauge attendee satisfaction while the event is taking place. 

Here are four tips to make your next pre, mid, or post-event survey your most engaging one yet:

1. Keep it simple! No attendee wants to fill out a complicated survey that drags on. The best surveys are concise and organized - we recommend 5 or fewer questions. If it takes longer than 1 minute to complete, you’ll lose attendees. Survey focuses include venue satisfaction, content relevance, agenda structure, networking offerings, and goals for attending.

2. Be anything but boring: Try to ask a variety of questions with different answering methods—such as yes or no, satisfaction scales, or open-ended questions. This will help break up the survey and make it feel less monotonous.

3. Incentivize!: Do you have the budget for a large prize giveaway? If not, can you offer a discount for swag items, or event tickets for the next event? 

4. Be specific: Make your questions as specific as possible, especially if it’s a post-event survey where the attendee will have to think back on the event that occurred a few days prior. You’ll want to provide questions that jog their memory that also get you the answers you’re looking for. 

A Social Media Plan to Spark Conversation

Now that you’ve got an engaged audience of attendees completing your event surveys, the next step is to carry that engagement to your social media channels as well. Similar to surveys, engagement on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or TikTok can show your client what content their audience wants to see and finds the most valuable. Once you know what posts your audience enjoys, you can start honing in on that content to create a social media strategy. This is a win, win: giving your audience what they’re looking for while also creating buzz around your company or event. Here are four quick tips to boost social media engagement that you can start employing (today!)

1. Make your content engaging! This is a no-brainer, but serves as a reminder to really take advantage of all the engagement tools social media platforms provide these days. From poll questions to Ask-me-anything submissions, to going live. You can also try posing a question in post captions that entice your audience to be a part of the conversation. 

2. Post consistently: Attention on social media is fleeting. You can avoid this by posting consistently: create a social media calendar where you plan out a month’s worth of content at a time, rather than haphazardly posting once in a while. Be proactive, not reactive.

3. Utilize contests: Try running a giveaway or contest every few months to reach a wider audience, while also exciting the viewership you’ve already built. These not only promote your product, but also drive traffic and engagement.

4. Reply, reply, reply: Show your audience that you’re active on your social media channels by engaging with them. Reply to their comments or DM’s to boost interaction amongst your followers and between your followers as well. Start the conversation by posting on social media, but continue that conversation by prioritizing engagement with your audience.

Whether you’re looking to boost survey engagement or social media engagement, you’ll notice that both strategies have quite a few similarities. Event surveys help planners accentuate all the factors that went right for an event and spotlight the areas that could have been better. Social media engagement shows companies or planners what content gets your audience talking & participating the most. Both methods act as tools to improve and tailor your event to the people you want to see it. 

Need help engaging your audience for your next event? Connect with us!