Live Chat can be a significant tool to leverage engagement in your live events, improve navigation metrics, and build a loyal audience for them.
Live Chat
July 23, 2020
Over the past year, there has been a boom in online virtual events as traditional venues have closed. Companies have switched to using virtual conferences, sports fans have had to rely on online coverage, and music events have moved online.
Even after the pandemic eventually ends, the live streaming business isn’t going away. A February 2021 market study estimated that the live streaming market will be worth $247 billion by 2027. The growth is driven by online conferences, eSports championships, entertainment, and live sports coverage.
Opting out of the online conversation is no longer an option either. Your audience and customers are going to share their thoughts on social media as the event unfolds. When users drift away to social media, that means less engagement, conversions, and revenues for companies and broadcasters.
The solution is to make your live events more compelling with Live Chat. A Live Chat tool gives users a way to ask questions, get help and connect with your people without leaving your website.
Here are a few ways Live Chat can help your live events strategy.
Imagine if your users were attending a company conference and could not interact with anybody! That would be a painfully dull event. A live event without Live Chat is just like that – it silences your audience. By adding Live Chat to your event, users and attendees have more reasons to stay engaged with your event.
Your customers and viewers have plenty of choices for how they spend their time. By adding the option to interact with other people, your event will have a social element. That means your attendees can make connections and new friends while participating in your event.
When users can share their thoughts on your website in real-time, there’s less need to switch over to social media. In turn, users will end up spending more time on your website. That means more opportunities to earn advertising revenue and generate leads.
The “hallway track” is one of the key reasons why people attend conferences. The chance to meet new people with shared interests and deepen connections is compelling. You can add this interactive element to your live event with Live Chat.
You don’t have to take our word for it either. Research from Kayako indicates that 52% of consumers are more likely to remain loyal to a company that offers live chat support.
Think about the most engaging, successful TV personalities on the air today: Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, and Jimmy Kimmel. What do they all have in common? All of them regularly invite guests to their shows. Those guests add new ideas, jokes, and variety, so viewers keep coming back.
The same principle applies to publishers and media companies. Your regular editors, experts, and contributors will draw in the core audience. But why stop there? You can become even more credible by adding more diverse voices to your coverage. For example, you could invite a few well-regarded social media influencers to contribute to your Live Blog. Those influencers will then lend your event more credibility and grow your audience further.
In a traditional event, you can instantly tell if people are disengaged. They will break eye contact, chat with people next to them and catch up on email. It can be more difficult to tell which aspects of your event are memorable in an online live event.
Adding Live Chat to your event gives you an informal way to track audience engagement. For example, your live conference might have three guest speakers. There might be 100 people chatting about the first speaker but only 20 commenting about the second and third speakers. If you see that kind of trend, you can improve your next event to your best speakers more time on stage.
Did you know that Live Chat can help you build your audience for the long term? Give users an easy way to stay connected, like signing up for your newsletter. You could also offer exclusive discount codes valid for 24 hours only to reward live event attendees if you sell products.
Running a successful live event takes a lot of work. You have to think about audio and video equipment, bandwidth, and managing multiple event participants. Given all of that pressure, you might feel hesitant about adding a new tool like Live Chat to your event. Make sure the Live Chat tool you choose has these key features:
Now that you know some of the ways Live Chat tools can enhance events, your next step is to try a Live Chat Tool. Arena’s group Live Chat tool is simple to use and allows you to create and embed a chat to your site in minutes.