How Internet Changed the Event Management Industry

Event management has been a very popular business for some time now. Although the basis of event management haven’t changed much, latest technology and wide availability of internet and social networks, drastically changed certain practices that managers use for event organization. In this article we will try to determine the ways we can use internet for increasing event’s attendance and making our events more interactive, fun and interesting.

Organizing event

Internet plays huge role in event organization. Review websites like Yelp and FourSquare are great for choosing the right venue and the hotel where conference attendees are going to stay. These websites will also come very useful, in the process of picking suppliers and caterers, while Flickr can be used for picking great photographers.

Collaboration between organizers is much more simplified now when they have so many different channels to communicate through. They can talk, text and exchange photos on social networks, and apps like WhatsApp, Viber and KiK Messenger.

Social networks and email are also very useful for sending invitations and receiving RSVP. This cuts organizational costs, but the more important result of tech use in this phase of event organization, is that organizers can exactly know how many people are going to attend. Organizing process should also include the audience. Organizers can add polls and surveys to their websites or event social media pages. This enables them to receive audience’s impressions concerning the program, and creates a buzz at the very start. Constant contact between organizers and the audience also boosts ticket sales, which can be done from WordPress event ticket sales plugin, directly on organizer’s website, without any resellers or mediators involved.

Promoting an Event

Website like Eventility, but also social networks like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter allow users to create special event pages that contain event lists, which include attendants’ RSVP. There are many ways how organizers can enlarge their event lists. And one of them is by asking or hiring an influential person as a speaker or a simple attendant. Wide use of social media created thousands of viral celebrities, who are often attending various conferences and seminars and boosting their attendance.

Word-of-mouth marketing is the best way to promote an event, and social media makes it much easier and more effective. Organizers should support attendants and followers in general to share and recommend their event, and they can also offer them promotional material or some complementary product or service in return. When sharing event news, organizers should make special hashtags, and since video will soon become the most effective promotional media, teaser videos will definitely increase event attendance.

Making Events More Interactive

Attendants should be involved in all event segments, and interaction between them and the speakers, performers and organizers determines event success at the bottom line. This interaction can be enhanced in many different ways. These are some of them:

• Introduce prizes– most engaged attendants should receive prizes, and this should be shared on social media, together with appropriate imagery;
• Live streaming– it is very helpful for people who weren’t able to come and it is also a great promoting tool for future events;
• Tweet panel– attendants should be supported to tweet their impressions about an event, while it still lasts, and tweets can be displayed on a panel on the main stage;

Extending Event’s Lifetime

When the event is over, organizers should try to extend its lifetime, by posting event-related content on social networks. This is a great way to promote future events, and it can be done with the use of different media.

• Videos– can be shared on YouTube and other social networks like Facebook or Twitter. They are the best way to transfer event’s positive atmosphere on people who didn’t attend the event and to remind attendants about the fun they had.
• Presentation– these can be done in PowerPoint or SlideShare and are mostly used for reviving business conferences;
• Photos– most event organizers hire professional photographers who share their photos on social networks like: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr etc.

Although many people think that advanced technology made event management easy, this practice still requires lots of hard work and skill. Internet simplified routine event management tasks, and enabled managers to rely more on their creativity in all four phases of event organization.