Author Archives: Arena

How To Use User Generated Content In Virtual Events

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User generated content, especially from customers, is an excellent way to enhance the quality of your live virtual events. Using this type of content in your events immediately demonstrates to event participants that you care about their thoughts and feelings. However, there are some challenges associated with using user generated content effectively. Use this guide to understand UGC and ways to use it effectively in your events.

What Is User Generated Content?

User generated content is any post, image, video, or other content created by Internet users. You can find user generated content on your website, on third-party websites and social media platforms. Generally speaking, marketers focus on user generated content in public settings. If a user has restricted access to their posts or shared comments in a non-public setting, avoiding using that type of content in your marketing or live events is best.

Should You Use User Generated Content?

There are a few ways to approach this question. First, consider the legal aspect. There are potential copyright issues if you use a piece of content created by someone else without permission. Suppose an artist creates a video and you want to use that video in your live event. If you’re planning on simply showing that video to your audience, it is best to ask for permission first. If you have any questions about the legal aspects of using content created by other people, seek legal advice.

Beyond the legal dimension, there are a few other aspects to this question of using user generated content in your events. There are rarely problems with referencing user generated content for market research, event preparation or other “behind the scenes” purposes. In the event you want to use UGC directly in your marketing or website, there are a few principles to keep in mind.

Three Principles For Using User Generated Content In Your Live Event

To guide your event development, we recommend using the following three principles. For simplicity, let’s focus our discussion on publicly available social media posts like tweets on Twitter.

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Quality Curation

Curation is the art and science of selecting material that meets your goals. Museum curators don’t have the resource to display every piece of artwork that looks interesting. They must select the best paintings, sculptures, and other pieces that fit their goals and the interests of their audience. The same principle applies to marketers when selecting UGC content for their events. At a minimum, apply ‘negative curation’ to protect brand safety (i.e. avoid not safe for work type content). Ideally, look for ways to feature a wide variety of user voices and types of content (e.g. serious commentary, joke style content and others) to keep your audience engaged.

Add Commentary

Simply reposting user generated content in your live event isn’t very interesting. Your audience might think “Hey, I can see these posts for myself on Twitter – why am I here?” Instead, look for ways to add value to the user generated content you feature in your event. Tell your audience why you selected the content and why you like it.

The Spice Principle 

Spices in cooking are a great way to make a meal more appealing and flavorful. At the same time, you would not eat an entire meal made up of cumin or turmeric! Instead, skilled chefs use small amounts of spices. Likewise, user generated content should be best seen as a spice. Highlighting a few posts from users that you liked is a good way to engage your audience. An entire virtual event made up of user generated content is likely to be perceived as lazy by your audience.

With these principles in mind, let’s look at a few practical ways to use this type of content effectively in your next virtual event.

7 Ways To Use User-Generated Content To Create Engaging Events.

Feeling stuck with user generated content? Use these suggestions to get started.

Pre-Event Strategies Leveraging User-generated content 

Regularly coming up with new ideas and material for virtual events, hybrid events, live streams, and other experiences is tough! One way to ease the pressure is to view user-generated content as a source of inspiration. 

1) Audience Questions

There’s a reason why “ask me anything” (AMA) style experiences are so popular on Reddit and other platforms. People love the opportunity to ask questions and better understand people, especially celebrities. You can harness the same principle in your marketing by mining user generated content for questions. 

Start by searching social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and elsewhere for questions about your brand and products. If you don’t turn up any usable questions, broaden your search to questions people are asking about your industry.

2) Competitor Content

You may not want to feature competitors in your virtual events and experiences. However, user generated content related to your competitors is very useful. For example, search for comments, reviews, complaints, and questions users are posing to your competitors.

Let’s say you run a software company, and your competitor is getting negative reviews about the complexity of their pricing. If your product has a simple pricing model, you might decide to use this fact (e.g., “we saw dozens of Capterra reviews complaining about hard-to-understand pricing in our industry, so we’d like to highlight our simple pricing.”)

3) Finding Trends

When you’re deeply focused on your product, you may lose track of broader trends. Remember the ice bucket challenge back in 2014? That trend took social media by storm, and it was a great opportunity to support a good cause and earn positive publicity for your brand simultaneously. 

Spending some time observing your customers on social media may clue you into new trends you can feature in your marketing. In this case, user generated content might be a source of inspiration or you might decide to use it directly.

User Generated Content In Your Event 

The value of UGC isn’t limited to inspiration or market research. You can also use it directly in your events. Take these tips as a starting point.

4) Feature Posts Using An Event Hashtag

A distinct hashtag is one of the easiest ways to encourage and identify user generated content related to your content. When users post content using the official hashtag, they might expect the company to read or reply to them. Featuring this type of content on a Live Blog is one way to incorporate hashtag content.

Keep in mind the principles we shared earlier still apply here. Creating a Live Blog on your website is more interesting if you interact with it. For example, you might ask your event host to refer to the best posts in the Live Blog a few times during a live event.

5) Highlight Influencer Posts

This technique is a more targeted way to incorporate social media content into your live experience. To use this approach effectively, we recommend identifying 5-10 influencers in advance who have at least 1,000 followers. Reach out to these influencers before your event starts and discuss a sponsorship arrangement. 

If you are paying influencers, you can work out a posting schedule to increase attendee engagement. For instance, you might ask for a total of 10 posts and have most of the posts go live in the 24-48 hours before your event starts. That will give you a chance to review the posts and choose the best posts to add to your presentations and blog posts. 

6) Lighten The Mood With Humorous Posts

Fun matters! Whenever you’re planning a virtual event, look for a few opportunities to add a dash of humor or jokes. This approach is particularly helpful when you have a multi-hour virtual event like a one-day or two-virtual event. Unlike the other approaches here, you can take a broader approach when seeking out user generated content for humor. You don’t need to limit yourself to discussions about your company or products. Instead, simply look around for user generated content like memes.

While humor is helpful in sparking engagement, keep your audience in mind. You don’t want user generated humor or jokes to trigger complaints! To minimize the chance of a problem, we suggest having two people review the humorous content before including it in your event.

7) Discuss UGC In Your Live Blog

When you run a live blog, regularly posting content is critical to maintaining engagement. As a rule of thumb, it is wise to post updates every hour at a minimum. Producing that much content in a short period of time can be quite taxing for your staff. That’s where user generated content can play a role. Here are a few ways to include UGC in your live blog updates:

Invite Guest Contributors

Ask some of your top community members to contribute a few short posts. Make sure to give them some broad guidelines (e.g. please make sure your updates are at least 250 words and relate directly to the event we are covering).

Respond To Social Media Posts

Take inspiration from the news media here – look for sharp disagreements. Are you seeing a large group of people making negative comments about your event? Posting a short response to your critics can be helpful in some circumstances. If the negativity is too extreme, look for other posts to react to. For example, what quotes are people sharing from your keynote speaker’s presentation?

Get The Right Technology To Leverage UGC In Live Events

Knowing the right strategies and tactics is a vital starting point to leveraging user generated content in your events. However, curating and using this content without the right technology can quickly get time-consuming. Learn more about how Arena’s products can leverage user generated content into your events. Find out how to be prepared for live events using Arena Content Manager for Live Blog.

Arena Android and iOS SDK November 2022 updates

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Arena has two big news for iOS and Android developers – we’ve updated our SDKs. This means that Arena Live Chat & Live Blog can be added and enhanced in the most used mobile platforms in the world.

What’s new for Android developers?

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Android developers can now add Polls and Q&A to their Arena Live Chat. This helps businesses increase engagement as well as get valuable insights from their customers. It’s also important to note that these new SDK features are only available to our Enterprise customers, but they are already included in the web version.

What’s new for iOS developers?

Arena’s iOS SDK allows developers to add Arena Live Chat to their apps with one of the most powerful engagement tools: Polls. This offers a great opportunity for businesses to increase retention, engagement and conversion by providing a more interactive experience. Plus, it gives businesses another way to collect valuable insights with an extra layer of real-time interaction.

Arena’s new SDK features: Polls & Q&A

About Polls

Arena Live Chat has a Polls feature, which allows to gather audience feedback, identify important topics for your users, and gain insight into what they think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDBpllB64lg

About Q&A

The Q&A is an Arena Live Chat feature that provides real-time engagement with users and gathers all of their questions and opinions in a moderation queue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnPfQUdy2oA

Conclusion

Arena is committed to helping businesses provide the best possible user experience. Our latest update is just another example of how we’re working to make that happen. We hope that these new features will help our customers increase audience retention, engagement, and conversion.

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Preparing for Live Virtual Events with Arena Content Manager

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Preparing engaging live virtual events is a powerful way to engage your audience. With an engaged audience, advertising revenue, lead generation, and sales all become easier. Offering virtual events bring a lot of benefits. Yet, it can be stressful to organize these events. Fortunately, you can ease the burden on your team by preparing with the right team.

The Benefits of Preparing Live Virtual Events

Spending time organizing your live virtual events is critical for several reasons. 

Minimize Audience Distractions.

Does this sound familiar? You’ve put serious effort into marketing your event and attendance looks good. Then, a few minutes into the event, the timing starts to fall apart. Your event moderator keeps having to fill air time while your team gets links, images and polls ready. Some of your most loyal fans may give you the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, many in your audience will open new tabs in their browsers and disengage from your event. 

With robust virtual event planning, you can avoid the above distractions. As a result, your audience is more likely to stay focused on your content and the community experience.

Increase Positive Word of Mouth

Almost every organization wants to grow its audience. Whether you are looking for leads, potential students, donors, or sales, more people in your engaged audience is vital. Offering a live virtual event with professional-level quality means your audience is more likely to tell their friends. In addition, event attendees are more likely to tell friends and family about your events. Excellent live event preparation makes you more likely to achieve your viral growth goals.

Increase Repeat Attendance

To compete successfully today, it’s becoming crucial to offer multiple events. You might decide to focus all of your energy on a single high-end virtual event or hold events more frequently. We recommend holding events quarterly or monthly because that will give your team more practice in preparing, marketing, and executing events. In addition, it is easier to form a meaningful connection with your audience when you engage them repeatedly.

When each event is well-produced and engaging, you can only realize the benefit of repeated attendance – a deeper connection with your audience.

To get these benefits, preparation is essential. To save time on that process, leverage Arena Content Manager.

Getting Ready With Arena Content Manager Step By Step

Arena Content Manager is a management solution you can use to make your live virtual events run smoothly. There are a few ways to use Content Manager to streamline your event planning and lift engagement. Let’s cover three scenarios where Content Manager can save your event team time.

Optimizing The Virtual Conference Experience With Arena Content Manager

Virtual events and hybrid events are fast becoming popular ways to engage audiences, share your insights and grow your community. Successfully executing a virtual event focused on valuable content with few or no glitches is easier with Content Manager. Let’s say you’re running a virtual conference next month. Here are some ways you can use Arena Content Manager before, during and after your virtual conference.

Before The Virtual Conference

Think ahead to the event about the content assets you’ll need to engage your audience. For example, your guest speakers might have slide decks. In a less formal content, the speakers and event host might simply have a list of bullet points for what they plan to cover. Based on this information, load content assets to Arena Content Manager so that you can easily use them when the event happens.

Use the following tips to accelerate your content brainstorming process:

  • Images: do you have images of all of the speakers, presenters and guests? It’s best to load these into the Content Manager so you can easily introduce each new person.:
  • Videos: displaying a short video is often a good way to add variety to a virtual conference. If you use videos, remember to use them occasionally and keep them short because a virtual conference is at its best when it is interactive.
  • GIFs. There are only so many keynote speakers and panel discussions your audience can absorb. We suggest creating a few light-hearted GIF images for your event. Sharing these images during breaks can help to keep engagement high.
  • Social Content. You can create and save social media posts in Arena Content Manager. For example, you might create quote tweets sharing highlights from your star keynote speaker in advance. Then you can publish these posts as the event is unfolding.

In addition to the content above, give some thought to your primary objectives for the virtual conference. For example, are you seeking to create opportunities for the sales team? Or do you want to encourage people to buy products (e.g. event recordings, subscriptions or other items)? You may also want to create assets to support your primary call to action (e.g. create a visual that displays your call to action URL to reinforce the words of your presenters).

Preparing content assets ahead of time is also a powerful way to ensure the online event stays aligned with your event. If your team is under pressure to produce event content when the event unfolds, mistakes are more likely to happen. There’s nothing wrong with some improvisation but asking your event staff to come up with event content in real-time is stressful! 

In the example below, we’re mentioned creating new content assets. If you’re running your first-ever virtual conference, you may have to start from scratch. However, if you are running a series of events over time (e.g. a quarterly invite-only conference for VIPs in your audience), there are probably content assets you can reuse. Any asset you upload to Arena Content Manager can be used repeatedly, so your team will get more efficient every time you run an event. 

During The Virtual Conference

As your virtual conference starts, your event team can breathe easy. They’ve already created and saved multiple assets to use during the event. For the best results, it’s helpful to have 2-3 people to support the event in addition to your event host. One person to provide technical support, one person to use the assets you’ve created in content manager and another person to interact with your audience in live chat. With this small team, you’ll have everything you need to keep your participants engaged. 

As the virtual event unfolds, remember your event goals. For example, if you want to grow your paid subscriber base, consider making custom offers for your audience (e.g. get 15% off an annual subscription when you subscribe before the event ends). 

Create and Optimize Your Live Virtual Events Workflow With Your Team

Learning the art of running successful online events takes time and practice. Whether you have a dedicated events team or not, it’s helpful to build a virtual events workflow for your team. Use the following checklist to emphasize planning and preparation with Arena Content Manager in your workflow.

1. Discuss Your Event Goals

Before you start promoting the event or creating content assets, everybody on the team needs to be crystal clear on goals. For instance, are there one or two event metrics that you will focus on? It’s often helpful to balance quantity and quality metrics. If your goal is to create leads for the sales team, track the number of inbound leads and how many of these leads become qualified.

2. Create Your Pre-Event Content Assets in Arena Content Manager

Now that you know your event goal, it’s time to create your assets in Arena Content Manager. As mentioned before, you can reuse content assets from previous events, your website and other sources. Focus your efforts on creating materials that directly support your primary goal (e.g. encouraging attendees to sign up for your event series, email list, etc).

3. Assign Roles and Responsibilities To The Event Team

Now you have your event material created in Arena Content Manager, make sure your team knows what they are responsible for. In most cases, there are a few roles to cover including:

  • Event host. This is the person who is on the virtual stage to welcome attendees, introduce speakers and keep the event moving.
  • Technical Support. Glitches and problems occasionally arise in virtual events, so it’s wide to have a technical support person on call for the event.
  • Event Support: this role is responsible for using the content created in Content Manager effectively such as sharing images and videos with attendees.
4. Run The Event & Meet With The Event Team Afterward

The final steps of the workflow are to run the event and gather insights after the event. For example, ask your team if there are other kinds of assets you can create for your next event. The opposite may be true as well – those GIFs you created might be well suited to your specific type of event. Keep these lessons in mind as you prepare for your next event.

Start Using Arena Content Manager Now

You can find the Arena Content Manager directly in your Arena Dashboard. Simply sign into your account and start adding assets. The assets you drag and drop into Content Manager will be ready for you to use whenever you log back into Arena.

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How To Manage Live Chat Experiences

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Live experiences are a powerful way to connect more deeply with your community. With Arena, it’s easy to create new digital experiences quickly. Like any good story, there is a beginning, middle, and end to managing a live experience. We’ll guide you through each step, but first, there is an important question we need to answer.

Why Offer Live Experiences At All?

Creating an engaging live experience for your audience takes effort and resources. You might have experience running the occasional event or traditional digital marketing campaigns. There are a few reasons why offering live experiences to your audience is valuable.

1) Get Faster, Better Feedback From Your Audience

Without consistent feedback from your audience, it’s difficult to know if your marketing and experiences are working. Sure, tracking traditional metrics like conversions and engagement levels is helpful. It’s even better to get live feedback! 

Just imagine if you could show a product mockup to customers during a virtual event – that would give you far richer feedback than measuring the number of clicks on a page.

2) Thrive In The Post-Cookie Online World

Digital marketers and audience builders can’t rely on traditional cookies to understand audience behavior and interests. The solution, in brief, is to build a direct relationship with your audience (i.e., first-party data). For more insight on this change, see our post: The Future of Cookies In Marketing Strategy.

When your brand offers appealing social events using live chat, it becomes far easier to gather first-party data. That rich data is the foundation of success in the 2020s and beyond.

3) Deepen Audience Relationships

The final reason why offering live experiences matters comes down to relationships. Think back to the last conference you attended, like SaaStr Annual. You probably met lots of people, discovered new insights, and felt positive about the event. You can capture some of that event magic with engaging online experiences. By regularly running engaging live events, your audience will start to see your online presence as a community rather than simply a website.

Now that you see why it’s vital to provide live experiences to your audience, let’s start the planning process.

The Beginning Of Your Live Experience: Set Up Your Chat In Arena

Now you are ready to build your live chat experience in Arena. Use the following steps to set up and customize your live chat experience.

Step 1: Log in to your Arena account

Step 2: Click on Live Chat in the Arena dashboard.

Step 3: Click create a new chatroom.

Step 4: Name your chat (e.g., “Annual Launch Event”)

The chat name you select is for internal use only – chat participants will not be able to see this name.

Step 5: Select your chat status

There are two options: live and closed. The live option launches your chat session immediately and makes it available to everyone. On the other hand, if you want to be the only one who can post messages, choose closed.

Assuming you are planning a live experience for a future time, the closed status option is best. That means you can further customize the settings to your liking before making the live chat available to your audience.

Step 6: Choose your live chat settings

Arena gives you various ways to manage the experience depending on your needs. The list below includes some of the most significant options to keep in mind:

  • Language: choose the language your participants want to use.
  • Keep Chat Open: turn this option to make sure your chat is seen by the user.
  • Send direct messages: enabling this feature lets users send private messages to each other. It can be a helpful way to foster networking.
  • Pre-moderation: using this feature means that your team must approve messages before they approve. While it places more of a burden on your team, pre-moderation is a powerful way to support brand safety.
  • Sign-Up Options: you can choose Not Required (i.e., anybody can join), Sign Up Required (i.e., adds a minor speed bump to participation), or Single Sign On. The sign up option lets users enter an email address or use another credential (i.e. Facebook, Twitter or Google). 
  • Allow Slow Mode. In a live experience, you might have hundreds of participants and it’s easy to become overwhelmed when many people start posting messages. The slow mode lets you impose a delay between how often people can post messages (e.g. 10 seconds between messages). This mode is a helpful way to discourage harmful and distracting chat activity. If you use this mode, take a moment to explain it to your users at the start of the session. 
  • Allow Sharing Links: Choose whether you want to let participants share links. If you take other measures like requiring a sign-up or pre-moderation, allowing links is less risky. 
  • Profanity Filter: we recommend turning this feature on to maximize brand safety and avoid upsetting participants.

Navigating all of these options might take a few minutes the first time you use it. By the second or third time, you’ll a feel for which options are best suited to your audience. 

Once you have completed all of the settings to your liking, click the Create button at the bottom of the screen.

Step 7: Choose your Embed option

The embed option controls how Arena Live Chat appears on your website. There are a few options here: In-Page, Bottom, Side and Overlay. If you’re not sure which option to choose, we recommend overlay. 

When ready, click the “Copy” button at the bottom of this screen. This will generate a short piece of code for your website. To launch the live chat, this code needs to be added to your website. The specific steps vary depending on the type of website you have. For additional support, see our help guide: Adding Arena to your site.  

Step 8: Refresh your website and look for the live chat!

If you selected the live option in step 4, your live chat window will appear right away!

By the way, don’t worry about getting everything perfect the first time – you can go back and make updates whenever you want.

How To Run A Live Experience Like A Pro 

In our three-part story concept, running the live experience is the critical “middle” part of the story. Use the following tips to ensure your live chat experience runs smoothly.

Get Your Two Person Team Ready

It is usually wise to have at least two people involved in your live chat experience: an event host and a support person. The event host will focus on the conversation while the support person can address technical issues.

Have Your Scripts and Notes Available

When you run a live experience, you’re effectively on stage! It’s perfectly normal to have a bit of stage fright at first. One of the best ways to reduce anxiety is to prepare notes in advance and have them ready. Use our X resource to prepare your live experience script.

Join The Live Chat Early

Let’s say that your live event will run from 4 pm to 5 pm. It’s best to let people enter the virtual chat room at least 5 minutes before the event starts. Your staff should join early as well. Joining early means you can address technical questions quickly.

Explain Your Ground Rules

While optional, we recommend taking a minute or two to explain your ground rules for the live experience. This is especially important if you are using features like pre-moderation or profanity filters. Taking a moment to explain that you are offering a safe experience and that you will not tolerate abusive behavior will help to discourage disruptions.

Stick The Landing: Tips To End Your Live Experience Effectively

As your live chat experience comes to a close, schedule some time with your event team to explore the event. This is a critical continuous improvement discipline that ensures your live experiences will keep getting better over time. Use the following tips to run your post-live experience session with your team.

Recognize Successes

Kick off your post-chat review by celebrating what went well. For example, did you achieve a new milestone like 100 or 500 chat participants? Take a moment to praise your team for these developments.

What Worked Well?

Continuing on the positive theme, make a list of the practices that went well. For example, you might add three support people to keep a large event on track. Record these best practices and make sure you keep using them.

Gather “Stop Doing” Suggestions

Now, ask your team what you should stop doing or change for the future. To avoid blame and finger-pointing, emphasize changes that can be made for the future. 

Review The Live Chat Log

Finally, review the live chat log. In particular, look at questions directed to your company. If there are repeated questions like “why aren’t all of my questions appearing?” you may need to better explain your moderation practices.

Start Your Live Chat Experience This Week

Offering a live chat experience takes creativity and a team effort. Fortunately, the Arena Live Chat solution is simple and fast to install. On average, users take less than 15 minutes to install Arena on their website. Learn more about Arena Live Chat!

How To Use Chat Polls and Q&A To Grow Engagement

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Using chat polls and Q&A in an online chat are some of the best ways to boost engagement. Despite this fact, there’s a good chance that you’re not yet fully utilizing these tools. Overlooking these engagement tactics is To understand why let’s look at why engagement is so critical.

Why Chat Polls and Q&A Capabilities Are Critical 

In the past, digital marketers and publishers tend to focus on metrics like pageviews and cost per click. While helpful, those metrics scratch the surface. Focusing too much on these numbers can lead us away from more important goals like building an audience of fans eager to hear you.

Your entire marketing strategy will benefit from developing an engaged audience on your website. The pressure to convert cold traffic will ease. You will have a growing group of people who look forward to your website. Your audience will spread the word as you become more skilled in virtual event ideas. When your audience views your website as a place to engage socially, lead generation and higher advertising revenue.

The benefits of growing an engaged, loyal audience on your website are clear. With that in mind, it’s time to explore specific tactics to lift engagement further.

Audience Engagement Tactic 1: Chat Polls

Let me tell you a story about a webinar to understand why chat polls are helpful. Years ago, I was presenting a series of webinars to a group of professionals interested in project management. As I planned the presentation, I made assumptions about the audience’s interests. Yet, I wasn’t entirely sure about those guesses, so I used two quick audience polls in the first five minutes of the webinar. The result was a far better presentation for two reasons. First, I could better tailor the event to attendees’ level of knowledge. Second, the poll questions sparked a brief discussion in the chat app. 

Afterward, I made it a rule to constantly check for opportunities to use poll questions. It usually takes a few minutes of preparation to create good poll questions to lift engagement significantly.

How To Use Chat Polls To Grow Your Audience

Arena makes it simple to use polls to spark engagement with your audience. Use the following steps to create your chat polls.

Step 1: Log in to your Arena account

Step 2: Set up your Live Chat (optional)

You can skip this step if you have already created a live chat.

Step 3: Click on the Polls tab at the top.

Step 4: Write your poll questions and answers

Polls are typically structured as multiple choice questions. For example, you might ask online event attendees how many online conferences they have attended. In that case, the poll answers might be 0, 1, or more than 2.

As a rule of thumb, keep your poll question simple (i.e., a single sentence). The poll answers should also be simple with a maximum of 5 options, but you can add options if you wish. When polls get complicated, your audience may not want to make an effort to figure them out.

Step 5: Choose your schedule

The schedule option determines how long your poll is visible to participants. In shorter events like a one-hour presentation, we recommend keeping polls visible for 15 minutes. In more extended events like 1 or 2 day virtual or hybrid conferences, you might decide to leave polls open for longer (e.g., let participants see the poll and respond when the event takes a lunch break)

Step 6: Decide whether to show the number of votes.

This optional feature can help lift engagement further. The downside is that attendee responses might be influenced by seeing which answer is the most popular. Usually, that bias is not a problem.

Step 7: Save the poll as a draft or post it

After setting up your poll, you have two options: post or save it as a draft. Both of these options can be useful in different situations.

Post: When you click post, the poll immediately becomes available in the live chat session. If you just had an excellent idea for a poll during an event, use the post option to get that poll in front of your audience immediately.

Save as Draft: If your live chat event is in the future and you are simply getting everything ready, use the save as draft option. Your saved poll will be waiting for you whenever you decide to launch it. You can publish, edit or delete a saved poll at any time, so don’t worry about getting everything perfect.

Three Ideas To Use Chat Polls 

Now you know how to create, save and publish polls in Arena. That leaves just one question: what kind of polls should you create? The answer ultimately depends on the needs of your audience, your goals (e.g., a focus on lead generation vs. a different goal), and your business model. Use the following prompts to brainstorm additional ideas with your team.

1) Gather Audience Demographics

Thanks to your customer data platform, you may already have a good understanding of the demographics of your customer base. However, the specific individuals who show up to any given online event may be different. You may want to ask a few quick poll questions to understand your audience better. 

For example:

  • Customer Vs. Potential Customer: Create a poll to ask attendees if they have ever bought one of your products
  • Geography: Online events are potentially open to a global audience. Consider setting up a quick poll to see where attendees are located. This question is crucial because it can help you understand if your online events are reaching your audience at an appropriate time of day.

2) Check Interest In Future Events

Building an engaged online community takes effort over time. Market research will only take you far in developing winning events and chat experiences. Use a live chat poll to determine which event ideas to prioritize.

For example:

A college or university might ask the following poll question to deepen engagement with potential students.

Question: Which of the following event ideas are most interesting to you:

  • A) Meet successful alums from the college
  • B) Discover your financial aid options to pay for college
  • C) Take a virtual tour of the campus

3) Make Fast “In Flight” Changes

Maintaining engagement with your audience takes ongoing effort. You might sense that your audience is losing interest part of the way through your event. Setting up and running a quick poll can help to get your event back on track.

For example:

A company has set up a virtual conference to support the sales team. Fifteen minutes into the event, you notice that the live chat is starting to go quiet. Putting a poll question might help to reignite your audience’s engagement.

Question: What sales goals are you most excited about this year?

  • A) Getting promoted!
  • B) Getting into President’s Club
  • C) Closing my largest deal ever

Keep these live chat poll ideas in mind as you plan your next live chat event.

Audience Engagement Tactic 2: Question And Answer (Q&A) Experiences

Question and answer (Q&As) sessions are proven to connect with audiences. They have been used for years in traditional events. Executives, authors, lecturers, and others use Q&A time to connect. Find out how to use Arena’s Q&A capability to deepen connections with your audience.

How To Use Q&A To Boost Online Audience Engagement

Use this step-by-step guide to add a Q&A to your Arena Live Chat experience. The whole process just takes a few minutes.

1) Log in to your Arena account

2) In the Arena dashboard, click Live Chat and then choose the Live Chat you want to add a Q&A to

3) Click on the Q&A tab at the top of the screen

4) Click the “Enable Q&A” button

5) Turn on “pre-moderation” for Q&A (optional)

The pre-moderation feature means you get to control which of the submitted questions appear in the live chat. This optional feature is helpful in larger live chat experiences when you are hosting a VIP guest (e.g., the company CEO) or simply want to provide a curated experience for your attendees. 

To use Q&A moderation effectively, we recommend assigning this responsibility to a dedicated person. Let your main speaker or event MC stay focused on engaging the audience.

Four Ideas To Use Q&A In Live Chat

With the above steps, you’ve just learned how to add Q&A capabilities to your live chat. Like any tool, it’s helpful to know when and how to use this capability for the best results. Use the following prompts to devise thoughtful ways to use Q&A with your team.

1) Encourage Effective Audience Participation

When you host a live chat experience, you welcome an audience into your digital space. As the host, it’s up to you to set the ground rules. Setting those expectations includes guiding your audience on how to ask questions in a chat session effectively. For example, your audience might post dozens of questions, and you may only have time to answer a handful of questions. When your audience sees which questions get answered, they’ll engage even more effectively next time.

2) Leverage Moderated Q&A For A Safer Experience

In recent years, phishing, scams, bullying, and other harmful behaviors have become more common in the digital world. Despite those facts, there are practical steps you can take to make YOUR live chat safer for attendees. Specifically, turn on the Q&A moderation feature when it is vital to offer a safer experience, such as a live chat session with families. 

There’s another aspect to offering a safe experience – just think of hosting a virtual event with an important guest. For example, your CEO might join an event celebrating a significant company milestone like funding or launching a new product. In this setting, it’s essential to make your leaders look good! Use your judgment to decide which questions are approved. After the event ends, ask your guest if they want to see all of the questions to review privately.

3) Keep Large Live Chat Experiences Organized

Running a large-scale live chat experience is quite challenging. When you have hundreds or thousands of participants, simply keeping up with all the messages posted in the chat window can feel overwhelming. Using the Q&A capability is critically important in an event with many participants. The Q&A lets you separate questions from the general chat discussions. That means you can host a more focused Q&A session.

4) Review Q&A Content For Sales, Marketing, and Support

The first few benefits of running a Q&A in your live chat focus on immediate benefits. This benefit is focused on the long term. Arena’s event log history feature automatically captures all chat transcripts – including Q&As – so you can easily export the questions to review them later. 

The next day, invite a few sales, marketing, and customer support colleagues to review the questions with you. Some of the questions might be helpful to the sales team (e.g., “Is the product compatible with ABC technology?”). Other questions may help the marketing team craft an even better event in the future (e.g., several people suggested several social media influencers as guests for future online events). Still, other questions may indicate that potential customers are unclear about your shipping or return policies. Remember – just because a product feature or company policy seems obvious to your employees, it might feel confusing to your customers. Take the time to come up with detailed answers to these questions, and your next online event will be even more successful. 

Enhance Your Live Chat With Polls and Q&A Today

Adding live chat to your website makes your website more engaging. Unlocking the next level of audience engagement requires more engagement techniques. Arena Live Chat gives tools like polls, Q&A, and profanity filters to protect your brand. Learn more about Live Chat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81ShIt6QuZ8

Virtual Team Building: 16 Great Ideas to Boost Employee Engagement

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In today’s remote work environment, keeping teams connected and employees engaged it’s more important than ever, but it can be challenging. Virtual team building activities offer creative ways to promote remote team engagement, enhance communication, and boost morale.

From virtual happy hours to online workshops, these activities can help maintain a strong team spirit and ensure everyone feels part of the community. Let’s explore why virtual team building is important and what are some of the events you can promote to boost employee engagement. 

Why Virtual Team Building is Essential

In an effort to save money, many companies might think that team building activities are a waste of resources, especially when we talk about remote teams. However, there are plenty of reasons why remote team engagement activities are essential to building lasting connections with your employees. 

Let’s dive right into them.

Strengthening Trust

Trust is the cornerstone of swift and effective collaboration, particularly in high-stakes situations. Initiatives like virtual games and interactive sessions pave the way for establishing and nurturing this trust, leading to enhanced performance and quality.

Enhancing Communication Skills

Effective communication is the underpinning of successful sales, marketing, and even internal operations across different departments. By fostering virtual camaraderie, we cultivate an environment where communication flourishes.

Reinforcing Organizational Culture

The importance of company culture is universal. Especially in fast-growing teams, ensuring that the company’s core values are constantly reinforced prevents potential cultural erosion.

Boosting Employee Engagement, Retention and Satisfaction

The significance of recognizing and appreciating employees cannot be emphasized enough. Recognition can manifest in various forms, from awards to acknowledging personal milestones. Such gestures prevent feelings of isolation and play a crucial role in talent retention.

Community Building 

Communities are all about connections. When you allow your employees to bond beyond their daily activities, you offer them an opportunity to connect in new ways with their peers, growing a sense of belonging and enhancing employee engagement.

The easiest way to host events and enable conversations is through a centralized community engagement hub, where you can concentrate all valuable information and allow employees to interact with each other, even after the event is through. 

16 Ideas for Virtual Team Building Events

Embarking on virtual team building can be both simple and effective, depending on which tools you choose to host these kinds of meetings. There are now many no-code alternatives that can offer a seamless experience for both organizers and attendees, and, if you’re not sure which one suits you best, take a look at our guide to the top 10 virtual conference platforms. 

As for virtual team building strategies, you can start small, with modest activities that help your team familiarize themselves with the format. Once you get comfortable, you can explore several creative and engaging events. 

Below, you’ll find 16 remote team engagement ideas, ranging from simple to more complex events. These activities are designed to foster collaboration, enhance communication, and build stronger relationships within your remote team.

 

1) Introducing Virtual Icebreakers

An effortless way to embark on this journey is to weave icebreakers into routine virtual meetings, such as All-Hands Meetings, especially when there are new team members. Occasional exercises like “Two Truths and a Lie” or “Would You Rather” questions can set a relaxed and engaging tone for discussions.

2) Trivia Challenges

Trivia games are an excellent tool for fostering team spirit and knowledge sharing. Tailoring questions around company updates or general knowledge can spur participation and bonding.

3) Virtual Scavenger Hunts

This is a playful way to get team members to share a slice of their personal lives, from household items to tech gadgets. For more intricate events, virtual scavenger hunt apps like Let’s Roam or Scavify can be a game-changer.

4) Engage in Online Games

For those pressed for time, online games can be a quick-fix solution. Platforms like Skribbl or CardsMania can be an excellent starting point. To ensure an interactive gaming experience, Arena Live Chat can be seamlessly integrated, offering real-time communication capabilities.

5) Virtual Celebrations for Employee Recognition

Dedicating time during meetings to spotlight achievements or milestones, both professional and personal, can significantly boost morale and foster community feeling.

6) Host Virtual Happy Hours 

Traditional bonding over drinks can be virtualized, where team members join from the comfort of their homes. Gift cards can incentivize participation, ensuring a relaxed and informal atmosphere.

7) Virtual Executive Socials

Creating a platform for informal interactions between executives and employees can break hierarchical barriers and foster mutual respect and understanding.

8) Weekly Sharing Sessions

Encourage team members to share valuable resources, be it apps, websites, or books, enhancing the collective knowledge pool and encouraging innovation.

9) Randomized Virtual Coffee Chat

Want to foster individual connections within your team? You can do this without any intricate tech or virtual team building platforms. This concept mirrors the day-to-day interactions that make workplace dynamics lively. You merely shuffle participants’ names and pair them up.

10) Virtual Fitness Quest

Warm seasons call for outdoor activities. A month-long fitness challenge can be the nudge for colleagues to embrace health targets. Utilize an honor code for activity tracking and let everyone share their progress. 

Kickstart this by rallying fitness enthusiasts who can act as influencers within their teams and organize incentives for those who complete the quest. Conclude with a virtual gathering showcasing photos, and videos, and applauding top performers.

11) Online Cycling Expeditions

This mirrors the fitness quest, but it focuses on biking. It resonates especially if situated in bike-friendly cities, and it can even be paired with a sustainability initiative for your business. Perhaps, enlist a biking professional to share insights and increase employee engagement. 

12) Digital Summer Festivities

Revel in the spirit of a summer cookout, virtually. Consider:

  • Scheduling nuances, since summer months are prime for leave.
  • Geographical considerations. Ensure the theme caters to the majority.
  • Personalize the theme. If mainstream holidays don’t resonate, label it something generic like “Online Summer Soiree”.

13) Online Cooking Classes

Many of your employees might have a keen interest in home cooking, as well as sharing their favorite dishes and, of course, learning new recipes. An online cooking class is the perfect opportunity to gather colleagues to expand their repertoire and engage with each other while doing so.

14) Engage a Role-playing Game

Expert Board games like online Dungeons & Dragons are surging as team cohesion tools. While lengthy and intricate, professionals can streamline the experience, ensuring a blend of entertainment and team bonding.

15) Online Language Immersion Sessions

Got a multicultural workforce? This could be your ace. From spotlighting a specific language on a relevant holiday to consistent weekly sessions, the camaraderie from learning together is irreplaceable.

16) Digital Corporate Literature Circles

Cultivate a reading and learning culture within your team. Suggest employees list top business reads and consider roping in the authors for an interactive session. Even if that’s unfeasible, an engaging discussion on a practical business book can be enlightening.

How to Prepare for Virtual Team Building Events

Besides choosing the theme for your internal event and setting a date, there are some steps you need to follow in order to have a great virtual employee engagement event. Here’s a practical breakdown:

1. Choose a platform that enables you to easily create an event, preferably with an integrated live chat.

2. Do a breakdown of the event specifics. Organize the agenda, see if there are any specialists, teachers or speakers that should be brought in, and plan the pre and post-event marketing strategy.

3. Announce the event 30 days beforehand to promote internally and gather attendees. Don’t forget to send sporadic reminders to your team across your internal channels. 

4. Partner with internal influencers and leaders who can advocate for the event among peers to raise awareness about the initiative. 

5. Host the event, taking note of how employees are reacting to the content that is being brought to them. 

6. After the event, solicit attendees’ opinions to understand what they enjoyed, and cross that information with the internal data you have available.

Optimize Your Digital Event with Prime Tools

Hosting virtual team building events is essential for growing employee engagement and fostering a strong community, even when team members are physically distant. By investing in regular virtual events, companies can ensure their remote teams remain motivated, engaged, and united, ultimately driving better performance and satisfaction.

Arena Community and Live Chat are invaluable tools for facilitating virtual team building. They provide real-time communication and interaction, making it easy to host engaging activities and keep your remote team connected. With these tools, you can seamlessly organize and manage events that bring your team together, create a sense of connection and belonging, promote collaboration, and boost morale.

Grow Engagement With A Virtual Community

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Building a virtual community is a powerful way to have a positive impact. Online communities have tremendous flexibility in terms of time and participation. Yet many organizations miss opportunities to enrich their live events with an online community platform.

What Is A Virtual Community?

There are various ways to define a virtual community. Some researchers focus on questions of social identity, but our definition is more straightforward: a virtual community is a group of people who communicate digitally around a shared interest.

For example, there is a thriving virtual community in many parts of the technology industry. If you want to ask questions and get advice about Microsoft, Salesforce, and other platforms, there is an online community for those interests. Many virtual communities are also dedicated to sports, movies, TV shows and hobbies.

For publishers and companies, starting or growing a virtual community or even a series of online communities has significant attractions.

The Pros and Cons of A Virtual Community

Starting and growing a virtual community has multiple benefits for your community members and the event organizer. Here are some of the essential benefits to keep in mind.

Pros of Having a Virtual Community

Establishing a virtual community for your audience offers significant benefits, including making it easy to find warm leads.

  • Get More Leads

Thriving online communities related to your company are a ready source of potential leads. With the right approach, your community may act as a sounding board for new product ideas and as early adopters. While that is an exciting benefit, your virtual community has to offer your community members appealing benefits, or you will lose people over time.

  • Increase Engagement

For some organizations, like online media companies, growing audience engagement is their top goal. For publishers seeking to maintain or grow their paid subscriber base, offering a virtual community goes a long way toward achieving those goals. Online community growth becomes more manageable when your audience responds to new posts, announcements, and more. A more engaged audience is more likely to purchase and engage with advertising.

  • Differentiate Your Brand

You’ve probably spent considerable time and effort creating a distinct and memorable brand. Yet few people outside the company likely understand your brand promise as profoundly as you might hope. Most potential customers are thinking about their families, needs, and problems – your brand probably doesn’t come to mind too often.

That’s where offering a compelling virtual community makes a positive impact. When people associate your brand with a community of friends who share their interests, your brand will become more appealing. Over time, a strong community can translate into significant brand loyalty and a greater willingness to accept premium prices.

  • Improve Mental Health

Seeing mental health on this list might surprise you because it may not be one of your goals. However, giving people access to a solid online community where they can connect with others who share their interests matters. Developing a positive and inclusive virtual community may help people reduce anxiety and the impact of other problems like loneliness.

That said, a thriving online community hub is not the same thing as treatment. But every bit of positive human connection your community offers can help people get through a rough time.

Cons of Having an Online Community

While there is much to be said about running a virtual community, there are some disadvantages to keep in mind.

  • Virtual Community Is A Long-Term Strategy

Developing a thriving virtual community will yield results, but these results often take years to yield fruit. In that sense, a running virtual community tends to produce better results when running alongside other marketing strategies. That said, there is a shortcut to building a virtual community faster, which we will reveal in the next section.

  • A Virtual Community Requires Leadership and Content

Most thriving online communities revolve around leaders and content. For many small businesses, the founder may act as the leader, content creator, and community facilitator. In a larger organization, these roles can be shared among several people. In the long term, it is sometimes possible to recruit members of your community as well.

In the beginning, expect to invest considerable sweat equity in your virtual community. A successful content strategy is vital to making the community attractive. Without an appealing content strategy, it will be hard to see the value of your community. When the community is small, take the time to interact with each new member who signs up.

  • A Virtual Community Requires The Right Technology

Setting up the technology needed to launch a digital community may feel daunting. At a minimum, a virtual community needs message board capabilities so that people can post messages and receive a community response. While useful, a message board is probably not enough to make your virtual community appealing. Instead, take inspiration from thriving online communities (e.g., the gaming community), which include video chat, live chat, and virtual events.

One Shortcut To Jump Start Your Virtual Community

Developing a thriving virtual community takes time, but there is one way to accelerate the process: events. Specifically, running a virtual or hybrid event can help ignite your community’s growth. Unlike a simple online message board, events are different.

In contrast to an always-available online group, an event is a limited and scarce experience. Since the event occurs at a specific time and place, there is a real sense of scarcity. That scarcity helps to make the event more valuable. Furthermore, a virtual event that uses a proven process, like our virtual event checklist, is well organized and tends to offer relevant content to participants.

How To Bridge The Gap Between Virtual And Real Communities

The value of connecting a virtual community and a traditional community is all about finding the best of both worlds. Let’s look at a few examples in both the corporate and educational settings that illustrate the power of these events.

Specifically, adding live chat to your online events makes a tremendous difference in bringing your community together. With live chat, you can get feedback from your peers, answer questions and build connections.

Bringing Together In Persona And Virtual Communities For Companies

The booming popularity of remote and hybrid work arrangements has delivered considerable benefits. Flexible schedules and greater work-life balance are precious. Yet the lack of real-time interaction over coffee or lunch can make it more difficult to form strong relationships. The critical technology to enable these virtual communities is implementing a live chat, because it makes it easy and simple to share comments, questions and more.

To enrich your community, start with these virtual community and virtual event ideas.

Annual Company Conference

Many companies run annual conferences to connect with their customers, recognize top performers and announce important events. Adding a virtual community to this type of corporate event helps in several ways. First, you can accommodate more participants, including those who might be unable to travel to the event in person. Second, you can extend the conference experience before and after the official conference date. For example, you might launch “teaser videos” about the conference keynote speakers in advance to spark greater excitement.

Sales Kick Off

Supporting the company sales team is a critical leadership responsibility. Success in sales requires perseverance in the face of pressure, disappointment, and stress. Offering encouragement, relevant training, and other resources in a sales kick-off event can help the sales team to thrive.

Enriching your sales kick-off event with a virtual community helps deepen the event’s value. For example, you might invite a sales expert like Jeb Blount about one of his books, “Fanatical Prospecting” or “Selling The Price Increase.” To support your team in applying the lessons of the book covered in the keynote, set up a virtual community where people can come together to share their wins, questions, and other comments weekly.

Recruitment Events

Attracting high-quality graduates and employees to work for your organization is becoming more difficult in many countries. As of July 2022, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that US unemployment has fallen to 3.5%. In other words, many workers have choices. New methods like recruitment strategies are needed for employers seeking to compete for the best talent.

Enhancing recruitment with a virtual community starts with taking a long-term view of talent. Instead of engaging students when they are a few months away from graduation, start earlier. This might take the form of establishing a virtual community for your summer internship program. Give your current and prospective employees a chance to interact with your current staff, ask questions and find out why they should consider working with you.

By the way, you don’t have to restrict yourself to cultivating graduates and younger professionals only. For inspiration, look at the virtual communities that the world’s leading consulting firms have long cultivated. PwC, a global leader in accounting and consulting, runs a US alumni program that offers on-demand learning to help alumni succeed, networking opportunities, and career opportunities for former employees.

Fostering Higher Education Using Virtual Communities

For colleges and universities, virtual communities can make an even greater impact. The following introduces a few opportunities. For a comprehensive guide to virtual event ideas in higher education, see our post: 60 Awesome University Virtual Events Ideas. Organizing a virtual event series is a powerful way to grow your virtual community.

Just make sure that you include live chat so that your students, alumni and other community members can easily participate – not everybody likes to appear on video after all.

College Orientation

Many colleges and universities have reported lower enrollment numbers over the past few years. The pandemic, high costs and the growth of alternative online learning opportunities have some questioning the value of traditional post-secondary education.

Offering a robust college orientation experience is one way that campus leaders reach out to their students. In addition to traditional orientation activities and parties, look for ways to build a virtual community that starts before students arrive on campus.

The assigned reading of new books includes memoirs, novels, essays and other works. For example, the University of Delaware assigned “While the Earth Sleeps We Travel: Stories, Poetry, and Art from Young Refugees Around the World” by Ahmed M. Badr. Meanwhile, Siena College has assigned the Pulitzer Prize winning novel “The Nickel Boys” to new students. Giving students a book to read before they arrive on campus gives them a tangible connection to campus long before they show up in person.

These reading recommendations help to give students common ground with their peers and to start their learning journey. Why not invite students to join a virtual community where they can discuss the book and raise other questions before they arrive on campus?

College Career Fair

After paying thousands of dollars in fees, many students are hungry to discover their career opportunities. Traditional career fair events offer invaluable networking opportunities. These events are not accessible to all students, especially those with significant family or work commitments. Asking a student to give up a paying shift to attend an event may not be realistic in some cases.

Offering a virtual community to support college career events makes a big difference. For instance, you can invite students to join sub-groups focused on exploring certain professions like accounting, nursing, nonprofits, or engineering. By giving students more time and space to come up with questions and seek support, students are more likely to discover various career paths.

Alumni Organization

Once students leave campus, that doesn’t mean they have left the college community. Many colleges have long-established alumni associations that organize events, networking databases, and other resources. Keeping alumni engaged with valuable insights and opportunities means your alumni are more likely to be open to making donations and volunteering. Just think about the opposite case – what if you only heard from your college alumni association when they had a donation campaign? It might feel like a one-way relationship, and such relationships tend not to last long.

What if you’re not sure what to offer your alumni? Take inspiration from the McMaster University Alumni Association. In 2020, they solicited feedback from their alumni and received dozens of suggestions, including requests for online events. Many of these suggestions could be integrated into a virtual community format. For instance, one alumnus requested computer skill training for older people curious about digital technology.

Get Started Building Your Virtual Community

Starting a virtual community is an exciting journey, but it’s not one you should take alone. Find out about Arena’s Social & Communities page for more information on how we can help you grow faster.

5 Tips When Setting Up Arena Live Chat For Virtual Learning

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Virtual learning is much more than just educating via the web. Powered by the best technology, it can enhance the learning experience with the right tools. 

More: virtual learning is a whole new way of thinking and teaching, which has a lot of benefits. 

There are also some challenges to be solved, like student engagement.

That’s when a Live Chat tool, like Arena’s, can make a real difference. 

Connecting instructors and students on a friendly platform, Arena Live Chat can be a powerful ally to those who want better results from virtual learning. 

See below for tips & tricks for setting up Arena Live Chat before your class starts.

Planning Digital Education: Create Live Chats In Advance

 Digital education has possibilities that only digital can offer. Arena Live Chat allows you to create chat rooms in advance, thus, saving precious time in the future.

This is especially useful when you are planning an entire course with multiple classes and modules.

And, with Arena Live Chat, this is very easy to do. Just follow the steps below!

  1. Login into your account
  2. Inside the Dashboard, click on Live Chat
  3. Start creating chat rooms

The chat rooms will be automatically saved, and available for use whenever you want. 

For more detailed “how to” steps, check out our article on “How To Setup Arena Live Chat in Advance: tips, tricks & best practices.”

Preparing a High-Class Virtual Classroom with Content Manager

Virtual learning is very dynamic. Every minute is important, and no time can be wasted in a virtual classroom looking for content to illustrate a subject.

The risk is high: you can lose student engagement.

So, to help you get your classes 100% ready, Arena Live Chat has a Content Manager.

There, you can upload all the assets (images and videos) that you’ll use to enrich class lessons.

You can also create specific folders for specific classes to organize your material better.

It’s very simple to use – just a few clicks and voilá! 

  1. Inside the Dashboard, click on Content Manager at the Menu tab on the left
  2. Click on New
  3. Click on New Folder
  4. Start to drag & drop files

Use Polls to Get Real-Time Insights

Arena Live Chat has a polling tool, which can be used to get real-time insights from your students. 

They’re a great way to measure if your content is being assimilated by the students, for example. 

And, you can also prepare polls ahead of time, instead of creating them during the class, thereby, keeping the class involved. 

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In the dashboard, click on Live Chat, then on Polls, then fill out the fields, and click on Save Draft.

  1. Inside the dashboard, click on Live Chat
  2. Click on Polls
  3. Fill out the fields
  4. Click on Save Draft

For more detailed “how to” steps, check out our article on “How To Setup Arena Polls in Advance: tips, tricks & best practices.”

Get Closer To Your Team On Distance Learning 

Education is a team work. And, even working remotely, great teams equal great work when acting together as one unit on distance learning. 

That’s why Arena Live Chat can be controlled at the same time by more than one person, each with various roles and different access to functionalities. 

Roles like an instructor and a moderator, for example, which is very common in virtual learning.

Just follow the steps below.

  1. Inside the dashboard, click on Profile
  2. Click on Invite People
  3. Fill out the forms with the email addresses of your staff

Enriching Learning Experience with Conversion Cards

Conversion Cards are one of the most powerful features of Arena Live Chat to help improve virtual learning experience immediately. 

With them, you can easily share resources during a virtual class, like an Ebook, an exercise, etc. 

So, having the cards on hand is essential for fast deployment, and you can easily create them before the class begins.

One, two, three steps 🙂

  1. Inside the dashboard, click on Live Chat
  2. Click on Conversion Cards
  3. Create how many you think are necessary 

Conclusion: enhancing virtual learning with Arena Live Chat

Arena Live Chat can really take a virtual classroom to the next level. Using it, you can:

  1. Plan an entire course and create live chats for each class in advance
  2. Upload images and videos that you’ll use before the class starts
  3. Get real-time insights about your students with polls
  4. Work together with your team
  5. Easily share resources with Conversion Cards

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1XtqYhRxDM

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As a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual learning became commonplace for millions of people around the world in the last few  years. There’s a lot of room for improvement yet, but some things are established already. Having a good tool to connect instructors and students (like Arena Live Chat) is a must-have, and, as in real life, good planning is essential if you want to achieve great results. 

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5 Powerful Live Chat Features for Digital Education

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Educators, administrators and student led organizations are realizing the benefit of using a Live Chat tool for blended learning and digital education. This is  because it can be used to create real connections between students, teachers and affiliated groups – like alumni or investors – on virtual platforms.  

Research has shown that social interaction plays an important role in learning. Interacting with other people has proven to be quite effective in assisting the learner to organize their thoughts, reflect on their understanding, and find gaps in their reasoning and, as the world went digital over the pandemic, Live Chat emerged as one of the top tools for increasing social interaction in digital classrooms. That’s because Live Chat can make it easier to collaborate digitally, in real time, or, even to bridge virtual and IRL students together through a unified, collaborative, experience.

So, let’s explore the five features of Arena Live Chat that immediately enhance the whole digital education experience, especially in blended learning environments.

Upgrading Digital Education with a Live Chat

One of the greatest challenges for digital education is to enrich the students’ learning experience (LX) in a significant way. In the post-COVID world, where many classrooms have permanently adopted blended learning tactics, there are thousands of stories of students (and teachers!) with “zoom fatigue”, who either turn off their cameras, or use other tactics to fake engagement. 

This is where Arena’s Live Chat features can help to drive, and track engagement. There are a few reasons why:

  1. Arena works like the chat programs many students prefer on other platforms – like YouTube or Twitch – making adoption easy.
  2. Arena allows educators (and students!) to add content in real time, making it easy to engage and react to what’s happening.
  3. Arena offers chat logs and engagement reports, so teachers can analyze what worked, and what didn’t, across different courses, classes and events.

See it in action and discover how adding a Live Chat boosts your virtual classroom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ_JsnaXIWo

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Read on to learn more about how specific Live Chat features work, and get best practice tips to improve the learning experience.

Polls 

As in real life classes, knowing if a lesson was truly comprehended by students is a big uncertainty for instructors in digital education, but, of course, in real life, teachers can ask the question and easily see who’s engaged and who isn’t.

A Poll can easily solve this problem in virtual classes. And, it can be quickly enabled on the Arena Live Chat’s dashboard in just 2 clicks!

There are no limits to what you can ask and measure using Live Chat Polls and because they can be created quickly teachers can create engagement moments that capitalize on what’s happening in-class now. Even better, results can be stored and analyzed later in chat logs and engagement reports. More on that below!

Q&A 

No matter what subject is being taught, there will be areas of uncertainty.

To turn this situation around into a more satisfying experience, Arena Live Chat has a Q&A (Questions and Answers) feature. When combined with content moderation features, you can strike the balance between open collaboration, and moderated control that fits best for each course, class, or event.

Like everything in Arena solutions, set up is very-very easy: it takes just a few clicks to make things work.

Using this feature is easy. Once you’ve enabled the Q&As, you’ll see a tab on the Live Chat widget. And, when a question is posted, you have the power to approve it, or not. Note, replying to questions out loud during a live event or live class is what likely comes natural to most educators, but don’t forget to also post the answer using the Q&A feature, so that you can keep a record of this for later.

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Conversion Cards  

Of course the cornerstone of any lesson is content. Luckily sharing content in Arena Live Chat is easy! As with most of our features, content collaboration can be set up in just a couple of clicks and the next step is setting up how much sharing access you want to provide to your students. 

Our chat provides the ability to grant or restrict different content types to accommodate different needs as well as the ability to add profanity filters to ensure respectful, class-safe conversations.

Please see below for a list of common content types used by educators, administrators and students:

  • Case Study
  • Ebook
  • Cheat Sheet
  • Study Lesson
  • Articles

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Or, a subscription form to a mailing list. 

Once again: sky’s the limit. 

Chat Log History & Engagement Reports

Every class has its moments that make it unique. 

Even in digital education, there are remarkable questions, comments, and insights – words that help explain and expand worlds. 

But the challenge with a lot of engagement tools today is that the data from one class is lost afterwards, and can’t be connected to the data from other classes. Arena’s chat logs and engagement reports solve this by allowing educators to go back in time to see historical conversations, questions, answers, polls and, of course, engagement to track how these insights have trended over time.

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And, they can be downloaded to a single CSV file (which is easily opened in an Excel -or- similar sheets software).

Monetization & Fundraising 

Last, but certainly not least: some of the 500+ schools that use Arena have expanded its use outside of the classroom, and into the administrative and marketing side. Fundraising at alumni relations events, or donations  during sponsored sports or art performances are some of the more out-of-the-box implementations we’ve seen. Usually this type of activation works best when paired with a live stream service, like Vimeo, and if that’s something you’d like Arena Live Chat can be used outside the virtual classroom as well.  

It can be used to raise funds.

There are three possibilities that can be used: Donations, Tip Jars, and Gifts.

All of them are simple to configure, and they’re connected to the major payments services on the web, like PayPal.

This is very useful in campaigns promoted by the community, parents, or alumni. 

Conclusion

Digital education is  just entering its maturity. After its boom during the pandemics, a lot of lessons were learned. Now, it’s time to apply them, and make sure that the learning experience (LX) continues evolving in an excellent and engaging way. Check out how edtechs are leveraging Live Chat to take their learning experience to a new level, and book a call to better understand how Arena is trusted by 500+ education institutes all over the world.

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60 Virtual Event Ideas For University Students

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The days of sitting in a boring classroom are over, thanks to the rise of remote learning. Universities and colleges need to innovate to keep students engaged. These 60 university virtual event ideas will give you plenty of inspiration. Also, read this insightful How Stanford, University of Pennsylvania & Caltech Students Run Virtual Events article recently published by Arena.

Keep reading to discover ideas and examples from creative students and universities across the country. Whether you’re looking for a way to learn life skills like cooking, network with alumni or spend an afternoon creating music with friends, you’ll find something for you in this guide to online event ideas for college students.

Download the free ebook: Online event ideas for colleges & universities that work

Once you see an event idea you like, explore Arena’s solutions for education for the following steps on how to bring your event to life with technology.

60 University Virtual Events Ideas

1. Share documentation of previous university-wide lectures

Learning must always be at the student’s reach. If your university keeps records of previous guest speakers who made notable declarations, you can share them with your student body to keep their thirst for learning going. Keep them engaged by hearing them out through a follow-up discussion.

2. TED Talks School Edition

The concept of this virtual activity is to share bite-sized learning that is powerful enough to motivate students through tough times, for example. Some can also nominate a video clip to be played and make a thorough explanation of how the message of the clip got through to them.

3. Spill the Tea

This is a phrase commonly used by young students today when they want to get more information about a certain topic that catches their interest. It may not necessarily be a tea though, attendees can have their hot drinks like coffee, cocoa, or hot milk. The activity is as simple as picking one hot or pressing topic and allowing everyone to discuss their opinions in turns.

4. Lunch and Learn

This activity is somewhat similar to “Spill the Tea” but on a different setup. Instead of hot drinks, students can talk about interesting topics while having lunch and learn from each other.

5. Amateur Podcaster’s Corner

We are sure that in every group of students, some have an interest in voicing their opinions or talking about a certain topic over a mic, recording it, and sharing it with their peers. With this virtual activity, listeners can participate even when they are doing household chores.

6. Alumni Networking Activity

Keep not just your students engaged but also your pool of alumni. Through this, they will be able to network with your students and bring with them possible employment opportunities for your current enrollees. Students can also learn valuable insights from someone who has something in common with them, your university.

7. Workshop on Hosting Webinars

Many of these ideas involve technologies for hosting webinars and virtual conferences. To keep your students engaged, allow them to cast their ideas out while teaching them how to manipulate this technology on their preferences.

8. DIY Tutorials

It catches students’ interest if they can learn a simple skill aside from the lessons they learn from formal classes. A simple tutorial on how to do stuff that they will enjoy will also make them thirsty for more learning.

9. What-Grown-Ups-Do lessons

Adulting may be an informal term to call it but there surely is a lot of learning to be unlocked in conducting these lessons!

10. Master Chef lessons

Now that all of us spend most of our time at home, students can easily get bored. Help them appreciate the joy of cooking their meals instead of opting for microwaveable food. Simply livestream your creations, take the most “Instagrammable” picture of the food, and leave them asking for more.

11. Financial Literacy TV

Saving money is way beyond chasing discounts and coupons! Whether it is your students’ program or not, financial literacy is vital for them to acquire wealth. Teach your students the basics of saving, investing, and other financial instruments which we bet they will thank you later on.

12. Coping with COVID Groups

Besides the relatability of this topic, the long-lasting effect of the pandemic needs to be addressed among your students. Use this program for them to share their experiences and how they are coping with the pandemic.

13. Socratic Philosophers Group

The concept of this group is more of a Q&A discussion among the students where they can discuss their thoughts about life. Consider facilitating this with a Philosophy or Ethics professor and make your students appreciate Humanities on a deeper level.

14. Get-Psyched!

Let students know themselves more by administering personality tests to them. Nothing ever interests people more than knowing themselves better.

15. Learn a New Language Group

It is said that learning a new language improves the confidence and intellect of people because they form new connections now and then. Engage your Linguistics Department and help them teach students from other program languages that interest them.

16. Social Awareness Group

The pleasure of helping out others is the same as with the helpers. Volunteerism is a good value that your university can inculcate your students. Simply form objectives and together, a small effort of every member will go a long way when everyone does.

17. For-Cause Celebrations

Every month, you will find days of “international affairs” that are celebrated. Take part in these movements to keep your students abreast of what is happening in society. Celebrations like Earth Hour, Pride Month, World Youth Day, and a lot more can be an avenue for their engagement.

18. Virtual Museum Stroll

In learning more about our history, you do not anymore need to step inside an actual museum and glance at the richness of our heritage. With this program, you will be able to take your students on a virtual tour of museums.

19. Journaling Sessions

Little has been said about it, but keeping a diary has its benefits to us. By writing even some of the most menial tasks, it helps in storing and retaining information in our brain which makes it sharp. Pair this session with calming music to enhance the experience.

20. Indoor Jungalow

This concept is about teaching your students the hobby of gardening in their homes. Thus, the word jungalow. You can share gardening videos that will teach them techniques on taking care of plants and see them grow together.

21. Self-Awareness

Because of social media, students are bombarded with tons of information and sometimes, they can get easily distracted by all the noise. Help your students relax and get back to themselves through meditation.

22. Home Fitness Sessions

Encourage your students to get fit even at home. Collate exercises that are easy to do in front of their screen but will make them sweat. Through this program, you are helping your students maintain their physical fitness and mental sharpness.

23. Nest Incoming Freshies

Because of the many changes that are happening around them, a freshman will surely get anxious as they enter university life. Help them out by having currently enrolled students connect with them and share their own stories to break the ice.

24. Bark-ual Class and Meow-ferences

Let your students take a break from being in front of the camera all the time! Destress with the cuteness of every household pet and let them step in the spotlight for a change.

25. Virtual Career Fairs

After having the degree, most of your students are motivated to join the workforce. Open opportunities for them by inviting organizations and employers who are on the lookout for fresh talents

26. Community Playlist

All students have different tastes in music, but a generation mostly knows similar ones. Get them in tune with music by contributing to a playlist they all love.

27. Dance Classes

Showcase your student’s talent by organizing a virtual dance showdown when they take your dance classes. Everyone is invited, even the ones who dance on two left feet.

28. Movie Critique Sessions

Film students will surely have their day when they share their opinions on a popular or independent film. You can stream movies so all your students can watch them together and discuss the events afterward. No spoilers are allowed!

29. Fine Arts Classes

Now, where is my beret? Let your students unleash their inner artist by holding paint classes and other fine arts classes. To keep them engaged, you can post a photo of a scenic view or a macro shot of food that they will paint. Disclaimer: This can get messy!

30. Vlogger-of-the-Day Competition

There are so many interesting things everyone can share throughout their day. With this competition, you allow your students to document their day and make it exciting. Students, staff, and faculty members can join.

31. Virtual Theatre

Even the landscape of theatre and performing arts has changed in the post-pandemic scenario. Showcase your students’ creativity by holding an online drama performance or an open-mic comedic monologue. When it comes to creativity and imagination, the sky’s the limit!

32. Best Room Decor Competition

All of your students probably take their virtual classes in their rooms. Allow them to showcase their study space by holding friendly competitions like this where they will take their creativity to the next level.

33. Holi-daily Celebrations

It is going to be a holiday every day somewhere in the world. Engage your students by asking them to research the most absurd holidays in the world that they can find and discuss them.

34. Crochet Match

Do your students have a hobby that they can share such as crocheting? Surely, not all of us know how to do it but holding this friendly competition is good for learning and developing a simple hobby.

35. House Tour

It has become popular content for YouTubers to showcase their homes to subscribers. Well, students may have something unique in their home that they can share with the group such as a walk-in cabinet, a fishpond in the house, or a golden staircase.

36. Sudoku Challenge

Sudoku is a great game for stimulating the mind and making it more analytical. Students will benefit from this challenge while incorporating this into their lessons. Simply reward the fastest student to solve the puzzle.

37. Crosswords Challenge

If your students get dizzy with Sudoku because of all the numbers in the puzzle. It is time to introduce this game to sharpen their vocabulary. Another similar game you can try is crossword puzzles.

38. Pets of the University Photo Competition

It is time to show off those pets whether exotic or not in a photo competition. Let your students dress their pets and post their photos on social media to capture the engagement of the netizens.

39. Online Charades

Take some time off from draining lectures and play charades with your students to break the ice. Plus, there are apps online where you can generate words to make your charades more exciting.

40. Online Quiz Bee

There is so much trivia around us where students can learn. Get creative by assigning themes like history, politics, or just some memes. The winner gets to choose the next round’s questions.

41. E-Games Tournaments

E-Sports has gained momentum when the pandemic arrived. Now, there are a lot of recognized E-Sports that are played internationally. Challenge your students to an E-Games Tournament and reward the Champion. There may be newbies but take time to educate them with this kind of sports.

42. Most Creative TikTok Competition

There is a lot of #challenges in the TikTok app nowadays. Encourage your students to post their most creative TikTok content and you will be surprised at how they manipulate the app because it is the younger generation’s forte.

43. Digital Scavenger Hunt

A scavenger hunt game may not always be physical, but it can translate to the digital space as well. Take your students to a hunt over clues to answer your cryptic puzzles.

44. Baddest-Joker-Takes-it-All Contest

A good joke is funny, but a lame one is funnier! Let your students tell their corniest jokes and see who gets all the laughter.

45. Lip-Sync Battle

Be on a search on who among your students is the most musically inclined person by hosting a Lip-sync battle. No inborn talent is required, just good coordination between lips and lyrics.

46. Your Holiday Your Rules Contest

Remember the most absurd holiday competition we have just discussed? Well, it is time for your students to make their holiday based completely on them. It can be about traditions, the birthday of famous personalities, or certain university events. Let the whole campus vote on it to engage the community.

47. Co-Curricular Elective Groups

Besides the program of your students, give them a chance to learn more about topics that interest them. Who would have known that an Engineering student is interested in Humanities unless these programs are hosted?

48. Career Counseling Sessions

To give your students a boost in enriching their career and their expectations toward work after they graduate, it is best to have your guidance counselors available for this type of situation. Through this, your students will get to know more about what awaits them after they finish their degrees.

49. Resume and Cover Letter Groups

Your students’ resume is their ticket to employment. Teach them to leave the best first impression to prospective employers with advice from professors and other lecturers.

50. Creative Writing Centers

For students who want a career in writing, it is important to hone their skills and teach them techniques as early as now. Creative writing is both an art and a science so they need to know the fundamental ways on how to write a masterpiece.

51. Peer Facilitators Group

This group is the student version of guidance counselors. Of course, because of limited manpower and somehow a big discord in the ratio of counselors against students, it is good to train their peers to help resolve issues that concern them be it academic, personal, or social.

52. Academic Advisors Guild

This group is intended to be a help desk for students who need assistance with the field of study they are currently taking. Because of several factors that affect students’ motivation, academic advisors are there to let them see the bigger picture and help them navigate smoothly with the end goal of finishing their degrees.

53. Student Awards Ceremony

It is time to recognize your exemplary and outstanding students and give them the spotlight. By hosting this kind of event, you can recognize student leaders from various recognized organizations, academic scholars, and other achievements from your student community that are worth recognizing. It will motivate your students to strive harder and inspire them to become active members of their community.

# No time to read this article now? – Download a free PDF version of this blog post

54. Religious Services Group

As discussed earlier, a student may encounter several issues in the course of their life in the university and one of them is spiritual. Keep your students’ spiritual health in check by providing services from the chaplain or from various religious sects that are part of the student community.

55. Virtual University Fairs

It is time to open your gates to prospective students and show them how the student life in your university looks like to give them a clearer view of the big picture. This is also an opportune time to showcase your outstanding alumni and entice them to enroll in your school.

56. Virtual Summits

Host virtual summits for important university events like your foundation day and hold breakout groups depending on your student’s interests and inclinations.

57. Live Concert

Admit it, we all miss going to a live concert since the pandemic started. Take advantage of today’s technology by holding live virtual concerts in the comfort of your students’ homes.

58. Online Photo Booth

Explore filters from social media apps with this online photo booth and you will find out that there is so much to discover there.

59. Code Breaker Games

Challenge your students’ mental capacity by solving complex questions as a group. Since there is a lot less physical requirement for this game, your students will get their brains to the test. The group that wins the most rounds gets the prize.

60. The Criminal Files Case Solving Games

Tickle your students’ imagination by making a hypothetical situation of a crime and make them collaborate to solve this mystery crime team-building activity.

How To Engage Students More Deeply

Besides all of the examples mentioned above, you might also want to check out some Virtual Event Strategies For Universities To Keep Students Engaged and how to Enhance the E-learning Experience with Live Chat to enhance virtual classroom experiences.

By implementing technologies like the Arena Live Chat and Live Blog, you will harness the ability to provide a platform where your students can voice their opinions, comments, messages to one another, participate in polls, and much more. In addition, with the integration of the Live Blog feature, your presence in the digital space is felt even more.

By publishing content into numerous social streams in real-time, your university is sure to reach students on whichever platform they are on. Know more about the benefits and strategies in holding successful virtual events by downloading our FREE E-book today!

And, in case you haven’t yet, you should check out how Pecege Institute leverages Arena Live Chat to allow students to engage in real-time with their teachers and classmates.