Category Archives: Group Chat

5 Online Events Ideas For Internal Meetings

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Most guides to online events focus on engaging customers or growing an audience. Those are worthwhile goals that are well worth pursuing. Focusing all of your online events on external groups carries a risk: your employees may become disengaged and withdraw their best contribution.

The High Cost of Low Engagement

There is plenty of research on the value of encouraging high employee engagement. In brief, high employee engagement means staff brings enthusiasm, new ideas, and creativity to their work. On the other hand, low engagement means employees are focused on doing the bare minimum to get by. 

In the past, employee engagement discussions focused on motivation and productivity. There are new dimensions to employee engagement given our experience over the last few years – well-being. According to new Gallup research, only 24% of employees feel that their employees care about their overall wellbeing. 

Feeling cared for has significant benefits for organizations. Employees who feel their employers care about their wellbeing are 69% less likely to be searching for a new job. Further, these employees are 71% less likely to experience significant burnout. 

Driving high employee engagement and well-being requires multiple strategies, including events. If your organization has a hybrid or remote workforce, you need online events ideas for internal meetings.

Online Events Ideas for Internal Meetings For Growth

These online event concepts are powerful tools to inspire your employees to pursue challenging goals.

1. Virtual Annual Sales Meeting

Annual sales meetings are a proven way to engage your salesforce. These events typically involve a compelling keynote speaker, presentations from executives, and insights to help salespeople succeed, rather than flying in employees from multiple locations.

To make your event memorable, use these tips:

Feature An Exciting Guest Speaker.

The right guest speaker can fill your sales reps with inspiration and tactics. For example, you might invite Jeb Blount to speak to your team about prospecting, negotiation, or other sales skills.

Offer Customer Data Insights.

Your most successful sales reps probably understand your customers deeply. What 

about the rest of your sales team, especially the new hires? They may not know your customer base as well. To give your sales team a leg up, equip them with insight from your customer data platform.

With the Arena customer data platform in place, you can identify critical patterns in customer behavior. For example, you might find that industrial customers typically read two ebooks before they join a sales call. In that case, you can suggest your salespeople adjust their efforts to reach out to the right prospects.

2. Giving Company Awards In An Online Event

Recognition is one of the most enduring human motivations. Paying your employees well is just the start of recognition. You can also make employees feel appreciated by giving them awards. A company awards event can work well online.

To maximize engagement in your awards events, you can use a few techniques.

Offer Prizes.

A plaque or trophy is significant, but offering a prize can make the award even more memorable. For example, you might offer a gift card to the best restaurant or hotel in town so your winner can have a memorable night out.

Be Specific When Giving Awards.

The public praise you receive upon receiving an award makes the experience much sweeter. Ask your event moderator to prepare a short speech of 30-60 seconds describing some of the award winner’s specific achievements (e.g., completing a complex IT project on time or exceeding sales quota)

3. New Leadership Online Event

The arrival of a new CEO means change. Employees will want to know about the new leader’s personality, goals, and background. Meet these expectations effectively by organizing an online event.

With this type of online event, strike a balance between the leader making a presentation and allowing plenty of time for employee questions. It is best to use Arena Live Chat to manage the question and answer session in a larger event. Arena includes content moderation capabilities so that you can avoid off-topic questions.

Online Events Ideas for Internal Meetings for Well Being

The above online events ideas are powerful to stimulate ambition and productivity. However, that type of event is not appropriate for every context. If your employees have been burning the midnight oil to meet a challenging deadline, your staff may have other needs. It’s more than possible that employee well-being has suffered. 

4. Diversity and Inclusion Virtual Event

When employees feel mistreated or discriminated against, they are less likely to thrive. Planning an annual online event related to your diversity and inclusion goals can make a big difference. 

There are different ways to structure this type of event. You might highlight specific inclusion efforts, such as efforts to promote women and people of color into management positions. Alternatively, you might share a progress update regarding your organization’s diversity goals.

Data and metrics are not enough to make this type of event successful. It’s also powerful to feature stories from your employees and leaders. For example, invite employees to share stories about facing discrimination and overcoming those challenges.

Advancing diversity and inclusion goals, especially when new to your organization, can provoke questions and controversy in some cases. Give your team members the chance to ask questions and seek clarification using Arena Live Chat.

5. Stress Management Online Event 

An online event focused on healthy stress management techniques can go a long way to helping employees feel better. Assuming you plan for a 60-minute online event, there is a limit to how much you can cover. 

Therefore, you might want to organize a quarterly event series covering different topics. This quarter, you might cover breathing exercises and meditation. Next quarter, you might focus on practical ways to set boundaries at work (e.g., start time, end time, and no weekend email). 

Bring Your Internal Meeting Event Idea To Life

There are all kinds of ways you can use online events ideas to inspire your workforce. You can introduce new leaders, give out awards and help employees improve their well-being.

An idea is not enough to create transformational results. You need specific techniques to plan your event’s content and technology so that everything runs smoothly. Download your copy of Arena’s live events ebook to learn how to plan and execute an engaging event in less than a week.

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Online Events Ideas For All-Hands Meetings

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Online events ideas for all-hands meetings make it easier to keep your employees aligned. Instead of a traditional event, online events allow you to optimize costs. Online events are also a key way to invite remote and hybrid employees.

What Is An All-Hands Meeting?

Think of an all-hands meeting as a crucial opportunity to bring together all employees at once. Also known as townhalls, this event includes different subjects and participants. An all-hands meeting may include a presentation from executives, a question and answer session with the CEO, and networking opportunities.

Organizing an all-hands meeting is worthwhile because it reduces misunderstandings and fosters trust. In an all-hands meeting, everyone has the chance to hear the same message from leaders at once. Meeting people from different departments and deepening relationships contributes to trust and ultimately drives higher productivity.

The Simple “Paint by Numbers” Way To Plan An All-Hands Meeting

Look at these online events ideas as different paintbrushes you can use to create images. Pick and choose from these event ideas to create variety for your employees.

1. Celebrate Wins

An all-hands meeting is a perfect setting to shine a light on your organization’s achievements. For example, the VP of Sales might recognize the highest performing sales representatives. In addition, look for ways to celebrate employees who have worked in alignment with your values (e.g., highlight a group of employees who demonstrate exceptional teamwork).

2. Plan An Ask My Anything Segment

On the website Reddit, the AMA (Ask Me Anything) segment is one of the most popular activities. Consider adopting this practice for your organization. This event is a great way to encourage leaders and employees to open up about their interests, hobbies, and lives.

Use a platform like Arena Live Chat to moderate the session to keep the questions focused.

3. Add “Breakout Room” Networking Time To Your Event

Imagine if you are one of hundreds (or thousands!) of employees attending an online all-hands meeting. You might feel disconnected, and the urge to work through a few work emails might be impossible to resist. There’s a solution to this problem.

Give employees a chance to connect using a breakout room. For the best results, there are two principles to use. Start by keeping the number of people in each room small: four to eight people per room is a good rule of thumb. Next, mix people from multiple departments and levels of seniority.

The randomness factor in a breakout room is vital. It is one of the best ways to approximate the serendipity of meeting new people in a conference room, hallway, or elevator.

4. Bring the fun! 

Traditional company townhalls are composed of two elements: presentations and question and answer sessions. In an online event, it can be challenging to stay fully engaged through multiple long presentations. That’s why adding some fun to your all-hands meeting is so important. It gives your employees a chance to relax, smile, laugh, and get to know their colleagues better.

Play a virtual trivia game.

Playing a trivia game is a great way to encourage friendly competition. Consider asking questions about company history and industry trends. A software company might pose questions like, “how many apps does our product integrate with?.” A Fortune 500 company might ask people about products (e.g., what is our best selling product in Europe?).

Add a comedy segment.

Did you know that there are leadership trainers and corporate speakers who make comedy a crucial part of their style? For inspiration, browse the comedy-centric business speakers listed on the Executive Speakers Bureau.

5. Welcome new people

Joining an organization, especially a large one, can be a scary experience. Newly hired employees are less likely to feel connected to their colleagues. You can accelerate their onboarding by rolling out the virtual welcome mat in your virtual all-hands meeting.

The way you welcome new people will partially depend on how many new hires you have to welcome. If there is a small number – say five people or less – you can invite each person to appear on video to introduce themselves. A different approach may be needed with a more significant number of new hires, like a presentation slide showing pictures of each new person.

6. Train two moderators for online events

Running a significant online event with a large audience and employee attendees means managing many moving parts. Keeping everything moving smoothly should not be taken for granted. That’s where moderators play a significant role.

For larger all-hands meetings (i.e., online events with more than 50 people), it is best to have two trained and prepared moderators. This approach means you’ll be covered in the event of illness, Internet service problems, and other problems.

Moderators can keep your event moving effectively in the following ways:

Set the event ground rules

Take a few minutes at the event’s start to review the event ground rules. For example, if the event will be recorded, make sure you tell everyone that fact at the start.

Introduce each speaker

Before a new speaker comes onto the virtual stage, introduce them briefly. Introductions help the speaker feel valued. Further, introductions help your employees put each speaker into context.

Run polls

Polls are an excellent way to gather quick feedback from your employees. Arena Live Chat makes it easy to run polls in your event.

How To Keep Employees Fascinated By Your All Hands

You can’t take employee participation in an all-hands meeting for granted. For example, sales reps might be more interested in focusing on closing deals than hearing company announcements. Likewise, software staff might be more interested in shipping new features.

The solution to these engagement challenges is twofold. Start by using the online events ideas for all hands covered above. There’s no need to start your planning process from a blank page. Once you have the right idea, it is vital to create an exciting event free of social media distractions.

Download your copy of the free Arena Live Events ebook to save time in planning your next live event experience for experiences.

Online Events Ideas for Companies: Boost Team Engagement

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Online events for companies inspire you to bring together your employees, customers, and communities. You no longer have to start from the blank page when planning online events.

Online events ideas for companies: Team Building 

Spending time and effort on team building is well worth the effort. Team building helps employees view each other as three-dimensional people with various interests, quirks, and skills. With better trust and relationships, productivity will increase.

1) Virtual Happy Hour

  • Planning Effort: Low
  • Impact: Low

Coming together to share drinks is a tried and tested way of forging connections in the business world. When you take this concept into the online context, some adjustments are necessary. You might want to ship a gift card to employees so they can buy their preferred drink to make a big impression.

As far as online events go, a virtual happy hour is simple and easy to plan. Since the event is simple and unstructured, it is a good starting point if you are new to running online events.

2) Virtual Meditation Class

  • Planning Effort: Medium
  • Impact: Medium

Many employees struggle to manage stress effectively. This type of online event can ease the burden of heavy demands on your staff. Even the Mayo Clinic has stated that meditation is a simple, fast way to reduce stress.

Organizing a virtual meditation session is relatively simple. Seek out a meditation teacher with experience running virtual sessions for business audiences. Remember that many, if not all, of your employees might be inexperienced with meditation, so we recommend taking a beginner-friendly approach.

3) Virtual Cooking Class

  • Planning Effort: Medium to High
  • Impact: Medium 

Cooking is a life skill that most people want to improve. You probably have a few go-to recipes that you use repeatedly. Why not challenge yourself and your team to learn something new in the kitchen? Organize a virtual cooking class to learn something new.

Depending on your approach, the type of online event requires a few hours to a few days of planning. At its simplest, you could ask an accomplished chef or baker on your team to lead the event. 

Alternatively, you can also hire a cooking instructor to deliver a session. For example, Sur La Table in New York offers virtual cooking classes for $29 per household. The organization offers classes in preparing salmon, pasta, pastries, and more.

Aside from the event team, your employees will also have to put in some effort to prepare. For the best results, focus on easy recipes that can be prepared in 30 minutes or less.

This type of virtual event has the potential to foster significant connections between your team. It gives everyone a chance to step away from the keyboard and make something. This kind of online event also lets participants involve all five senses! Make sure you include Arena Live Chat so that employees can easily ask for help and share their experiences.

4) Virtual Speed Networking

  • Planning Effort: Low
  • Impact: Low

As you explore different online events ideas for companies, it is crucial to tailor the idea to your company’s situation. If your company has recently hired many remote employees, that is an important reality to consider. Newly hired employees are less likely to have developed the internal networks and knowledge necessary to get ahead.

Organizing a virtual speed networking event is an excellent way to kickstart employee connections. The event format is simple. 

Schedule the event for 60 minutes and organize five ten-minute sessions. At the end of each 10-minute session, rotate people into a new meeting room. Break the ice by giving attendees a few starter questions (e.g., when did you join the company, your favorite movie, and what do you like doing outside of work)?

5) Virtual Murder Mystery

  • Planning Effort: Medium
  • Impact: Medium

Mysteries and detective stories – everything from Agatha Christie to Batman – have been famous for decades. These stories have human drama, clues, and intriguing puzzles to solve. To bring your team together, plan a virtual murder mystery online event!

For a hands-off approach, work with a facilitator like Detective Ness. Alternatively, you can run the session yourself by buying a kit like the Little Rock Horror Shop Murder! A virtual murder mystery event has outstanding team-building potential because you need to work together to solve a problem, analyze clues and ask good questions. 

6) Virtual Volunteer Event

  • Planning Effort: High
  • Impact: High

Corporate volunteering events have a long history of fostering team building while making the world better. At first, organizing a virtual volunteer event might feel tough. After all, you can’t exactly come together to paint a house, clean a yard or easily complete other tasks. Don’t worry; there are several ways to make this format work for you

The first option is to structure the virtual volunteer event as a celebration. With this approach, you’ll invite employees to spend a day volunteering with a local organization they love. Encourage them to take photos if permitted. A few days later, invite the volunteers to join an online event where they share photos and observations about their volunteer experiences.

As an alternative, you can also virtually perform some types of volunteer work! In this situation, think about your employees’ skills and which skills could be shared in a virtual context. For example, your employees might tutor students in math or English. Alternatively, you might offer a new immigrant networking session to help recent arrivals build connections. 

7) Virtual Holiday Event

  • Planning Effort: Medium
  • Impact: Medium

The holidays are an excellent time to bring together people for a celebration. For example, you might organize a virtual Halloween party close to October 31 where employees can show off their favorite costumes. Further, some companies plan a virtual Worksgiving event close to Thanksgiving to thank their employees. 

There is a critical nuance to scheduling a virtual holiday event: timing. You don’t want employees to feel compelled to show up for an event on Christmas Day or another official holiday. Instead, schedule your event about two to five days before the holiday.

From Online Events Ideas To Reality

Finding one or two live events ideas is just the beginning. Aside from simple events like a virtual happy hour, most of the best online events ideas for companies require planning, a team, and the right mix of technology. You’re not alone in this journey, though – download the Arena Live Events ebook to learn how to plan, promote, and run a successful online event.

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8 Online Event Ideas for News and Media Publishers

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Online events for publishers and media outlets are a growing way to engage audiences. Run these events effectively, and you can keep your website audiences engaged longer, grow loyalty, and increase ad revenue.

Online Event Ideas for News and Media Publishers

1) Panel Discussions are Great for Audience Engagement 

  • Who Is It For: people interested in the latest insights in a rapidly changing topic
  • What You Need For This Event: a small group of exciting speakers to share insights.

Industry panels are a well-established concept that many publishers and event organizers have run for years. The key to making them successful is to offer a unique experience. The unique experience can be crafted in several ways: access (i.e. the chance for Q&A with CEOs, executives, journalists), networking (i.e. a small event limited to few people) or new insights. 

Note that industry panels go by various names, including summits and forums. For example, the Atlantic has held health-themed events like People v. Cancer and the Education Summit. You don’t have to limit the event to health content. Bloomberg is offering a Technology Summit in June 2022 that will have virtual and in-person options.

2) Executive Focused Event Branded by News and Media Publishers

  • Who Is It For: executives with a common focus like marketing or finance
  • What You Need For This Event: emphasize exclusivity and quality

That’s one reason why it can be hard to keep growing as an executive. Your direct reports may not always feel comfortable bringing new ideas. Conversely, sharing your leadership difficulties with the CEO or Board is not the right forum. Giving executives a place to connect and learn from direct peers is a smart idea. 

For the best results, we suggest filtering attendees for quality. You might offer free admission but advise attendees that you will verify if the event is appropriate to them before handing out tickets. The CMO Club, organized by Salesforce, has featured guest speakers from General Mills, Instagram, and Virtualware.

3) Hobby / Passion Themed Events bring Audience Engagement

  • Who Is It For: attendees passionate about interest and looking to share their interest
  • What You Need For This Event: a guest speaker with deep knowledge of the field is critical.

Connecting with like-minded people who share your passion for history, wine, literature, gaming, and other subjects is exciting. You may already have a lineup of potential speakers – editors, staff, and contributors with specialized expertise as a publisher. Decanter, a wine magazine publisher, has offered virtual events with two ticket options: a ticket with a shipment of wine (£195 or $324 US) and a ticket to the virtual event online only (£10 or $17 US).

As the Decanter example shows, passion and hobby-themed events can be structured in various ways. You can make your event more exclusive by offering to ship a unique item to the audience. This could be as simple as a copy of the guest speaker’s book or as rare as autographed memorabilia.

4) Viewing Party is Also a Good Event Idea

  • Who Is It For: participants with a shared interest in video or TV shows
  • What You Need For This Event: offering prizes or exclusive guests are one way to make a viewing party more appealing

It can be tough to find people who share your taste in today’s world of countless streaming services. Publishers can meet this need by organizing a viewing party. For example, Nerdist organized a virtual watch party for the classic movie “The Princess Bride” in 2020. You can use Arena to run your viewing party – just like Gizmoplex did with a classic movie recently.

5) Offer Early Access To Subscribers Will Grow Your Audience 

  • Who Is It For: publishers with well-known award lists and coverage that people look forward to 
  • What You Need For This Event: A significant audience passionate about a specific topic

For many years, the New York Times Book Review has published lists for the year’s best books. Recently, the publisher created an exclusive virtual event based on their list. The New York Times described a 2021 online event in the following terms:

How do editors of The New York Times Book Review choose the annual 10 Best Books list? Which fiction and nonfiction works made the cut, and why? This year, Times subscribers were the first to find out. On the morning of Nov. 30, before the list was published, The Book Review announced this year’s 10 Best Books list in a virtual event just for subscribers.

6) Organize An Event With Focused Demographic

  • Who Is It For: publishers looking to connect with a specific segment of their audience 
  • What You Need For This Event: A compelling virtual event concept that applies to the target demographic

Many publishers and news organizations have large audiences. Attempting to appeal to everyone in a virtual event is difficult, if not impossible. Instead, consider developing an event focused on a specific audience. Forbes organized the “Forbes 50 over 50” event to celebrate people who have achieved success later in life. Publishers can also apply this concept to other demographics like recent college graduates, women, and others.

7) Host A Multi-Part Virtual Event Series

  • Who Is It For: publishers with an audience passionate about reading
  • What You Need For This Event: A high profile author with a new book coming out

New books by well-known authors have a proven track record of attracting fans. The traditional approach to this type of event is to invite the author to read from their book and invite questions from the audience. That’s not the only way.

History Extra, a history magazine in the United Kingdom, recently offered a five-part virtual lecture series called “The Aftermath of World War II, with Keith Lowe.” Attendees can pay to register for a single event or pay to attend all of the lectures. In addition to the event itself,

8) Plan A Week-Long Event

  • Who Is It For: publishers with experience running more extended events. 
  • What You Need For This Event: a significant number of guest speakers.

Some publishers have a track record of organizing multi-day events. The organization has scheduled Future Healthcare Week Asia. This event is a hybrid format – attendees can participate in-person or online. The Economist event features dozens of speakers to fill a multi-day schedule.

Leverage First-Party Data with CDP 

Collecting data about what your audience likes with Arena customer data platform is vital. With a CDP in place, you’ll know which of your content sparks the highest engagement across all of your assets – articles, videos and events. Unlike surveys, Arena CDP is seamless and doesn’t require time from your users. Click here to start your Arena free trial.

Make More Out of Every Online Event

The online event examples above illustrate the wide range of possibilities publishers can offer. 

Whether you feature your journalists, invite external guests or take different approaches, excellent event content is the foundation of a successful event. 

As you offer more events, you’ll see the importance of interaction. Your audience wants the ability to ask questions and connect with others. Use Arena Live Chat – it takes less than 10 minutes to install – to transform your online event into a community experience.

6 Online Events Ideas for Sports Publishers

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Online events ideas for sports publishers are fast becoming one of the best ways to keep website audiences engaged. Use these online event ideas for inspiration – pick one or two that fit your team’s capabilities.

Six Online Events Ideas for Sports Publishers

1) Pre Game Online Events

Major sports publishers have long published stories and coverage before major games and competitions. For example, pre-game coverage for the Super Bowl is a staple of football coverage. To grow audience engagement, plan to offer pre-game online events. 

Here are two ways to plan your pre-game online events:

Interview A Player

Reach out to well-known players and interview them live during the online events. If a live interview is unworkable, you can pre-record an interview.

Bring The Data

The sports world is filled with data – spend some time with resources like Sports Reference or FiveThirtyEight. Once you have the data, create infographics to make that data exciting with fans. For example, you could highlight the players with the best scoring record and check if they are close to setting a record.

2) Organize A Sports Betting Strategy Event

In the United States, legal sports betting is booming since a 2018 Supreme Court decision allowed states to legalize sports betting. With millions of dollars changing hands, sports fans are eager for insights to improve their odds.

Building an online event around sports betting can be simple – organize a panel discussion with a question and answer session. For example, you might invite a few sports betting experts like Larry Gibbs, an expert on the sports betting field, or Alex Kane, CEO of a sports trading app.

Tip: consider charging a fee or limiting access to paying subscribers only to make this online event more exclusive.

3) Take Sports Fans Behind The Scenes With Coaches and Trainers

Many people are attracted to professional sports because it is exciting to watch elite athletes perform. Imagine if you could pull back the curtain on how famous athletes achieve success. That’s the essence of this ‘behind the scenes’ online events concept. 

A sports publisher lets fans into their favorite athletes’ locker rooms and gyms with this event. You could run the concept of this online event multiple times for each sport. For example, you might have a session on how athletes like Olympic runner Colleen Quigley and Michael Jordan used meditation to improve their performance. 

Tip: Use Arena CDP to gather data on your attendees as they participate in these events. If you find that your audience is much more engaged in basketball content or specific players, you can use that insight to create better events in the future.

4) Explore The Business of Sports

The sports industry produces billions of dollars in revenue each year. Some parts of your audience may be curious to learn more about the intricacies of the business. This online event idea might explore new trends like NCAA athletes earning money, contract negotiations, and the rise of sports-themed startups.

Queen’s University in Canada recently organized a virtual event dedicated to the business of sports in February 2022. The Queen’s event illustrates how bringing together a varied group of panelists – lawyers, executives, and entrepreneurs – can create an exciting event.

5) Run A Sports Equipment Gear And Apparel Online Event

The right equipment can make a significant difference in your sports performance. That’s why elite cyclists and golfers often spend thousands of dollars to get the best equipment. Sports fans also want to know about the latest and greatest in equipment.

This online event idea for sports publishers also offers great monetization opportunities. For example, you can reach out to manufacturers and retailers to request free products to review. Also, you might sell sponsorship spots in the section. 

To make a virtual gear event compelling, plan to demonstrate a variety of gear at different price points. For example, you might have a virtual event dedicated to golf clubs before the golf season. The event could feature entry-level golf clubs, intermediate equipment, and pro-level equipment.

Tip: Make sure you use Arena Live Chat to gather questions from your audience about the equipment you’re demonstrating.

6) Live Blog A Major Game

Dedicated sports fans can’t get enough when a championship game is on! Think about the world series in baseball –  the event attracted over 11 million viewers in 2021. That intense level of interest creates an opportunity for sports publishers to create online events.

Running a live blog during a major sporting event is easier when you prepare in advance. Use these ideas to prepare a few blog posts in advance. With advanced preparation, online events ideas for sports like live blogging become less stressful. Fox Spots Australia is doing a great job using Live Blog and Live Chat during its online coverage, averaging over 500 monthly live events.

Report on Player Injuries and Absences.

When a team misses a key player due to an injury, penalty, or other reason, it can dramatically impact the outcome. Casual sports fans may not track such details closely, so your live blog can remind them of these details as the game gets started. 

Introducing New Players.

Has the team recently recruited or traded players? If so, your audience wants to know more about the new player. Prepare notes about the new player’s key statistics and background.

Prepare Content About Recent Controversies.

Controversial decisions sometimes play a significant role in sports. In early 2022, the Cincinnati Bengals won their first playoff victory in decades thanks to a whistle error. If your online events involve the Bengals or their opponents – the Las Vegas Raiders – it would be wise to have commentary prepared about this mistake and its implications.

Running your live blog smoothly helps to use the right tool. Arena Live Blog is a light blogging platform that can be installed in minutes. Arena also makes it easy to discover and feature social media content – like tweets by players – during your online event.

How To Run Online Events Without Facebook and YouTube

Sports publishers tell us they’re worried about relying too much on Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms to execute their online events ideas for sports. 

When you rely on these platforms, your audience can easily get distracted by notifications and disengage. The solution is simple – end your dependence on those platforms and create your own online events platform. Get started today by using Arena’s free live events ebook.

The Top 7 Trends in Digital Marketing in 2022

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Knowing the top trends in digital marketing in 2022 is critical to hitting your goals. New opportunities are vitally important, whether you are looking to increase audience growth, engagement, leads, or conversions.

Achieving early success on newer marketing platforms often leads to big wins. In the early days of Facebook, it was easy to get significant amounts of organic traffic. In paid advertising, clicks from Google were almost shockingly inexpensive in the 2000s. To give yourself the best chance of winning this year, review these marketing trends and determine which impacts your goals.

The Top 7 Trends in Digital Marketing in 2022

1) TikTok Is Here To Stay

Since 2020, TikTok has exploded in popularity to more than 1 billion monthly active users as of September 2021. Those numbers put the platform in the same league as Facebook (2.9 billion monthly active users) and YouTube (2.3 billion monthly active users). Some digital marketing experts dismissed TikTok for a while because of the platform’s limited features and youthful demographics.

TikTok is changing, and major brands are achieving big wins. For example, e.l.f cosmetics has achieved over 1 billion views through their #EyesLipsFace campaign. The first step is to create an account for your brand and start to follow a few accounts.

2) YouTube Advertising Is Booming

YouTube, one of the most popular video-sharing sites globally, is getting better and better for advertisers. The video site earned tens of billions in revenue in 2021, far ahead of other social networks.

There are multiple ways to execute YouTube’s growth. You can use the platform’s extensive menu of advertising options, including skippable and non-skipped videos. Also, you can work directly with Youtubers to sponsor videos. 

3) Seize Early Adopter Advantage In The Metaverse  

In the fall of 2021, many digital marketers became excited about the potential of metaverse when Facebook embraced the concept by renaming itself. Since that time, some of the enthusiasm has faded away. 

For digital marketers with a long-term view, investing heavily in the metaverse this year can pay off for years. In contrast to social media platforms, metaverse technologies are relatively immature. The easiest way to get started is by adding a metaverse element to your online events. 

For those not yet convinced about the value of the metaverse, consider a few numbers. In 2021, Meta (the company formerly known as Facebook) invested $10 billion into metaverse efforts, according to the New York Times. There are also more than 300 active metaverse startups working on the technology. Spend some time in metaverse games and virtual reality this year to familiarize yourself with the technology and its potential. 

4) Non-fungible tokens (NFTs)

Over the past few years, NFTs have boomed in popularity reaching $21 billion in 2021. An industry forecast recently estimated that the global NFT market will grow to more than $80 billion by 2016. A significant amount of recent NFT activity is driven by low-interest rates and speculation. While NFT growth may slow as the hype cools down, the category presents a major opportunity for digital marketing,

By creating and issuing NFTS, brands have the opportunity to create new excitement. For example, Fortune created a NFT based on a magazine cover in 2021. Instead of spending heavily on traditional swag for conferences, it might just be the time to create NFTs to promote your online events.

5) First and zero party data

If you’ve been following recent moves by Apple and Google, you already know that traditional Internet marketing cookies are declining in value. The end of the marketing cookie means that marketers need to find new ways to understand their audiences. The old way of running retargeting campaigns on Facebook and Google are not going to produce the same results any longer.

The solution is to focus on first part and zero party data. First party data is data you collect directly from your audience. To collect that data, you need to give customers a reason to keep visiting your website like offering exciting content and online events is the first step to growing your audience. Once you have your audience on your website, you need a way to systematically understand them. That’s where using a customer data platform can make a vital difference. With Arena CDP, you can easily determine which content, online events and actions customers take on the road to making a purchase.

Once you have your foundation of first party data, you can start to gather more zero party data. The classic example of zero party data is a customer purchase intent like color or size of a product they are most interested in buying.

6) Live Shopping

Live Shopping remains a growing marketing opportunity for retailers and ecommerce brands. From a base of $21 billion in 2021, this opportunity is slated to grow to $35 billion by 2024 according to Statista.

The current approach to live shopping carries risks however. Today, the most popular platforms for live shopping events are YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Amazon Live. Relying exclusively on these platforms means your audience might get easily distracted by other content and notifications. Further, your ability to gather additional data for your customer data platform from third party websites is limited.

We forecast that more and more brands will shift their attention to creating their own live shopping events on their own sites. To ride this trend, use Arena Live Chat to power your live shopping event. 

7) Diversity and inclusion initiatives

Digital marketers are increasingly expected to respond quickly to our society’s social justice, diversity and inclusion expectations. According to Deloitte research, 35% of buyers in the 18-25 year old audience often notice representative advertising at the time of purchase. The research found a similar pattern in travel, household equipment and banking industries. 

However, don’t underestimate your customers – they can see through shallow efforts at inclusivity. Token efforts to fulfill diversity may even backfire and undermine your marketing objectives.

Instead, your goal must be to authentically embrace diversity in your marketing efforts. At a minimum, review your use of images and videos. Next, look at your reviews, testimonials and customer stories. It’s entirely possible that your brand has a significant blindspot like failing to include women.

The Marketing Channel To Invest In This Year

Live digital events are cost effective and convenient for your audience. At the same time, many marketers are still learning how to design and launch successful online events. To help you succeed in the online event world, check out free report on 2022 Virtual Events Trends.

SXSW 2022: Closing weekend impressions

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After 10 days with an agenda of promising technology outtakes and a variety of online events to watch, SXSW came to an end and left us excited with how technology is merging with the real world. Aside all the issues with online transmission, from the sound volume being too low, to unavailable chat for online viewers: it was, as usual, a massive opportunity to learn and understand what is happening in the world of technology.

With a final weekend full of exciting music attractions, such as first timer participant country singer and superstar, Dolly Parton, who partnered with FOX Entertainment’s Blockchain Creative Labs (BCL) to launch her first NFT experience “Dollyverse”, unarguably, the main topic of the conversations was around NFTs and the Metaverse. So let’s jump into the highlights of the weekend.

One Year Later: How NFTs Are Changing The World

Vladislav Finzburg (Blockparty), came back to SXSW 2022 a year later after talking about the initial stages of NFTs, bringing along updates, mostly with the mainstream adoption. He brought interesting topics of the gap between digital and physical NFTs and how the rise of NFTs, pointing out how brands and companies jumped full into the NFTs world – with innovative creation and an increased number of online transactions- even though it’s still circling around a niched group of people.

Bridging into the Metaverse: 5 Top Considerations for Brands

Metaverse was also a major topic of discussion, and in this session, Sebastien Borget, the co-founder and COO of The Sandbox, shared his insights about emerging best practices and top considerations for brands as they bridge over to  the metaverse. 

Brands such as Adidas and Warner Music are already making massive entries into the Metaverse. One topic that got our attention was, “How should brands protect themselves in the Metaverse?”. Data Privacy has been a huge topic of discussion over the past few years. We recently mentioned a couple of ways that data can be protected in the Metaverse in our blog.

It Starts on TikTok: Discovering Your Audience

The most downloaded app in 2021 was the main topic of this session with Carey Sheridan, US Head of Music and Content at Tiktok and Sadie Jean, whose first-ever song “WYD Now?” has become a certified sensation on the app, all because of the power of the #OpenVerseChallenge — a viral format that invites creators to duet with her during an instrumental opening of her song. A great example of why the community-driven video platform is impacting the music industry.

Next Gen Tech & The Live Entertainment Revolution

The fusion of the physical and virtual worlds in the entertainment world has brought so many opportunities to artists helping them understand their fans, and to fans living an elevated and personalized experience with concerts. For instance, Live Chat and Customer Data Platforms have been good examples of technologies that can be used  to create a Live Stream event. 

Conclusion

This edition of SXSW showed us that the future is here and we are already living in it. NFTs and Metaverse are already being worked into new technologies, and companies and specialists are very up front with innovative solutions and technology around various themes, like events, medicine, sports, entertainment and currency. And during these past 10 days, it  showed us nothing less than a brilliant technological future for us. 

It also was great to see it balanced with super sessions and themes about social justice & equity. Even though those who’re experiencing South by Southwest are somehow already connected with all the technology available, we have to see outside our own bubbles. A lot was said about what can be done to present opportunities and help bring the advantages that the technology has to where people have less access, and I believe this has to be the main topic of discussion for the next couple of years. We hope to see more conversations around access and inclusion in next year’s event. Are you already excited about SXSW 2023?

Check out our coverage for the first weekend and for all the other events that happened during the week.

SXSW 2022: What happened during the week

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The SXSW 2022 Conference agenda during the week was full of talks about technology and some extra special entertainment and music announcements. Our team focused on the talks about the metaverse, technology, and artificial intelligence, and here are some of our takes.

You can also find our impressions from the opening weekend here.

How is SXSW 2022 performing as a hybrid event? 

Considering we’ve been watching the SXSW 2022 online event, we have some criticisms to make about the transmission. As said to be a hybrid event, it was a bit frustrating to watch some of the sessions where the sound was so low, barely being able to understand what the speakers were saying.

Also, it is such a great opportunity to have a Live Chat during the talks, but in most of the events they were disabled. The ones that had it on were full of interaction between users, giving their point of view, and having live engagement and inputs between watchers. The tab with Q&A seems to be there just for show, as speakers were simply ignoring what was happening online, and only answering attendees who were physically there.

But, as someone who wanted to see most of the talks, being able to move around the rooms was very interesting and this made it possible to watch a great variety of events. Another great point was that most of the talks were made available on demand after a few days, or even on the following day giving us even more time to watch something we might have missed – or in some cases, rewatch what we had really enjoyed.

With so much to discuss and to watch, here are our top choices for the week:

Transforming Social Commerce: AR Beauty Tech & NFTs with Perfect Corp. and E.L.F. Cosmetics

Have you ever thought about how beauty brands are dealing with the new reality of AR, Online Shopping, and the Metaverse? In this talk, Perfect Corp and E.L.F. Cosmetics showed how they are already tackling this subject with their audience, and especially how AR is being a great ally when customers need to try a product online. It is a huge opportunity for brands to connect with consumers, build a community online and drive sales conversion.

Would you buy cosmetics using just AR and AI-powered virtual try-on technologies?; From what we’ve seen, this is what the future will look like.

Re-inventing Live Events for a Post-Covid World

We were expecting to see how technology will unite the real world with the virtual world. But for Rex Serrao (Salesforce), and Jeff Sinclair (Eventbase Technology Inc), they are completely different strategies. In their eyes, hybrid events are just a phase, a consequence of the pandemic, and are not here to stay, even questioning the reasons of who was watching the event in their homes, instead of taking a flight to Austin to watch it live. But as we can see in the chat in the image, the online audience felt differently about it.

Feature Session: What’s in a Metaverse?

These past couple of months, a lot has been speculated about  and talked about over the Metaverse. Facebook even changed their name to Meta. But aren’t we already living and experimenting with the Metaverse? In this talk, Raffaella Camera (Epic Games), Charlie Fink, (Chapman University), Philip Rosedale (Linden Lab) and Timmu Tõke (Ready Player Me), touches on their experiences and discoveries since the creation of Second Life, going through massive live events, such as Ariana Grande and Travis Scott concerts happening at Fortnite, an online game. We’re about to undergo a big metaverse consisting of different metaverses, in their words: a multi metaverse. But one question was left to be considered: Do we have the infrastructure to be fully in the metaverse in the next couple of years?

Renee Gosline: In Praise of Friction

Finishing up the SXSW 2022 week in great style, Renee Gosline (MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology) gave a powerful speech on friction in the online world: “Friction is neither good nor bad, it’s what allows you to change direction”. Questioning the current AI technology we have, she even voiced a great statement, as a black daughter of immigrants: “Algorithms would never predict that I would be here”. Explicitly expressing the necessity of humanizing the system – and with diversity – she finished it up with some suggestions on how to increment automated processes. In case you missed it, here are the 5 steps we should take to make the most of #AI and #MachineLearning.

1. Ask: should AI be doing this? Can it?

2. Audit AI journeys for touch-points that would benefit from added friction

3. Embrace the “discomfort” of inclusivity as good friction

4. Build a culture of experimentation testing before release

5. Eliminate “dark patterns”: asymmetric friction & digital lobster traps

Conclusion

With just a few days to go, SXSW 2022 is bringing so much food for thought to the table. Even though companies are already working on the future, maybe we have to take a step back and understand if the world is ready for all these changes. We can’t wait to see what will happen in Austin in the final South By Southwest weekend! If you want to keep updated, follow our live coverage: https://arena.im/sxsw-22/

SXSW 2022: Impressions From the Opening Weekend

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The SXSW 2022 Conference kicked off last Friday. It seems like everyone is writing about what’s going on in Austin. So we decided to take a different approach and analyze the online side of the conference.

Come with me.

SXSW 2022 is a hybrid event. This means that all (or most of) the sessions happen in-person, there in Austin, Texas, and at the website if you bought a ticket. 

Being in the online side of things has its ups and downs. 

Ups:

  • No FOMO. Yes, some really awesome sessions are concurrent, but the little VOD (Video On Demand) sign in the corner of your screen provides peace of mind that the video will be there for me to watch later.
  • The ability to swap between sessions at any time, whether they happen at the Convention Center, the Paramount, or the ACC Ballroom.
  • Being in the comfort of your own home. In case you like the comfort of your own home 😉

Downs:

  • Not being there. You kinda miss a lot of the action. Human connectivity is different when you physically bump into each other.
  • Also, if you’re doing the online version, you’re probably working at the same time that you’re watching the sessions. This can suck the authenticity of the moment away from you. Although you do watch the content, you might be thinking about that spreadsheet you need to fix by the end of the day.
  • No autographs and selfies with that founder or movie director you would do anything to have in your hands.

Some of the takeaways from SXSW 2022 Online’s opening weekend

Our team took a good look at some of the live sessions. Of course, since this relates to our products, we kept an eye on the interactivity of components on SXSW’s website.

I noticed that the live chat widget is a bit clunky. For some reason it kept requesting to sign in after just a few minutes of inactivity. Once signed in, it offers the options to send text messages, emojis and upload files. We missed a GIF search and sharing option. For a long time GIFs have been a way to express emotions and to communicate in groups. And, even though the upload file feature can be used for a bunch of different things, there’s no real use for it in a virtual event group chat.

Live Chat trap: when your engagement tool becomes a mere support channel.

One Live Chat trap that event organizers should give more attention to: Live Chat can become some sort of a support channel if there’s no one there to guide the conversation. Therefore, it would help to have a moderator in the wings. We spotted attendees complaining that the sound was too low, they were asking the camera to show the slides instead of the speaker, and some even spammed with their Linkedin profiles.

The Q&A tab, on the other hand, is where the hybrid action actually happens. This feature allows online attendees to submit questions directly to the organizers and lecturers. They can be upvoted and replied to, so organizers can pick which ones they want to answer on stage.

Live Q&A is a powerful feature for conferences and events like SXSW.

There’s also a direct message chat widget which can be activated on top of the group chat. In this feature people can talk directly to other participants about whatever they want. It’s usually used to talk and do business, introduce companies and schedule meetings, but not to talk about the sessions.

Our team picked up some valuable content from the online sessions. 

Scott Galloway’s Famous Predictions on SXSW 2022

Scott Galloway brought his highly expected Provocative Predictions to the stage. Being a mediatic person, much of the content wasn’t new to people who follow him closely on CNN+ or the Pivot podcast. Still, he is gifted with dodging buzz – or yogababble (“another ridiculous business: Space Tourism”, “big flowery terminology for 2022: web3”) and conflicting trends against reality that just makes you want to see him saying it over and over again. 

Prof G takes the stage. Online and in-person.

At the same time, Galloway shows solutions to the themes he doesn’t clearly bet on. For instance, on the whole metaverse+crypto+blockchain realm, he said “You can have Chanel bags or the Chanel logo as your visual metaphor in the metaverse… I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think this coin would go for $100,000, $500,000. Imagine the speculation it would attract. So overnight, I believe Chanel or Hermès could raise $5 billion to $10 billion, trying to monetize this scarcity.”

Amy Webb’s keynote at SXSW 2022

Still pulling from the highly-expected shelf, Amy Webb, futurist and best selling author, brought her Emerging Tech Trend Report that everyone will be talking about until she releases the next issue. Re-perception is the keyword here: Amy wants you to stare at issues beyond the surface, because this is the way you can learn how to “predict” the future. Once you get more information about things that are unclear, you can find and add new patterns to your mental model.

Amy Webb invites the audience to practice re-perception as she presents her Emerging Tech Trend Report.

By the way, her Tech Trends report is fully downloadable here.

Conclusion

SXSW 2022 started this year’s edition in high style. And we’re there to bring you the latest news, the surprising trends, and the insightful reflections. Where? Here! Stay tuned for more surprises. 

Arena Live Chat at SXSW 2022 Online Conference

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SXSW 2022 is just around the corner, and we’re very proud to announce that Arena Live Chat will be part of the online event. 

How did that happen?, you might ask.

This year, the SXSW Conference will be in a hybrid format for ten days (11 – 20 March 2022). 

In the online edition, Arena Live Chat will be there making it easier for thousands of attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors to connect with each other, as well as to engage the audience in real-time.

As you know, South By Southwest (SXSW) connects companies from promising startups to established industries, leaders, authors, and creatives across industries all over the world from their home in Austin, Texas.

Therefore, Live Chat will be an important part of SXSW by enabling participants to:

  • Exchange ideas and comments during keynote presentations
  • Submit questions to panelists using the Q&A native Live Chat feature
  • Express emotions with GIFs and Emojis
  • Participate in Polls that are part of the program

Arena is an Online Exhibitor at SXSW 2022.

How Arena Enhances Virtual Events

Arena’s software is trusted by thousands of companies to improve their virtual events. Consider adding one of Arena’s tools to enhance your own virtual event. 

Live chat is a tool that lets attendees respond to polls, ask questions, and interact with your brand and other attendees during virtual events. By adding Arena Live Chat, brands can seamlessly integrate live chat capabilities in their virtual events. This feature lets online attendees provide feedback and share ideas virtually instead of needing to be physically present at the event.

Live blogs let virtual event organizers share quick updates like images, text, video, live scores, maps, and more as an event unfolds. Live blogs can provide important event updates, share ideas, present interviews, and keep attendees informed about speakers. Organizers can use Arena Live Blog to quickly improve their virtual event experience. 

Arena Customer Data Platform (CDP) can be integrated with Arena Live Chat and Live Blog to help understand customer behavior and interests. Companies are finding it harder to understand their customers because of the heightened restrictions from cookies and data privacy. Arena’s CDP can solve this problem by building customer profiles and collecting data from different touchpoints. 

SXSW 2022 and Arena

SXSW 2022 will gather some of the most important tech players and contemporary trendsetters on the planet from March 11-20 in Austin, Texas, and also via live streaming. Arena will be doubly there: with Arena Live Chat to connect and engage the audience in real-time, and as an Online Exhibitor.