Online Communities Enhance Events

At trade shows, conferences and most any other kind of meeting today, there's a lot more going on than just what occurs on the show floor, at the podium or in the classroom. A growing number of attendees also are participating in online communities purpose-built to enhance event engagement, and these platforms extend far beyond the event itself.

Case in point: For MPI's 2010 World Education Congress, more than 1,500 attendees elected to join the Pathable online community -- more than 60 percent of the show's total delegates. All but about 100 of these members completed online profiles, and many used the platform's personalized schedule, added contacts and took part in online discussions. Nearly 500 messages were exchanged among attendees using the platform.

Surprising? Not to Pathable CEO Jordan Schwartz. "That type of engagement is typical," he says. "We see that more than half of our events get better than 50 percent adoption, and a third get better than 75 percent. And there's nothing up our sleeves -- we are not opting people in. People are accepting the invitation, filling out their profiles and spending some time on the site. We're offering something that fulfills a critical need."

In fact, it's a niche the more widely used social media don't seem to fill. For MPI's event, just 212 attendees opted in to the LinkedIn group set up for the gathering (Pathable attracted more than six times that number), and a scant 131 joined the Facebook event group.

Along with competitor CrowdVine, Pathable has been offering event community platforms for nearly five years. Zerista launched two years later, and Leebug has been steadily growing its business since 2010. A number of registration and other meetings technology providers offer platforms with similar functionality. In every case, the idea is to create a social network specifically for that event's audience -- members, customers and any potential attendees. In some cases, the platform is integrated with the event program and session scheduler. And each offers an accompanying mobile web app.

As more organizations devote time and resources to their event-related social media plans, business has grown for each of these technology providers. Best practices have emerged, and providers can easily guide new clients in establishing effective communities. But the technology niche is still young, and it's still evolving. Here's a look at some trends and how event social-networking providers are responding to them.

Making it perpetual While event-community providers have long touted the benefits of engaging attendees before the event and, to some extent, continuing that conversation in the days and weeks after the event occurs, the vehicles for doing so have remained event-driven platforms. Today, however, many organizations are creating communities for members or customers that touch on a number of concerns beyond the events, says Jeff Hurt, director of education and engagement for Velvet Chainsaw Consulting in Dallas. "We are seeing more organizations using technology to create a customer or member community that is available 24/7, 365 days a year, that addresses more than one event," he explains. "The event community becomes a subset of that larger community."

Pathable addressed this trend in its version 2, which began rolling out last fall. Now, attendee discussions may be categorized either by event or as general community forums with event-specific tabs. "When we first started Pathable," recalls Jordan Schwartz, "we used the term 'disposable social networks.' We thought we were creating social communities for the events that would end along with the events. And as it turns out, that was just wrong. Customers were saying, 'Hey, we built this great community with engaged, active attendees, and they loved it. Now the event's over. Now what?' In retrospect, what people wanted was for us to take that excitement and spin that out to create year-round engagement."

Keeping it mobile "The biggest focus for event technology seems to be on the conference mobile app," observes Jeff Hurt. "Attendees are driving that, and in some ways the app itself functions as an event community, based on the specific features involved." Hurt points to itinerary-planning that makes selected sessions viewable to other attendees, threaded discussions, one-on-one appointment scheduling, and direct-messaging as features that foster community engagement and are available in leading mobile apps.

Planners often want to know how event communities function together with conference apps. That depends on what features and functionality are required by the event organizers. Event-community platforms and customized apps certainly can be used together, but one or the other might be sufficient. Just as some mobile apps can function as event communities, these event-community platforms are turning out increasingly robust mobile apps.

Zerista has invested a great deal in its mobile app capabilities. Native apps are available for Apple and Android devices, there's a web app optimized for BlackBerry and a robust general mobile web app for use with any smartphone. "All the functionality we have on the web is accessible via mobile," notes Zerista account executive Taylor Grassby. The company now touts that its platform negates the need to work with different vendors to get a native app, website, social networking and navigation tools.

Pathable and Leebug both changed approaches last fall, ditching the native Apple iOS apps each had developed to focus instead on redesigned mobile web apps. The new apps, designed using HTML5, are faster, more feature-laden and a lot more inexpensive to produce than the downloadable apps, and they're compatible with any smartphone. The HTML5-coded design means constant Internet access isn't crucial for the web app to function, as most information is downloaded to the device on the first visit to a page on the site.

"Mobile technology can be very expensive," notes Leebug founder Rob Arthurs, "especially if event producers want a native app -- which I believe is unnecessary for the average conference, where all you need is a well-designed web app." In addition to event schedule, sponsor and exhibitor information, speaker and attendee profiles, and messaging, Leebug's app allows for ratings and polling -- features many customers were requesting, says managing partner Stephanie Golden. Pathable's app includes a session and meeting scheduler, too, a feature Leebug eschewed in favor of "keeping things as simple as possible," explains Golden.

Later this year, Pathable's app will be able to completely support offline access. Should a client require a native app, adds Schwartz, Pathable is prepared to partner with an app developer to make that happen.

Making connections In part, event-community platforms act as social media aggregators, too -- they can display information posted via other popular platforms. CrowdVine, for example, connects with Twitter, blogs and/or photo-sharing sites to keep delegate profiles up-to-date. Zerista and Leebug can prepopulate attendee profiles directly from LinkedIn. Pathable can compare an attendee's contacts from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter with the Pathable community list and let people know who will be at the event.

The integration possibilities are constantly growing as social media platforms allow for more third-party connectivity. Likewise, integration to registration systems and other tools is important. Pathable, for example, integrates with Cvent, RegOnline, EventBrite, Amiando and others. Zerista touts its ability to work with more than 100 third-party systems.

Doing it yourself CrowdVine's popularity has come largely by word of mouth, explains CEO Tony Stubblebine, and the fact that its business continues to grow is based in large part on transparency and economical pricing (see "The Price You'll Pay"). "In the past, all new business involved a sales call and demo with me," Stubblebine explains. "Now we have enough information online that people can make 90 percent of their decisions by reading our documentation, setting up a trial account, or looking at our pricing and packages."

Not only was CrowdVine the first to post all pricing, its user and administrator manuals have been posted online. Stubblebine says CrowdVine in particular appeals to conferences that have a very tech-confident person on staff. "Lots of conferences have tech-confident people now, no matter what the topic of the conference is," he notes. For those less tech-savvy, CrowdVine assures organizers that they can be guided through the process.

Leebug offered a DIY version for free until this year. Now it requires a $350 setup fee to cover the cost of the new mobile app. "Our goal is to create a powerful app with an integrated online event community that is price-accessible to any event producer," says founder Rob Arthurs. The self-service option requires customers to upload all the data for the platform and app, which is largely a lot of cutting and pasting. The full-service option involves a small per-item charge for uploading.