Live events provide an ideal opportunity for businesses to embrace social technologies. We have joined forces with Simply Communicate and Top Banana to write a guide to help communicators understand how the latest event apps can be used to ensure that events are strategically ‘plugged in’.
We look at how you can use an event app to embrace the employee voice, and deliver maximum value, by creating the opportunity and the environment for genuine dialogue before, during and after the event itself.
Changing expectations
There was a time when people were predicting the demise of conference style company events. Digital channels would end the need for employees to come together in a live environment. In fact, the opposite has happened. More people are getting away from their desks and attending live events than ever before. However, what they expect from these events has certainly changed.
The explosion of technology and social media has democratised today’s workplace. Now less tolerant of the top-down leadership models, the traditional ‘command and control’ is giving way to a more inclusive management style, with greater cross-functional collaboration and faster innovation.
Trust Issues
Despite this, trust in leaders, and what they say, is at an all-time low, clearly highlighted in the Edelman Trust Barometer findings. Only one in five in 2014 said they trusted business leaders to tell the truth and make ethical and moral decisions.
In the latest survey CEOs come out particularly poorly with the trust deficit significantly higher in the developed world. Thus, it has never been more important for leaders to connect directly with their employees and a well-planned live event is an opportunity to do so.
Opportunity To Re-Engage
Technology has changed live events dramatically over the past decade. From the way events are planned and executed, to the manner in which employees attend and participate. A model that did not change much for decades was turned upside down and transformed by forward-thinking professionals and the incredible growth of smartphones and social media.
Event attendees have come to expect mobile event apps and websites as part of the corporate event experience. Convenient and cost-effective, your mobile event app strategy can have a meaningful impact on both employee satisfaction and your bottom line.
Tracking, measuring and proving success for events has been a consistent and formidable challenge for event and marketing professionals. With increased adoption of event technology tools such, as event apps we, have opened up the floodgates of data and analytics. The difficulty lies in determining exactly what to measure and why. Demonstrate event success by matching event objectives with the right technology metrics.
Click here to download the guide.
