Tips for Franchisors with Virtual Audiences
Successful hybrid events are blooming all around us and taking creativity to a whole new level. Whether your audience is in-person, hybrid, or virtual, engagement is every franchisor’s top priority. The exciting world of virtual engagement is exploding, raising expectations while simultaneously giving franchisors exciting ways to energize their entire systems!
Change Your Mindset: What worked in-person doesn’t always work virtually.
The people who attend events online tend to be different learners compared to in-person attendees. Although franchisees will always be franchisees, if your event doesn’t acknowledge both audiences’ learning styles separately, you may be missing key opportunities for connection.
Franchisees who are attending virtually are struggling with all the same distractions that we have all experienced these last two years. There are definitive best practices for engaging attendees virtually including chat, moderated Q & A, polls and gamification for everything!
Recognition: Don’t forget them!
Some creative ways to engage an audience in the actual in-person event include: pulling in panelists who are virtual and live streaming into a live panel discussion. Other ideas are dynamic chats with the ability for the entire system to be able to vote a question or topic up or down, real-time polls, and deep-dive breakout rooms. Hype it up, recognize full-on participation, reward participation and make it FUN!
Cross Digital Boundaries.
One great example of an engaging hybrid experience is the ‘hotter than hot’ Peloton biking course. Peloton instructors thrive on engagement. If they aren’t engaging, they aren’t creating a dynamic workout atmosphere. Techniques they use include speaking directly to a virtual biker. That notion of simply being called on while you workout is a big motivator. Instructors also put mirrors behind them that show the in-person audience which makes virtual bikers feel like they are part of a larger in-person experience. If you can make virtual franchisees feel like they are part of the global in-person community, those who are attending digitally are more engaged.
Simply acknowledging a new viewer, actively chatting with community members, and using the platform's engagement tools go a long way when keeping audiences engaged. If your event is featuring JUNO’s interactive engagement tools make sure you are using them! Emojis, polling, and rewards all create a sense of fun and connection for your franchisees who are attending virtually.
JUNO can help your system create community around the event experience in ways that are sticky, meaningful, and fun!
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