Events bring businesses together, perhaps that’s the reason why they are planned for! As an event manager, building a healthy network is an exceptional resource for your professional development. It is quite unfortunate that most of the event planner throw it to the least count on their priority list.
Often the mix and mingle doesn’t happen in the way you expected it to be. Most of the attendees find it nervous to break the ice and connect with people which makes your event utter flop! And that’s the reason why engaging your attendees is as significant as planning the event!
Networking is the best way to exchange the ideas between your attendees where everyone from various backgrounds can meet each other at a meeting space set up by you.
Don’t leave networking to chance. Creating opportunities for socializing and helping to facilitate useful introductions can add up great value to your attendees.
Help large groups break into smaller groups, encourage people to meet someone new, or help existing teams learn to work better together. In a large group frame where not many people will know each other, having some tricks on your league to promote conversation and introductions between strangers that will help everyone at your event walk out of the door with positive experiences and new contacts.
While very few smart event planners consider it to be the major factor for a successful event, do not fail in your networking event, you can also get your brains on such ideas! we've got few creative ways to make it happen in real life-
1.Networking round-tables-
Creating a social round table conference is an excellent way to keep the discussions flowing! It welcomes the number of audiences and sets a spark in the discussions. All you gotta do is divide the audience into a group of 6-8 and let them discuss a particular topic related to their common interests, set a stopwatch such that when the time is up they could give a chance to another group of audience. This could bring out the best relations among the people who share common interests or come from the same backgrounds at your table or bridges to long term relationships. There you go! that was your ultimate objective for organizing such an event.
2. Customize your attendees' list-
Bring together all those who share the common interests to one place, get to know more about them before organizing the event such that people who come from the same background, for instance, web designers, entrepreneurs etc.. they share the common fields of interest and they don't need to hook up with those who are no way useful to maintain a relationship with. Welcome long term business relationships and make the business to business meeting more successful. Just put up a booking page calling all of them who could be interdependent on each other's profession. It makes the process much easier for you as well.
3. Create a comfort zone-
While breaking the ice works well for some, it doesn’t hit the mark for everyone. Some people dread the opinion of going up to a stranger and need a little push to start a conversation. Networking isn’t something that comes instinctively to a lot of people. And, it’s safe to say that there are quite a few people out there that feel nervous and anxiety kicks in at the thought of networking. Icebreakers can help this. Here are some great ideas to kick off the conversations: starter questions, people organizers, two truths and a lie, human bingo, audience polling, and/or smart badges. Although icebreakers can sometimes seem cheesy or unexpected it really helps to engage people and open up with ideas in a comfort zone.
4. Event apps-
The unbelievable advancements in technology is constantly improving its applications and the way we communicate with the rest of the world. One such technology is the event app. Your tech-savvy attendees would love to use the event apps fro knowing everything regarding the event while your sponsorers could get the reports online! Any conference steeps down to two requirements for attendees- orators and networking. An appropriate conference app makes it simple for conference-goers to bookmark sessions, read about speakers, and participate in all the discussions online. The more opportunities for networking you can provide, the better it gets. And the easier it is for attendees to navigate your speaker lineup and knit up their experience to their needs, the more likely they’ll be able to indulge themselves into the event.
5. Scheduling software-
Turning to technology again, one of the major aspects to consider while organizing a conference or meeting space is scheduling it in the perfect way possible! Most of your attendees come from different backgrounds all of them waiting for an opportunity to meet at one place such that more business to business meetings could work in real time. You don’t have to take the pain in contacting everyone who’s interested to meet up and search for their details. All you gotta do is stay more organized by creating a booking page where all your attendees can register with the link that you have provided before coming to the meeting. You will know the number of clients through that and can arrange the meeting accordingly.
Making use of online scheduling software creates a huge impact on your event. It is wonderful to have everything and everyone on the same page… get to know more about your clients and in-depth knowledge about the information they provide within a few clicks. Online scheduling software like Picktime has a lot of features that could help your attendees book the flexible time on the booking page, receive automated SMS/E-mail reminders and know more exciting stuff about your event round the clock, seamlessly.
6. Speed networking-
As an event planner, you want to help your attendees get engaged with facing as many people as possible in lesser time? Turn your old school ways like coffee breaks or cocktail parties into a speed great networking concourse.
This setup comprises a couple of rounds with fixed time periods around where people would find it comfortable in utilizing the opportunity to talk to a new person before they move up to the next one.
To use this arrangement, all you gotta do is divide the attendees into two groups and seat them with facing each other. Prepare a list of easy go questions like, “What is your favorite hang out spot?” or “Who was your first date?”
For each round, the attendees introduce themselves and shoot one question. When the time is up, shoot them up with other questions and instruct them to move to the next person.
The absolute structured nature of speed networking helps to take the stress off and connects people within no time.
7. Facebook integration-
Social media is another great idea for grabbing the attendees attention and engaging them more into the event. You can post good stuff about the event on your social media and then attract them into it! You can also welcome comments and conversations about any topic so that it creates a platform and welcomes everyone all over the world. One such networking site is Facebook. Integrate your booking page and make all your visitors into attendees.
Rev up your networking event the next time you organize it with all these creative clutter on your mind and make it a mind-boggling one. In the end, it’s a win-win when you leave a good impression on your attendee's professional lives by engaging them more into your event and get the best out of it!