Events Part VI: Engaging your Audience with Text Messaging

Reprinted from Resdida.com 

Sure you can use a text messaging channel to communicate with the audience before during and after the event, but what about in session? Well, there are a few different in-session mobile tactics that you can use to increase participation, like questions, polls and “liking” your speaker.

Questions
We have all been to panel sessions where little slips of paper are distributed to manually collect questions from the audience. This has worked well for years, but also requires a pen, a flat surface, the ability to see in the dark and a bit of labor for the ushers to collect and bring them to the moderator. Imagine instead that, throughout the panel, your audience can text in their questions as they came to mind and that the moderator could receive them live as well. 

This can be setup quickly and easily in Resdida MOBILIZE, using our Field Data functionality. Here are the steps involved:

Step 1: Create a new Field Data Form in MOBILIZE, using the key term “panel”
Step 2: Create an instructions slide for the audience, similar to the below:

You can try this now, by sending the example "Panel-How did you get your start in technology?" to 80474. You will get a thank you/confirmation response acknowledging that your question has been received.

The moderator will receive the questions as they are sent and can interpret them to the panel seamlessly.

Quick Polls
Another way to engage your audience in-session is to do a quick live poll. Let’s say that you wanted to know how many people in the audience are with Verizon, ATT, Sprint or TMobile. You could post a slide asking folks to text in which carrier their organization uses. Then, you can use that information to help guide and tailor your discussion. 

Setup is pretty straight-forward and would use the Keyword functionality in Resdida MOBILIZE. The most time-consuming part is figuring out what you want to ask and the categories you wish to use. Here are the steps involved:

Step 1: Decide what information you want to collect
Step 2: Create answer categories, like ATT, Sprint, TMobile, etc.
Step 3: Enter the categories into the Keywords tab of MOBILIZE
Step 4: Test each category once by sending it in a text message to 80474

Arrange the carriers in a table and choose a keyword for each. Then create some example text to help the audience understand what to do to participate.

You can try taking the poll right now by texting any of the carrier keywords above to 80474. The data will flow into Resdida MOBILIZE and can be viewed in the interface. 

The key is allowing ample time for folks to take out their phones and prepare the text message. It’s usually best to precede the poll by asking the audience to prepare by taking out their cell phones and providing the audience with verbal instructions. Allow three minutes from the time of the announcement for folks to finish their SMS message. See Part II for tips on implementation. Watch the audience to see that folks are done before you continue. 

Once the texts are sent, the results begin to tabulate in the interface, and you will know the popularity of the carriers.

“Like” your Speaker
With the growth of the “un-conference”, it is important to understand which if your speakers is in greatest demand and to know this in enough time to plan the afternoon sessions. 

Empower your audience early on. Tell them at registration that if any speakers resonate with them to text the word “Like” and the speaker’s last name at any point during the conference. Then, tell the speakers to promote their chances of winning by displaying their last name and reminding folks to text “Like” plus their last name if they want to hear more in the afternoon. See Part II for more information on implementation best practices.

This is a quick setup in Resdida MOBILIZE using the Field Data functionality. The only thing you would need is a list of speaker names so that you can interpret the results.

In Summary
Mobile should be facilitating your sessions, engaging your audience, and preventing unnecessary paperwork. The keywords and field data functions discussed here are excellent ways to add flair and excitement as well. 

This is the final part of the six-part series on text messaging at events so don’t forget to visit other sections in the series for more examples, tips and tricks:

• Part I: The Key to Successful Text Messaging at Events
• Part II: The Steps to a Successful Text Messaging Program
• Part III: Using Text Messaging to Save Staff Time
• Part IV: Using Text Messaging as Marketing to Increase Event Attendance
• Part V: Using Text Messaging for Real-time Voting and Live Ratings
• Part VI: Engaging your Audience with Text Messaging

No matter how you incorporate mobile into your events, implementing is affordable, easy and not something that you need to tackle alone. Resdida is there to lend expertise every step of the way.

Events Part V: Using Text Messaging for Real-time Voting and Live Ratings

Reprinted from Resdida.com

Drum roll please….. And the winner is?!?! Yes, you can let people use their cell phones for live voting and get real-time results anywhere there is an Internet connection, even on a smart phone.

There are a couple of ways to collect real-time information from the audience using MOBILIZE. Ask yourself: "Do I need just a vote or a numeric score, like a rating from one to ten?" In either case, setup is fast and straight-forward.

Live Voting

If it’s just voting for one thing versus the other, you can achieve this simply by creating short keyword identifiers for each item. For example, fast-pitch sessions are all the rage. The goal is to have small groups of entrepreneurs stand up and deliver an elevator pitch while the audience listens and then votes for the best. Let’s look at how something like this is designed and setup in MOBILIZE. Here are the steps involved:

Step 1: Get a list of entrepreneurs/companies presenting

Step 2: Create a short abbreviated name for each organization

Step 3: Enter the companies and abbreviations into the Keywords tab of MOBILIZE

Step 4: Test each abbreviation once by sending it in a text message to 80474

Here is a sample table of five entrepreneurs, try testing these for yourself by texting the keyword to 80474:

By sending each once in testing, you have confirmed that each is working and have leveled the playing field by giving each organization one vote. All is good! You are ready to have this work live at your event, from a technical standpoint anyway.

For participation, you will need to educate the audience a bit to get them interested in participating and doing the right things at the right time.  Part II discusses the intricacies of preparing the audience, but a few points are worth reviewing. To be successful, you will need to do the following things:

• Provide voting information verbally at registration

• Provide written instructions in the program

• Explain the text voting at the start of the session and ask folks to take out their phones and be ready

• Include abbreviations and written instructions in presentation slides

During the pitch session, the organizations will present their elevator pitches. At the end of each batch, the instructions/abbreviations slide will be displayed and the moderator will request that everyone take out their phones and text the organization abbreviation to 80474. Staff can then monitor MOBILIZE to determine the winner. Applause and happiness for everyone!

Live Rating

Maybe it’s not just “one thing versus the other” but more of “a scale from one to ten” that you need. That’s no problem either in MOBILIZE. In fact, we once had a client set up mobile ratings for 30 films in five minutes after five minutes of training.

A great use of mobile rating scales is for session ratings. Let’s say you have a one day conference with four 1.5 hour sessions that you would like to have participants rate from 1 to 10 via mobile. Here are the steps involved:

Step 1: List the conference sessions

Step 2: Create a short abbreviated name for each session to use as a key term

Step 3: Enter the sessions, abbreviations, and rating field into the Field Data Form tab of MOBILIZE

Step 4: Test rating each session once by sending a rating for each in a text message to 80474

Here is a sample table of four sessions, try testing these for yourself by texting example text rating to 80474.

By sending each once in testing, you have confirmed that each is working and have leveled the playing field by giving each organization one vote, and a good rating as well. Everything is set for live voting.

Now for participation, just as with the keywords, you will need to educate the audience a bit to get them interested in participating and doing the right things at the right time. Please see Part II for a detailed discussion of preparing the audience. To be successful, you will need to do the following things:

• Provide voting information verbally at conference registration

• Provide written instructions in the program

• Explain the text session ratings at the end of each presentation and ask folks to take out their phones and be ready

• Include abbreviations and written instructions in final presentation slides

At the end of each session, the presenters will explain the ratings and display the instructions slide. Participants will take out their cell phones and send ratings to MOBILIZE. Conference staff will then monitor MOBILIZE and analyze the session ratings. Mission accomplished and no paperwork to collect or process!

In Summary

Mobile should be facilitating your event activities, enabling greater efficiencies and preventing unnecessary paperwork. The keywords and field data functions discussed here are excellent ways to add flair and excitement as well. Implementing is affordable and easy as well but is not something that you need to tackle alone. Resdida is there to lend expertise every step of the way.

Events Part III: Using Text Messaging to Save Staff Time

Reprinted from Resdida.com .

Time is money, and in this economy there isn’t much of either to go around. I know from my own experience running events that things are hectic and time is scarce. The last thing anyone needs is another moving part to manage. The more you can get done ahead of the event the better. Imagine for a moment what your experience could be … automating customer service, directing attendees to sessions, and making timely announcements. You can simply leverage text messaging to save staff time while actually increasing the level of service you provide. But how?

With Resdida MOBILIZE, it’s not difficult or time consuming, and it can all be set up ahead of event time. Here I will show you how to quickly and easily automate key announcements and reminders, automate FAQs and provide easy access to customer service. 

Key Announcements & Reminders
Running events, you often feel like a traffic cop. There are lots of halts, go’s and general ushering of attendee traffic. Timing is everything and every minute counts in order to meet the tightly run schedule for the day. The goal is to get people into the next session, seated and ready to begin on time, every time. 

There are several things you can do in advance to take some of the pressure off and ensure that attendees are informed and know where they need to be next. An easy option is to setup a Conference Channel and instruct attendees how to join. See Part II for detailed steps for instructing and encouraging adoption. Setting this up in MOBILIZE takes less than a minute. Once it’s set up, it’s very easy to use and manage.

Let’s assume you are staff for the ACME Conference. It took me less than a minute to setup the ACME Conference Channel; in fact, text ACME to 80474 to subscribe right now. If you do, you will see that the system will ask you to confirm by returning Y. Then, you will see a confirmation and welcome message for the channel.

Now, let’s say you know there will be cocktails on the 23rd floor at 6pm Tuesday of the conference. Let’s look at how you would schedule a text message reminder so you don’t need to worry about catching everyone at 5:45pm.

Start by creating “stories” for this and every other announcement or reminder that you’ll want to send during the conference. Here’s an example of the cocktails story below.

Then, add this Cocktails story to the Channel and schedule it to send at 5:45pm on Tuesday. While you are at it, schedule the remaining announcements to go out “just-in-time” during the conference.

Now you are done! MOBILIZE is now your traffic cop letting folks know where to go next as well as other mission critical information during the event. The only thing left to do is get folks to subscribe before or during registration.

FAQs
In addition to a channel, you can serve attendees and save time by pre-programming the answers to Frequently Asked Questions into MOBILIZE. Let attendees send a text message with the speaker’s last name to learn where and when those sessions are, or let them text INTERNET to learn the WIFI codes to access the network. This effort is easy to pre-program and saves paper and staff time during the event asking these questions. Be sure to place this information on the mobile information page in the event program. See Part II for more details on fostering participation.

Taking a closer look at the Internet example, setup is easy and takes less than a minute. You enter into MOBILIZE the key term INTERNET and the automated response “ID: acme Password: conf2011.” Instead of running around last minute printing handouts with Internet info and taking countless questions, you can use your mobile program to save time and trouble. Plus, if the ID or password were to change, you would just update MOBILIZE. Results are immediate and simple. 

You can try it now for yourself by texting INTERNET to 80474.

Because MOBILIZE can adapt with you and absorb new information as it comes down the pike, it surpasses paper publishing by far in effectiveness and is the “green” solution as well. Instead of quickly running off to print those quarter-sheet info flyers, you are taking two seconds to make the change and inform folks in real time.

Customer Service
In addition to frequently asked questions, there are questions that fall outside the ordinary or times when the audience needs to quickly report a problem. Especially for events that are spread-out in large venues, it can be very helpful to offer the opportunity for folks to ask questions and report problems remotely via their mobile phone. This gets the information to staff faster and makes the process more convenient for attendees as well.

This, too, is easy to set up in MOBILIZE and is related to our functionality for collecting data from the field. You would choose a key term for the audience to use. In this example, I will choose AQ for Acme Question. You would choose an auto response to acknowledge that the question was received. Finally, you would instruct the audience to send questions following an AQ- to 80474.

Staff will receive information instantly from within the session that the projector has failed and can quickly dispatch AV resources to the Starlight Room. The attendee receives the auto-response “Thank You” message as a confirmation that the information was received. The issue is resolved quickly and everyone is satisfied. 

In Summary
Automating essential repeatable tasks like key announcements, reminders, FAQs and customer service can improve the conference experience for both the attendees and the conference staff and allows for a more “green”, efficient and environmentally friendly experience as well . Staff time saved is priceless and putting technology to work for you feels great. Implementing is affordable and easy as well but is not something that you need to tackle alone. Resdida is there to lend expertise every step of the way.