EventMobi Live Display Will Change The Way You Think About Social Walls
Twitter, Instagram and now social walls have exploded in popularity at a wide range of events, especially over the past couple years. This trendy tech takes digital signage and integrates it with social media, adding a layer of interactive participation. But is social media what events are really about?
Social walls are no doubt innovative, collecting the event’s social media footprint into a single visual that can be streamed to TVs or projected at the event. Growing in popularity at concerts and promotional events audiences loved seeing their tweets and pictures on the big screen. It wasn’t long before tradeshows and conferences hopped on the bandwagon. Updating text posts, images and even videos (sometimes) in real time for the whole event to interact with, social walls create conversations and a community around the shared experience of posting on social media. But is that all your attendees need? Is that all your event needs? Your event doesn’t exist in a bubble and neither should your engagement tools. Watch this short video for an introduction to Live Display.
Looking Past the Wall and into Digital Signage
Being an event technology developer, we’re positioned well to take the industry’s pulse and started to take note of the frequent requests for “something cool like a social wall” or “that thing that shows all the tweets”. Once again we’ve made our client’s requests a priority but we need to dive deeper and truly understand the challenges our clients face. Producing innovative technology that helps event planners best achieve their objectives is what we’re all about, not hopping on bandwagons. With that aim in mind, we took a hard look at what social walls were providing and where they may have missed the mark to create a better digital signage solution.
Identifying the Problem
We tried an alternative approach to product development and held a company-wide hackathon which is essentially an extended, competitive, hyper-focused brainstorming session. We considered what Twitter walls and similar products were really providing to attendees and the event experience. Then we considered the technology’s potential and noticed a huge gap between the two considerations. Event planners need a way to drive action, keep attendees informed and engaged with the event’s content, and for some, generate revenue. Social walls fall short of those goals, but the potential was well within the realm of the technology, and out of that potential, came the concept of EventMobi Live Display.
Proposing a Solution
Taking the concept of social walls and adding a unique twist, EventMobi Live Display has four rotating screens (Agenda, Game, Partner, Social) that focus attention on the major components of the event including the session schedule, event game, partner’s content and of course, social media activity. Click here to get more information about Live Display.
Integrating Live Display into EventMobi
We develop all our technology together, so it works together and the Live Display is no exception. As part of our event technology platform, our digital signage is integrated with your event app, pulling session information, gamification leaderboard and alerts directly from the event app.
Driving Action
The Twitter feed improves the reach of your event, the number of posts as well as the quality of social media content resulting in better buzz and future marketing content. Broadcasting session information will keep attendees on track, bolstering session attendance and publicizing the event game will amplify the competition, driving participation. Not sure what an event game is? Check out our free Ultimate Guide to Event Gamification.
Monetizing Your Digital Signage
The Partner screen delivers ROI like never before by providing event wide notoriety to sponsors and exhibitors content. No sponsors? No problem. This digital signage can be optimized for paid advertising, marketing efforts or promoting upcoming events. Corporate planners can leverage the technology as well to form partnerships or strengthen strategic relationships.
Informed Attendees are Productive Attendees
Events don’t happen in a fishbowl, and while engagement is a priority, the first step is keeping attendees informed. The news ticker at the bottom of the display will keep news-hungry attendees attention on the event. The ticker also has space to include custom text for anything like WiFi info or announcements. Event app alerts that go to every attendee’s phone also get projected on the Live Display. Excited about using a Live Display at your next event? Find best practices here!
Realizing Potential
There’s no doubt attendees get a certain gratification out of seeing their social posts projected onto a screen. However, planners should be looking to go beyond social media and add more to the onsite experience, what’s happening in the cloud and on the ground. Expanding the potential to improve the event experience as a whole, with session information that keeps attendees on time, increasing participation in the event game and adding a new source of revenue.