Don’t wait until the day of your event to start engaging with your attendees. Building a relationship in advance can add huge value, helping to get your audience energised and excited, shape the content of your event or kick-start networking.

Here are 7 ways to engage attendees before your event and start building that all-important community.

  1. Blog

As well as engaging with those who have already signed up for your event, you can reach out to other potential attendees by publishing quality, thought leadership articles.

Don’t just publish on your own website; make use of high profile platforms like LinkedIn, where you can get in front of thousands of professionals in your industry.

Ask your speakers to author guest posts to generate interest in their sessions, and aim stimulate debate by weighing in on any hot topics.

Related: 5 of the best blogging platforms for events

  1. Twitter chat

You should also lean on your speakers to take part in a scheduled Twitter chat. A Twitter chat is a live event on Twitter where users can participate using a designated hashtag.

You could choose an industry issue for discussion or make the focus educational, allowing users to ask questions to be answered by an expert.

Schedule a set time for your chat and promote it across your social platforms sufficiently in advance. You could also engage other business partners to join in on the conversation and get them to help spread the word.

Related: 6 Social media predictions for 2016 that EventProfs need to know

  1. Webinar

A webinar is another great way to host a ‘pre-event’, allowing attendees to connect with speakers and special guests. You don’t need any special equipment – just a webcam and a YouTube account.

The ‘Hangout on Air’ feature lets you quickly set up an event and start broadcasting live. Enable the live chat facility and your viewers will be able to interact with you, asking questions and making comments that you can moderate in real time.

Related: 5 Simple steps to livestream your event online for free

  1. Survey or Twitter poll

Allowing attendees to contribute to your event by making suggestions for sessions, speakers, the format or venue, can really help give them a sense of ownership.

Send out a survey seeking their views or allow them to vote via Twitter to shape the content. This will let them know that the event exists to serve their needs and not the other way round.

You could also invite people to vote for their ‘industry personality’ of the year to spread news of your event amongst the movers and shakers – and help you identify key people to reach out to personally.

Related: 10 Ideas for organisers to engage attendees with Twitter polls

  1. Networking

Delegates consistently identify networking opportunities as one of the key drivers of their attendance at events, so don’t wait until the day to let them start meeting one another.

Use a conference app with networking functions such as Presdo Match to enable attendees to connect in advance.

Presdo Match is integrated with LinkedIn and compiles attendees’ profiles into a searchable directory (providing they’ve opted in). Delegates can look at who’s coming, swap messages and arrange appointments all within the app.

Related: 6 top tools to get people networking at your event

  1. Facebook competition

Running a competition for an exciting prize is a tried and tested way to generate interest. Using Facebook as the platform for the competition allows you to benefit from social sharing and easy data capture.

Ideally choose a prize related to your event such as the chance to win business coaching with one of your speakers, or VIP tickets and an overnight in a hotel.

Use a competition app such as Gleam and you can incentivise entrants to share and like for extra chances to win. You’ll also be able to capture their email addresses for follow-up marketing.

Related: How to grow your event email list in 5 simple steps

  1. Have fun

Sometimes doing something a little bit silly is the best way to get people’s attention and prompt them to engage with one another – and social media is the perfect platform on which to have some fun.

Consider incentivising people to send in photos by offering a 10% discount on their ticket or a free coffee at the venue. It could be anything that fires the imagination, such as humorously shaped vegetables/brilliant beards/pets that look like their owners.

Don’t forget to create a unique hashtag for your photo campaign. This will help people follow the fun and also make it easy for you to collate all the entries to display on a ‘social media wall’ on the day of your event.

Related: 6 Ways to engage Millennials at your event

Conclusion

Putting the effort in prior to your event gives it the best chance of being a success. It also paves the way for the success of your future events.

Once you’ve built that event community, keep it going. Stay in touch, keep them engaged and reap the rewards next time.