![\"websummitbono\"](\"https:\/\/visu.al\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/websummitbono.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nData driven communications have a crucial role to play in the success of big business events like WebSummit<\/em><\/p>\n Technology conference \u00a0Web Summit<\/a>\u00a0is a great example of an event that has used a data driven approach to its advantage. The annual event, based in Dublin, has grown from 400 to over 22,000 attendees, from more than 100 countries, in just four years and has been described by Forbes as \u2018the best technology conference on the planet.’<\/p>\n What does Web Summit owe its success to? Well the use of data has definitely been critical to their strategy.<\/p>\n Put it this way: While conference companies typically hire experienced event planners, we hire computational physicists, applied statisticians, engineers of all shapes and sizes, some folks who know a thing or two about machine learning and AI, and then some awesome front end developers.<\/p>\n – Paddy Cosgrave, one of the founders of WebSummit<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n While traditional conference companies fret over manually curating seating plans, compiling speaker lists and handpicking invites for networking events, we approach the challenge from a technical and mathematical point of view. We build algorithms that take into account who you are and who you might benefit from being on a pub crawl with or at a table with or in a meeting with.<\/em><\/p>\n The team at WebSummit were able to\u201cengineer serendipity\u201d at the scale of over 20,000 attendees. This level of detail provided by a data driven approach ensured that the people at your table were neither a random collection of attendees nor a manually curated group of attendees, but a product of algorithms.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n So you\u2019ve acquired the data, you’ve refined it and mined it. It’s now important to filter and present information in a meaningful and contextual manner, so that your audience to interact with it. Visual content can be presented through a number of different mediums to build successful relationships with the intended audience.<\/p>\n Here we\u2019ll take a look at some of the types of visual communications utilised by the events industry.<\/p>\n Event apps have also become extremely popular over the last couple of years, with many organisers using them as a way to collect data about attendees and improve their networking facilities. The great thing about event apps is that they serve a purpose throughout the lifetime of an event and cover all touch points. Even after an event has taken place they continue to create a buzz.<\/p>\n For Web Summit, a mobile networking app was designed and developed for the conference. The app is designed to scan attendee and exhibitor profiles and suggest potential connections. It also comes with a chat features so that attendees can contact each other directly.<\/p>\n The idea is that by using data collected from attendees, the event planners can take some of the randomness out of networking and actually help attendees to meet the right people i.e. valuable connections.<\/p>\n The event app wasn\u2019t just useful during the event but afterwards too. The company said that the app and algorithms would continue to learn more about users\u2019 interests and collect relevant data, so they could target both exhibitors and attendees with follow-up emails and notifications suggesting people they might want to connect with after the event.<\/p>\n Another extremely successful European annual event is\u00a0LeWeb<\/a>. Internationally renown for digital innovation, it attracts the best start-ups, tech companies, investors and leading media from around the world. Similar to Web Summit, they also provide a mobile app for data collection and networking purposes. The Le Web’s data driven approach to their mobile app allows users to check out the full list of attendees, view the programme, personalise their agendas and network onsite using iBeacons, a protocol standardised by Apple in 2013. iBeacons allow two-way communication between the beacons ( transmitters) and the smart phone app, so it allows for more complex forms of messaging, interactivity and functionality.\u00a0 \u00a0Users can also integrate the app with their LinkedIn accounts to view attendees from their network.<\/p>\n They were also very innovative through the release of their adopt an entrepreneur contest which allowed the creators of the best and most shared projects to win an entry ticket to LeWeb. One of the entries was a project, created by Benjamin Blonde<\/a>, which visualised data gathered from LeWeb\u2019s website.<\/p>\n Today an event seems incomplete without a social media dashboard. Social media dashboards provide a powerful way for event planners to visualise and promote data collected from social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at their events or conferences. More importantly it\u2019s a medium through which they can interact and engage with their audience.<\/p>\n Real-time dashboards are fantastic for showcasing social conversations around an event and can be displayed as a live wall at events. Many event planners see them as a \u2018social hub\u2019 and the perfect backdrop for the sessions taking place during an event.<\/p>\n The idea is that social media dashboards draw analytics from interactions tracked across specific handles or hash tags on a social media site. It not only adds a social element to the event but also allows event organisers to analyse the conversation during and after an event, so they can get a better insight into attendees\u2019 experiences.<\/p>\n The data collected allows them to establish what worked, what could be improved, which speaker \/ activity generated the most buzz and much, much more.<\/p>\n Interactive content provides marketers a way to amplify their event activity and engage with attendees before, during and after an event, enabling them to quantify impact in real terms. Formats such as questionnaires, polls, assessments, photo galleries, and ROI calculators<\/a>\u00a0engage with the audience prospects on their terms. All the while, they capture valuable data for the marketing team \u2013 a win-win for the event planners and the audience.<\/p>\n Here at team VISU.AL we’ve created a number of interactive widgets for our clients, taking data gathered, visualising it in the relevant manner and allowing customers to interact with that data, leading to further business being generated.<\/p>\n There are also platforms like SnapApp, allowing organisations to harness the power of interactive content and boost demand generation for events .<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Visual content, by way of static, interactive and animated infographics ( motion graphics) can be utilised by organisers prior, during and after an event to create and maintain interest, awareness and credibility. Highly sharable across social media and blogs, they are great for extending the lifetime value of an event and keeping the buzz going through social sharing.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nWhat to do with all the data?<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nEvent apps<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nLe Web’s innovative use of event apps and data<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nSocial media dashboards<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Interactive content<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/h4>\n
\u00a0Static, interactive and animated infographics<\/h2>\n