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Content is ‘biggest hurdle for community’ – how to crack it

Content is ‘biggest hurdle for community’ – how to crack it

The need to provide year-round content is the biggest challenge for eventprofs when building a 365 community, according to new research.

ExpoPlatform carried out an exclusive study for the MPI Meetings & Events Conference in Brighton which saw 45% highlight this as their greatest hurdle.

A further 30% chose a lack of an in-house team to run it, 20% said the technology could not yet facilitate “meaningful” interactions, while 5% were unsure if their customers needed a community.

What is the greatest challenge for an event community?

Tanya Pinchuk, CEO of ExpoPlatform, said: “All of us already have community tools – like news sections on websites or subscription to email newsletters, but we’ve rarely deeply analysed how they’re used, who sees them and what they do next.

“What an event community brings is expanded touchpoints, stronger connections and more meaningful interaction outside of our face-to-face events.

Content is going to be at the core of driving any audience – we want to be informed, entertained, we want to find solutions for our problems and we want to make sure we’re fully up to date about what’s happening in our industry.”

Cracking the problem of content production is clearly one of the most important problems for eventprofs today.

The Community Blueprint is your complete guide to building this 365 approach, featuring expert guidance on tackling this issue.

It explores different formats and ways of distributing it to ensure you reach your engagement potential among your audience.

Distribution is also key to making a success of your community – you can have the best content in the world, but it is no use if nobody is reading it.

For instance, SEO-focused articles are aimed at getting those clicks from online searches. Listicles about topics such as who is most influential in your community’s industry are designed to be well shared through social media.

Download the Community Blueprint for a complete guide to this content-fuelled 365 approach.

Eventprofs can set themself apart from the competition by creative ways of publishing information – if everyone in your market relies on text-based articles, a more visual approach might work. 

What is your current position with event communities?

Meanwhile, 46% of respondents said they were thinking about or in the process of starting their own event community.

What is your current position with event communities?

There were 23% who told how they were already organizing one and those who said they didn’t know if it’s right for their audience.

The other 8% do not know where to start with building this 365 approach.

What is the greatest opportunity for an event community?

Eventprofs were also asked about the biggest benefits they see in creating an online community.

A third of respondents said the ability to better understand client needs was the greatest opportunity, while one quarter chose better promotion and event follow-up.

What is the greatest opportunity for an event community?

Having a greater feeling of belonging for community members was chosen by 22% and 20% picked having more opportunities for sellers to promote products.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article and found it useful. At ExpoPlatform, we want to help you build better events and communities. Please get in touch and ask for a demo here. Thank you ?