7 STRATEGIES TO KEEP YOUR VIRTUAL ATTENDEES ENGAGED
Keeping people engaged in a virtual event is…challenging. Your event is competing with everything else in their lives—emails, Slack notifications, to-do lists, the leftover pizza in the fridge, the dog that needs a walk, and the kids who need to be picked up from school. Unlike in-person events, attendees aren’t sitting captive in front of a screen all day. That reality doesn’t exist anymore. So, the question becomes: how do we create a virtual experience that truly captures attention?
This is where we need to rethink the traditional event model. Virtual events can’t just replicate live ones; they must be designed with their own strengths in mind. Here’s how to tailor your virtual events to boost engagement, energize your audience, and create real value.
1. People Are Busy—Keep It Short and Sweet
Keep sessions between 30 and 60 minutes—short enough to fit into a standard work meeting and long enough to dive into meaningful content. You can also break up sessions with frequent audience interaction to keep energy levels high.
We recently worked on an event for Software AG, which executed this really well. They offered sessions at times that aligned with regional time zones, making it easier for people to attend. Instead of long, drawn-out lectures, they delivered concise, punchy presentations and integrated live interaction points every 15-30 minutes, keeping attendees on their toes and engaged.
2. Start Engagement Before the Event Even Begins
Engagement doesn’t have to wait until the event kicks off. Ask your attendees what they want to learn. What they want their takeaways to be. What access and sessions do they most look forward to, and what questions do they want answered during the event? In fact, by starting this dialogue before the event, you create anticipation and buy-in.
By gathering feedback beforehand, you can tweak the event’s content to fit your audience’s specific needs. Plus, when attendees feel like their input has shaped the event, they’re more likely to stay engaged and contribute.
It’s a simple but effective way to ensure your event resonates, and it builds an immediate connection with your attendees before they’ve even logged in.
Virtual doesn’t have to mean impersonal. Tailor your content to different audience segments. Use data to understand who’s attending and what they care about, then customize the experience to match. Make your attendees feel seen and heard, even through a screen.
3. Participation Is Key—Make It Inevitable
It’s no longer enough to just present content. If your audience isn’t involved, they’re likely to disengage. The key to making a virtual event more interactive is integrating participation into the very fabric of the experience.
Take live Q&As, for example. They’re simple, but they can shift the dynamic of an event entirely. Instead of just watching a speaker talk, attendees get to steer the conversation, asking questions that matter to them. Adding features like interactive polls, breakout rooms, or even using a host to call out audience contributions are ways to give attendees a say in the event’s flow.
An event we produced for a financial summit really emphasized this. The live Q&A wasn’t just an afterthought; it was built into every session, with speakers prepared to dive into specific attendee questions. Breakout rooms facilitated more personalized discussions. When attendees feel like their voices are part of the event, they stop feeling like passive viewers and start becoming active participants
4. Create Real-Time Energy—Even with Pre-Recorded Content
One of the most common misconceptions about virtual events is that they lose energy without a live component. But even with pre-recorded content, there are ways to maintain excitement and engagement.
During one event we ran, we had the speakers present pre-recorded sessions, but they were live in the chat, responding to audience questions and feedback in real time. This allowed attendees to feel connected to the speaker without needing everything to happen live. You can take it a step further by using a live host to weave the pre-recorded content together, interacting with the audience, and pulling in feedback from polls or comments.
This hybrid approach—blending pre-recorded video with live chat—keeps things dynamic without the pressure of having everything happen in real time, which can reduce technical stress and still maintain audience engagement.
5. Keep the Pacing Tight—Think TV, Not Lecture
Virtual events are not the place for long-winded monologues or endless slideshows. If you want your attendees to stick around and pay attention, you need to pace your event like a TV show—fast-paced, segmented, and entertaining. Varied formats work best.
Think about switching between different styles of content: mix up live keynotes with pre-recorded interviews, panel discussions with interactive polls, and breakouts that serve as short networking sessions. Give attendees a mental “reset” every 15-20 minutes with activities like quizzes or gamified elements to keep things fresh.
Pacing matters. Think of it as resetting the brain—a break doesn’t have to be a complete pause but rather a switch in activity or interaction that keeps energy levels high.
6. Let Your Audience Lead—Build Peer-to-Peer Connections
Create unstructured, self-organized breakout rooms where attendees can chat informally about the topics they care most about. These discussions can be facilitated by veteran attendees or event ambassadors, ensuring the conversations remain meaningful but also allowing room for spontaneity.
At one of our recent events, we saw tremendous success when we set up “unconference” sessions where attendees could share their industry insights and challenges. These peer-to-peer interactions weren’t planned down to the last detail, but that’s what made them so valuable. People came away not just with new knowledge but also new contacts and potential collaborations.
7. Production Quality Matters—Meet Your Audience’s Expectations
No matter the size of your virtual event, production quality is critical. Your audience will have certain expectations based on the scale of your event, and it’s essential to deliver at or above that level of service.
For larger conferences, your event should feel like a polished TV broadcast. Think high production value—on-screen graphics, smooth transitions, video rolls, and professional presentation. If you’re inviting thousands of attendees, they should feel like they’re tuning into a major live event, not just a casual Zoom call.
However, even for smaller, more intimate events, don’t skimp on the basics. Hire a virtual assistant or a “Zoom jockey” to handle technical details like muting attendees, managing chat rooms, and ensuring everything runs smoothly. This attention to detail will prevent distractions and create a seamless experience for your audience, no matter the size.
Whether big or small, well-produced events show your attendees that you’ve taken the time to think about their experience. And that can be the difference between a forgettable event and one that truly stands out.
The TL; DR
You Need to Pump Some Life into Your Virtual Events
Virtual events aren’t just a replacement for live ones—they’re a unique medium with their own strengths and challenges. The key is to design virtual events with engagement at their core. Whether it’s through shorter, snappier content, real-time interaction, or creating spaces for peer-to-peer connection, virtual events can deliver immense value.
If you’re not seeing that kind of impact, maybe it’s time to rethink your approach. By focusing on participation, pacing, and audience involvement, you can turn a virtual event from something people begrudgingly half-watch to an experience they fully engage with.