Creating Meaningful Connections at LivePerson

Guest author:  Ariel Cohen, Developer Community Manager at LivePerson and co-organizer of the  LivePerson Inside conference.

LivePerson is a very unique company.  More than anything else, I think the phrase “connection before content” pretty much sums it up.  But what does this mean?  Well, it starts with the little things such as our business cards, and runs across our entire organization, all the way to the way we cater our annual Aspire customer summits in New York, London, and Sydney.

LivePerson hosted its LivePerson Inside event at DLD Tel Aviv 2012, a conference held for the Israeli high-tech community, presenting the power and potential of the LivePerson Partner Ecosystem.  By enabling companies to develop solutions on top of the company’s LiveEngage platform, clients are able to enrich and extend their online engagement capabilities within social media, mobility, CRM, advertising, and marketing.

We wanted to give our event’s audience a true “connection” experience, before, during, and after the event.  Through Bizzabo, attendees were able to easily connect and engage.  They were able to see in advance who they wanted to meet during the event, communicate with contacts old and new, set meetings, and make the most efficient use of their time.  These proved to be very powerful and useful capabilities, indeed.

In addition to having a great way for our attendees to connect with each other, one of our main objectives was to spread the word prior to the event, especially through social media channels. Through Bizzabo’s share capabilities, attendees increased the buzz around LivePerson Inside as they utilized Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, prior to and during the event.

Lastly, from the organizer’s perspective, having the ability to communicate with and engage our audience directly and real-time—either by sending vital information to the entire community before, during and after the event, or by creating event-specific and dedicated offers—proved to greatly impact the attendee experience.

At the end of the day it really came down to following a few simple best practices:

1. Include a detailed event agenda and speaker list in the Bizzabo app

2. Send three short emails, a month, a week, and a day before the event, reminding your audience to use the Bizzabo app, highlighting its benefits.

3. Announce Bizzabo as your official networking app on your event registration website.  Briefly describe attendee benefits, and include a clear call-to-action to download Bizzabo.

4. Engage on social networks.  Promote the Bizzabo app on social media as early in the game as possible.

5. On the event floor, announce Bizzabo as your official networking app by using rollup banners as well as during opening remarks and “house-keeping” messages.

Looking at the statistics gathered by the Bizzabo team, I can say we had a very successful event.  With over 250 attendees, we saw a very high engagement rate from our attendees, across the board.

Looking forward to seeing you all at our next event!

Ariel Cohen