Following the upsurge of the Internet of Things, the technology that has been making its way into people’s lives today is indeed the iBeacon Technology. Beacons have been successful in captivating the interest of the tech industry ever since it was introduced by Apple in the year 2013. iBeacons uses Bluetooth technology to send out signals where it employs a new generic technology known as the “indoor proximity system” enabling smartphones to receive notifications or perform actions when in close proximity of an iBeacon.
iBeacons have been greatly influencing the retail industry since its inception and other than this the sector that can leverage this technology would certainly be the event management sector. This technology offers extensive opportunities for event planners where they get to control their attendee’s experience – be it identification, attendee location, navigation, and attendee messaging. Read on below to find out how you as an event planner can use iBeacon technology for optimising your users’ experience at your event:
Visitor Management
With iBeacon technology, you can simplify your visitor management task where the RFID/BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) can help you track the total number of people present at your event (it can detect your visitors within the range of 70 to 450 meters) and their location. You can even provide your visitors with paperless check-in. You can now say goodbye to long check-in lists and even the computers as iBeacon can help you in prompting your guests (wirelessly) with the Bluetooth in their smartphones. This would save your valuable time by providing real-time tallying of those who are present at the event.
Navigation
For events that are held at larger venues, there are instances when visitors could not find certain vendors or tables. Well, iBeacon can prove out to be quite beneficial for such instances. It will use indoor positioning system helping your attendees by showing them their current location on their Smartphone along with the location of the vendor or the table they are looking out for. In addition to this, the interconnectivity provided by this technology can help you a great deal when it comes to event promotion. The Beacons installed all over the event plus the Bluetooth in your attendee’s phones can help them in finding break sessions, tables they are looking for and the events that might get missed by them. Not only the attendees but even the vendors can leverage Beacons to connect with their customers where they get a great opportunity to add location-specific promotions.
Gamification In The Event
Nowadays event planning is kind of incomplete without the aspect of Gamification. It really has the potential to draw in more visitors as well as can turn any event into a more exciting and fun one. Here, the iBeacon technology gives you more opportunities to explore this aspect of event planning where you can include scavenger hunts or other reward games in the break sessions and even during the on-going event sessions. Well, Gamification is an ideal way to make your events more engaging and iBeacons are what will make this no breeze.
Networking
Well, besides the above-mentioned advantages, using Beacons for your event can help you tremendously when to comes to networking. Networking as in – knowing and connecting with the people who are present at your event and the one you should be interacting with. iBeacons can help you achieve your networking goals by enabling you to connect via Twitter and LinkedIn. iBeacons, when linked with social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter, gives your visitors an opportunity to locate and interact with people having similar interests and devising more constructive networking opportunities. The indoor positioning system provided by the iBeacon Technology streamlines the process of networking which makes it possible for the visitors to find out the suitable person to connect with instead of wasting their time strolling around the event venue.
Hence, this is how a business or any brand can leverage Beacons and integrate it into their traditional events as iBeacon technology is something that holds more opportunities in the near future.
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Kinjal Patel
Kinjal patel is an internet marketing manager and also the co-founder of vrinsoft technology. She is an expert in SEO, SMO, PPC, App Store Optimisation etc. She has attended many tech conferences and conducted the technical expos on latest search engine marketing updates. She shares her opinion and informative stuff through the blogs/articles.
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