One of the main success metrics for event planners is event engagement. The following event examples have facilitated attendee interaction by integrating social media and social walls.
Whether your event is virtual, hybrid, in-person, big or small, with a social media wall, you’ll be able to engage almost any audience. BMW Group, Google, Showstopper, BearingPoint, Sony Music, Hilton, Prada, and many other brands rocked event engagement by leveraging the power of social media walls. Get inspired by their stories.
The point of planning an award ceremony is to celebrate the achievements of specific people. Therefore, arranging a social wall for such an event is an excellent way to keep the celebration going for longer.
The British Council Study UK alumni awards ceremony
Study UK created a social wall to celebrate the Alumni Awards. Here you find posts from their official social media accounts announcing the winners, just like messages from the winners thanking the prize.
UnidosUS Capital awards ceremony
UnidosUS Capital Awards recognise Latinx leaders that inspired the community to vote in the 2020 Census. They created a microsite for the virtual event and embedded a social wall to make the ceremony more engaging for everyone.
Engage your attendees with a social wall!
Generali Cologne Marathon
The Generali Cologne Marathon takes place every year and sees over 25,000 participants. To keep the running spirit all year long, they created a hashtag campaign supported by a social wall.
The idea behind the campaign is to motivate people to keep running all year-round instead of only once a year for the marathon.
Showstopper dance competition
Founded in 1978, Showstopper is America’s first, longest-running, and most prestigious dance competition. The first-ever virtual version of Showstopper took place in 2020, and they used a social wall to engage their virtual audience.
They embedded a social wall next to their virtual competition room. The wall kept engagement up on social media and also helped spread the word about their events. In their own words: “People were excited to see themselves on the wall!”
La Copa del Rey basketball championship
La Copa del Rey 2021 (King’s Basketball Cup) is an annual knockout basketball competition organised by Spain’s professional league, Liga ACB. In 2021, spectators could not attend the games in person due to COVID-19. However, they still supported their favourite teams by posting motivating messages to a live social media wall displayed courtside.
The team engaged at-home viewers by motivating them to post content to their social wall. The messages then showed up on three social media walls displayed on a 32-meter screen installed courtside.
Gordon Bennet air balloon competition
Another great example of using a social wall to improve event engagement is Gordon Bennet’s air balloon competition. They made a live broadcast of commentators via YouTube, which they embedded on the website along with a social wall. The wall displayed posts of viewers and photos of the competition in real time.
Saalbach Ski Worls Cup competition
Saalbach’s Tourism Service Center first set up a social wall for the Ski World Cup event using the hashtag #WorldCupSaalbach. The social wall was embedded on the World Cup website. Fans, athletes and officials were encouraged to use the hashtag when posting their impressions of the event on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Since then, they have used the social wall for other events too. They also display it on digital signage and have it embedded on their website to inspire visitors
DMEXCO trade fair event
DMEXCO, or Digital Marketing Expo & Conference, is an annual trade fair for the digital marketing and advertising industry held in Cologne, Germany. They completely embraced social walls and found multiple ways of incorporating them smoothly into the trade fair. The team created a more interactive and engaging environment, both offline and online.
Displaying social walls on a huge display at a central point of a trade fair or event is a great idea. A prominent social wall is an eye-catcher, and it reminds people to share their own posts using the official hashtags.
Intel HPC virtual events and information hub
Intel HPC runs different events throughout the year about AI, technology, computers and everything in between. There’s a virtual lobby on their website to make all event attendees feel welcomed. And guess what else you can find in the lobby? A social wall.
After clicking the social wall symbol in the lobby, people are directed to the actual social wall that looks like this:
Intel HPC collects content from different sources. They display PhD openings, the latest tech news, related conferences and much more. This way, attendees will still be engaged when there is no event.
Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue conference
The Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue gathered a variation of professionals in energy, environmental policy, economy, and climate justice.
From the start, the social media moderator announced that they would accept audience questions for the speakers via social media. Viewers were instructed to submit any questions or comments on Twitter with the hashtag #betd21. All tweets were gathered on one unified social media wall, embedded on the event’s microsite and displayed on a big screen next to the moderator during the entire event.
The engagement didn’t stop there. After the talks, the moderator would pick a few tweets, display them on screen and let speakers answer the questions. It created a conversation between speakers and attendees rather than a one-way event format.
Hybrid events by Google
Google has been using social media walls for some of its large-scale hybrid international events. They set up huge on-site displays, and incorporated real-time social streams into their live streams.
Google has been very diligent about making sure there is a live stream for all their public events. And they made the social wall part of the live stream, often showing it in the breaks between the individual agenda items.
A live stream, especially when it shows the social wall as well, is a great way to make an event accessible for everyone and goes a long way towards making people feel included, even when they can’t be at the event in person.
Engage an audience with a social wall!
Corporate events can be awkward, and employees might be difficult to impress these days. That’s why a social wall might be the best solution to make work gatherings more social and exciting.
BMW Group Germany Working Out Loud event
BMW Group Germany used a social media wall to enhance a 500-people internal event they organised. Working Out Loud is an initiative started by John Stepper and first adopted at the BMW Group a few years ago. The grassroots movement aims to improve the quality of work by encouraging people to share work in progress with a relevant community. The idea is to get input from and collaborate with the community and learn from each other’s processes and solutions.
BMW Group used the Walls.io event solution to set up a social media wall for this conference. Anyone could provide input and photos by posting on social media with the hashtag #BMWWOLCON.
Cisco Leader Day global company event
This company event by Cisco is an excellent example of how a social wall can bring a global community together and motivate them to share their experience.
More than 8,000 people, 22 locations, 7 time zones, 1 Cisco Leader Day. Cisco uses a social wall to centre their social media efforts for one of their biggest global leadership events.
On a social wall map theme, they display posts using the event’s official hashtag based on location. The social map helped create a sense of community and engaged attendees worldwide.
BearingPoint 10 years as a company celebration
To celebrate ten years of success, the BearingPoint marketing team devised a hashtag campaign focusing on corporate social responsibility, asking employees to show their communities they cared.
They used a social wall to collect all the social media posts around the initiatives that the BearingPoint teams had in each country.
They displayed the social wall on TV screens in different offices, and embedded it in their intranet and on the public landing page they built around the campaign.
Microsoft Hybrid Work Tour
From the 20th to the 24th of September, Microsoft hosted the Hybrid Work Tour. This event offered workshops and special talks to show employees that they can work from anywhere with the right tools.
The main attraction consisted of a branded van that drove from Berlin to Munich. The driver and host documented their experience on social media and a social wall.
They also motivated attendees to post on a social wall with the hashtag #HybridWorkTour, prominently displayed on the van.
Have engaging corportate events with a social wall!
International Epilepsy Day
50 Million Steps for Epilepsy is an initiative that seeks to walk one step for every person with epilepsy in the world. From January 4 to February 8, supporters of the cause can submit their steps and social proof to an interactive map.
Given the event’s global nature, they created an interactive map displaying supporter’s social media posts tagged with the hashtag #50MillionSteps.
The map shows where each post was published, the photo or video and a description. The map promotes interaction between advocates of the cause, creating a sense of global community.
International Day of Clean Air for blue skies
On this International Day of Clean Air for blue skies, many entities call upon everyone, governments and corporations to civil society and individuals to take action to reduce air pollution and bring a transformative change in our lifestyles.
The UN set up a social media wall that collects social proof from everyone involved in multiple languages. Anyone can post to the wall with the hashtag #WorldCleanAirDay / #HealthyAirHealthyPlanet.
World Leukemia Day
In celebration of World Leukemia Day, Leukaemia Care UK prepared a hashtag campaign supported by a social wall. They collected the content from their Instagram, Facebook and Twitter profiles. The wall displayed emotional stories of Leukemia survivors, just like facts and news about the disease.
Celebrate an international day with a social wall!
Shameless final season launch fan engagement events
The series finale of Shameless had a social wall with posts from fans and their official account embedded on a microsite. In there, you could watch a live talk by the cast. They added clear instructions on how to post to the wall, along with a QR code to access a branded Instagram filter.
Sony Music Depeche Mode movie launch
One of the world’s biggest record companies, Sony Music Entertainment, used two social media walls as part of their social media hashtag campaign for the Depeche Mode movie SPIRITS in the Forest.
In celebration of the SPIRITS in the Forest release, Sony Music encouraged Depeche Mode fans to share their own Depeche Mode fan stories using the hashtag #SPIRITSintheForest.
Hashtag content from Twitter and Instagram is displayed using a live social media integration on the official microsite for the movie launch. Another great way to promote a movie and engage fans in the process.
Make your watch party more exciting with a social wall!
Miller Lite Hot Country Nights weekly concert
Miller Lite Hot Country Nights presented by 106.5 the Wolf is a country concert series happening every Thursday evening, all summer long! They give spectators a voice by listing their Tweets, Facebook mentions, and Direct Posts on a social wall display that’s part of the stage.
Sweetwater’s Gearfest music festival
GearFest is an annual music gear festival organised by Sweetwater, the largest online retailer of musical instruments and pro audio equipment in the United States. The festival is all about introducing the newest gear, interspersed with workshops and performances from various artists.
The festival saw more than 17k visitors, so in an effort to increase real-time engagement, they implemented a live social feed where attendees could post by using the hashtag #Gearfest.
The Gearfest social wall was on display in the dining area, where there was heavy foot traffic at all times. People could glance at it as they walked through or also spend time looking at it while they ate.
Tomorrowland’s first virtual music festival
The virtual 2020 Tomorrowland edition also featured a social media wall to engage attendees.
To provide attendees with an extraordinary experience, Tomorrowland created Pāpiliōnem — a magical, virtual island — for the first digital edition of the festival. Here, attendees could find the social wall.
Before entering the event’s social feed, attendees were encouraged to share their experience on social media using the event’s official hashtag #Tomorrowland2020 on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
And this is how the wall turned out:
The Melanoma March event by Melanoma Institute Australia
The Melanoma March is Melanoma Institute Australia’s major annual fundraising campaign. This initiative seeks to bring together melanoma patients, families, and local communities to raise awareness and research funds.
In March 2020, the organisation created a virtual march powered by a social wall, and in 2021 they innovated the social media fundraising game with a new method.
They came up with the fantastic idea to sell footprints in addition to the march. For $30, you could buy a personalised footprint on the website. You receive a digital image of a footprint, which represents the steps taken to combat melanoma. The money is a donation, and you get to add a message to each footprint, which is then shared on a social wall.
Humane Society of Charlotte Pet Palooza fundraising event
For years, Pet Palooza’s yearly fundraising walk has been essential to the Humane Society of Charlotte’s fundraising calendar. Due to the pandemic, they created Pet Palooza Rerouted. This virtual fundraising event encouraged their supporters to walk in their neighbourhood, parks, and with their own safe, small groups rather than gathering as a huge crowd.
But, how do you take a fundraising walk and make it virtual without losing all those fun elements that connect people in an event setting? The answer is simple: a social wall to boost event engagement.
Encouraging each walker’s participation via social media created a feeling of togetherness, even though they were separated. The content published with the hashtag #PetPaloozaRerouted was added to a social wall.
Fundraising challenge: Blue Light Stair Run
The Blue Light Stair Run competition is, as its name suggests, an annual stair climb competition for uniformed emergency services personnel at Broadgate Tower.
All frontline emergency personnel can apply, including ambulance, coastguard, firefighters, police, correctional officer, and search and rescue. The event raises funds for charities that support the same services. Their social wall is embedded underneath the competition instructions and displays footage from previous events to motivate future participants.
Even though private events tend to be smaller, hosts and attendees still appreciate dynamic ways to interact with each other. Using a social wall for a private event is also a great way to collect precious memories from your special day in one place.
Birthday parties
During the 2020 lockdown, the Walls.io team threw a virtual birthday party for our CEO, Michael. Everyone uploaded some birthday messages to our social wall for him as a surprise.
Using a social wall as a birthday or congratulation card is a lovely idea, especially if you can’t meet in person. And even if you can see each other, having all your birthday wishes gathered in one feed, it’s a charming detail.
Wedding celebrations
It’s thanks to social media that we have been privy to some of the most hilarious wedding postings. Even wedding hashtags have long gone from hipster to mainstream and are pretty widely in use. The next step up from creating a wedding hashtag and asking your guests to use it when posting to Instagram, Twitter and Facebook is to get a wedding wall going like Iwona and Angelo did for their wedding.
Celebrate your special day with a social wall!
Since religious events are centred around a community, we had to add some examples to this list. Starting with an exceptional event feed titled Prayers for a Holy Recovery.
Faith in Public Life Action (FPLA)
Faith in Public Life Action (FPLA), a movement of clergy and faith leaders united in the prophetic pursuit of justice, equality and the common good in the USA, created the Holy Recovery event. This event encourages the community to take different forms of social action.
They set up a social wall to display messages of encouragement, photos of their protests, and in general, to communicate the change they believe in. Their social wall is not only packed with impressive social proof, but it’s also beautifully designed.
Father Joe’s Commemoration
The following event example is a nice usage of a social wall for special occasions.
Father Joe passed away recently, so his community prepared a social wall to gather messages that commemorate his legacy. The feed is full of heartwarming stories and photos of his achievements.
We were so excited to find this example because it’s not only a beautifully incorporated feed on a website, but it also showcases some of the best-worn gowns from this year’s MET Gala.
Prada, which needs no introduction, uses multiple social walls on their website to showcase celebrities wearing their creations, new products, just like photos from events and runways.
During their Shaping a Sustainable Digital Future conference, they set up a social wall to gather attendee’s comments and perspectives on the future of fashion, sustainability and digital innovation. Anyone could submit to the wall with the hashtag #SustainableDigitalization.
Crime club mystery events
Mystery events are great ways to keep a group engaged. They are great entertainment for a birthday party, a work event, or simply a night of fun. Crime club is a mystery-solving event company in Austria that provides puzzles and clues to groups of people that wish to escape reality and be entertained for a couple of hours.
They embedded a social wall on their website to show visitors a glimpse of what they offer. The wall collects and displays photos and videos of past events, just like mystery book recommendations.
Fairyliveshow Twitch live streaming events
Twitch user Marili aka Fairyliveshow, runs a Twitch show called “The Comic Book of Twitch”.
Inspired by the Eurovision Song Contest, Marili and her team decided to organise a song contest entirely on Twitch, called TwitchVision, where other creators could submit songs, and the audience got to vote live to crown the winners.
They used a social wall to engage viewers, and this is what Marili had to say about the experience:
“TwitchVision was a fun competition that had to do with creative people, great music, and lots of different creators and communities. So I thought it would be a great idea to include a “social wall” section within the show to engage the audience, interact with their posts, and encourage them to support their favourite songs by posting about them and getting featured on the TwitchVision wall.”
Coaches, comedians, celebrities, YouTubers and any other public figures could imitate the concept of having a live social media wall as their background to engage the audience.
City of Philadelphia inauguration ceremony
Philadelphians initiated 2020’s holiday festivities with a virtual-only tree lighting ceremony at the beginning of December. The ceremony was even broadcast live on 6ABC, one of Philadelphia’s local TV stations, allowing viewers to participate in their seasonal tradition from the comfort of their homes.
Along with the seasonal event, the city of Philadelphia created a dedicated microsite. There, anyone could see a live video from the tree 24/7. Right underneath the video, they embedded a social wall with different photos, videos and announcements.
Hilton Atlanta Dragon Con event
We stumbled upon an entertaining event at the Hilton Hotel in Atlanta. Dragon Con 2021, the largest multimedia pop culture convention focusing on science fiction & fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film, chose the Hilton hotel in Atlanta as their venue.
During Labour Day weekend, the event welcomed many intergalactic creatures and characters, all displayed on their social wall. All attendees could submit content by using the hashtag #HiltonAtlanta and #StrangerHilton2021.
Event engagement is simple with a social wall
As you may have noticed from all the event examples above, pairing a social wall with an event is a great way to boost event engagement and win the attention of your audience. Help attendees interact with each other by providing them with a tool that becomes the centre of attention.
This way, people don’t feel so pressured to talk, and they will end up socialising with more ease. Plus, having your photo shown on a screen of a website is quite a pleasant experience! People love to have their 15 minutes of fame.
