11 Best Features to Look for in Audience Engagement Tools

Looking for ways to bring your audience closer to your content?

Fortunately, there’s browser-based platform for that!

Modern audiences are looking for ways to get involved with the live content that they love, be that seeing their social comments featured on screen, talking directly with your content’s host or presenter, participating in polls and more.

So, it stands to reason that you need proper tools to facilitate your audience’s engagement needs. That’s where audience engagement tools come in!

You need the right tools for the job, that’s why our audience engagement experts have put together this list of all the best features you should look out for when considering audience engagement tools.

What are audience engagement tools?

Audience engagement tools (or platforms) are used to integrate with, and enhance, your live content by providing you with intelligent ways to source audience data and display it on the primary screen.

This might be in the form of featuring social discussions from your hashtags, using QR codes to guide consumers towards your landing pages or organising a poll to solicit audience thoughts and opinions.

The possibilities are endless when it comes to audience engagement tools. Here’s our 9 best features to look out for when shopping around.

1. Content sourcing

It may go without saying (as many of the above features rely on this), but your tools should be able to access third-party data sources (such as social media, messaging platforms and more), accessing trending topics and curating it in real time.

This should happen rapidly and snag-free. There should never be a delay between the social content and your content. Keeping things as live as possible is the best way to remain relevant.

2. Moderation

Sourcing content from your audience does come with its risks, however.

Your audience engagement tools should be able to accurately moderate and filter out any overly negative, or otherwise problematic content, ensuring that the only constant that makes its way to your producers/content is carefully curated and thoroughly moderated.

3. Third-party integrations

You’ll want to make sure that your chosen tool has a wide range of third-party integrations, including input integrations, such as:

• Social media
  • • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • YouTube
    • Twitch
    • Reddit

• Messaging apps
  • • WhatsApp
    • Telegram
    • SMS
    • Email

And output integrations that enable you to display data correctly:

• Data feeds
  • • RSS Feeds
    • Sport -StatsPerform
    • Weather – AccuWeather

• Other output integrations
  • • VizRT
    • Chyron
    • Ross
    • Avid
    • RT Systems

This is by no means a comprehensive list. You’ll also need it to work with dedicated APIs, JSON and XML feeds.

Need a unique integration? No worries. Talk to our team of integration experts at Dizplai to find out how we can help you to integrate the platform you need into your existing tools.

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4. Polling & voting

Putting a poll on your live content and providing easy access to your audience is a brilliant way to improve your engagement.

Polls are (generally) anonymous, take little effort and deliver an (almost) immediate result. People love comparing their thoughts with others – bonus points if your presenter or host takes the time to analyse the poll results!

This can be achieved either on social media or on any of your own operated platforms.

5. Gamification & competitions

Making your engagement into a game is a fantastic way to both encourage more people to get involved and make your live content a whole lot more exciting!

Gamification comes in all shapes and sizes:

• Competitions
• Contest
• Quizzes
• Giveaways

Get creative with it – it’s a great way to make what you’re doing a little more memorable for your live audience.

6. Branded graphics

Maintaining your brand at all times is essential. Audience engagement tools should be able to easily facilitate your branding, allowing you to keep all of your communication and engagement efforts complete on brand.

Graphics should be able to run transparently in the background, meaning that they can be deployed on a whim, either as overlays, as standard broadcast production tools or on other online production platforms.

The key is in the flexibility!

7. Content carousel

Content carousels source and moderate live social data for display on your live content. This creates a wall of social posts that are on display at all times.

This keeps everything live and moving. Not only this, but people love seeing their post on a carousel wall, meaning that people are far more likely to interact with your content on social media if a carousel is currently active and they can see what they put live on your broadcast.

See how ITV’s Martin Lewis Money Show nail their engagement with a carousel.

See it done

9. Presenter control

Linking in with our previous feature, presenter control takes your social engagement one step further, allowing your presenters to isolate key social posts and bring them to the forefront.

This provides an excellent opportunity to bring your audience directly into the conversation that you’re having, helping make individuals feel more valued and encouraging further engagement.

See how BT Sport use carousels, presenter control and social walls to great effect.

How do BT Sport do it?

10. QR codes

QR codes have seen a huge resurgence in popularity in recent years, as more content creators, brands and businesses realised just how powerful it was to be able to direct a potential customer directly to a landing page of your choice!

Your audience engagement tools should be able to display a simple on brand QR code, allowing your viewers to quickly scan in using a mobile device – the perfect way to further engage audience members who are looking for a little more.

11. Messaging & personal responses

Need to create more touchpoints with your audience?
A good audience engagement tool will allow you to create personal, customised responses to your participants (this can include imagery and video, should you require!).

This can be targeted through a whole host of apps, including (but not limited to), WhatsApp, Telegram, Email and other messaging apps.

Improve your live content with Dizplai’s audience engagement tools

Finding the right tools and platform to meet your unique requirements is a challenge, we get it. That’s why, at Dizplai, it’s our mission to streamline the whole process, taking the frustration away for you and helping to revolutionise your live content.

Whether you’re looking for the right tools for you, or you have questions that need answering, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our friendly specialists today. We’re on hand to answer any questions you might have.

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