Cisco Uses Social Tech to Boost Engagement at Large-Scale Events

Since Cisco launched its flagship Cisco Live conference, the tech world has changed dramatically, and the myriad ways people connect and stay in touch have brought both challenges and opportunities—especially when it comes to virtual participants.

In a recent initiative to integrate today's social technologies into event communication and foster greater interaction with virtual attendees as well as those on-site, the tech giant turned to social media communication tools, hoping to gradually transform the nature of conversation through technology.

Kathy Doyle, Cisco's global customer events lead, said that using Cisco's own Spark messaging platform, "we created virtual rooms for specific topics that people could become part of before the event, allowing you to start conversations with speakers and other attendees."

In June, Doyle and her team hosted the event in nearly one million square feet of exhibition space in Las Vegas, welcoming approximately 28,000 attendees. They needed to find ways to ensure attendees didn't feel lost in the crowd. "Because it's such a large event, it was crucial to find more ways to connect with our customers," she said. Additionally, for the first time, Cisco used Facebook Live to broadcast the event's keynotes, enabling Facebook users to watch in real time.

Casey O'Looney, senior manager of global marketing at the company, said, "Following the keynotes, to engage our virtual audience, we offered them a customized Q&A session with Cisco leadership."

Before the live stream, questions were solicited via LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, then moved to the Facebook Live stream's comment feed, allowing users to participate in real time. While interacting via the comment feed is not new for users, crowdsourcing a live conversation with company executives was groundbreaking for Cisco.

O'Looney explained that it strengthened attendees' connection to the event and to the company itself. She said the direct feedback from executives gave individuals and remote attendees a greater sense of belonging.

She said: "Anyone who participated in the conversation felt heard and listened to by the Cisco team."