While health and safety are top-of-mind for all of us, we know it can still be deflating to cancel an event. For associations, canceling an annual conference or event means missing out on valuable time to bring your community together. During these times, we can look to technology to bridge some of the gaps that missing out on your annual meeting may cause. And what better way than with mobile? The average person spends nearly 4 hours a day on their phones, according to emarketer. With Guidebook, you can easily turn your event app into a year-round membership engagement platform to keep you and your members in communication. Here are a few ideas for transitioning your association event app into a year-round engagement tool.

Use your app as an online community

Encourage members to build connections. Sure, chatting online is not quite the same as a face to face event, but with Interact, our in-app social feed, you can encourage members to let their personalities shine with text, image, and video updates! Tip: start the discussion off by sharing relevant articles or news! This will encourage others to do the same.

Turn your event content into a virtual event series

Don’t fret - all of those speaking sessions, presentations, and research papers don’t have to go to waste. Instead, utilize those resources to educate your members throughout the year. Host virtual events monthly or quarterly leveraging your selected speakers. Create sessions, just like you would for a live event and include the video link in the session description.

Keep information flowing

Another practical way of using a mobile app is to provide on-demand information to your members. Whether it’s member handbooks and important documents or relevant industry publications - you can make your app a repository for all things that may interest your community. Tip: invite your members to submit materials. Put out a virtual call for papers, and upload materials as you get them.

Bring in sponsor revenue

Just because your event app is transforming into an evergreen app doesn’t mean you have to forget sponsors! Promoting your sponsors can be achieved digitally through a variety of methods. You can give your sponsors a dedicated menu item, enabling them to fill it with resources they’d like. You can also sell the rights to a sponsored banner image that will live at the bottom of the app menu. Sponsored sessions are another great way to give a high level of visibility to these stakeholders.

Case Study: Year-Round App

See how one association is using Guidebook year-round to improve communication with its members and its staff.

YMCA of the Rockies

The YMCA of the Rockies created a mobile app to provide information for the several thousand internal staff and members who needed information throughout the year. By creating a single app that housed both an internal staff guide and an external member guide, the YMCA streamlined how they managed information.

• Internal staff guide as an onboarding resource and to better inform and communicate with employees
• For their external guests, YMCA created a guide to house hotel information, links to local attractions, maps, and even included a communication channel for their guests.

Whether a member is looking for event information or a new staff member is onboarding – the guide now acts as a single hub to point to individuals to find information.