Socio

The customer services was by far the best asset for Socio. They were there every step of the way through the planning process to the actual conference. We had dedicated representatives that helped with training presenters, exhibitors and staff working the conference; they helped brainstorm ideas for advertising, planning, and creating community feel in a virtual environment.

There were no downsides, but what helped least would have to be the switching between our dedicated representatives; this caused some confusion on my end but it was never an issue and never caused any undue stress.

We had to move to a virtual conference for the first time. Actually, it started out as hybrid and as we got closer realized that it would need to be completely virtual due to the pandemic. What we realized is that having a virtual aspect is incredible to reach those unable to travel due to financial restrictions, time constraints or other factor; it also allows for attendees to experience all of the conference as they are able to go back and watch recorded sessions that were occuring at the same time as the one they attended live.

The virtual wall, the ability to make networking connections/send messages, plus the event game allowed us to interact and engage with attendees even though our event was virtual. The ability to brand the app by choosing colors, graphics, etc. made it feel like a "virtual venue" that attendees were joining, rather than just a video stream. Event sponsors really appreciated their sponsor profiles where attendees could read about the sponsor, visit their website, and follow up directly with them. The administrator end of the app was super intuitive - setting everything up was very easy. Anytime I had questions Socio's support team could be reached via chat almost immediately, and they were always able to help me out.

When I initially used the software for events in October of 2020, I had a few technical issues with people not being able to log in to our app, even though they were all set up correctly. However, they must have fixed this bug because when I used the software for an event in December 2020 I had zero issues with that. (Also the Socio support team fixed the issue for each attendee with login issues in October, it was just cumbersome to deal with on event week.)

I am really glad I chose Socio as our virtual events platform this year. I've used it for 3 events, and received positive feedback from attendees each time. It made our virtual events feel like actual experiences, which was exactly what we were trying to do.

The Socio platform is incredibly intuitive, allowing you to be creative without the complexities and turn your vision for the event into reality. Everything within the platform ecosystem links very well together and it is very clear that there was lot of time thinking about how this platform would make our events better, both for the organizers and the attendees. Our attendees loved the ease of logging in and navigating the platform both on the desktop and mobile version.

In addition, the service that Socio offers is incredibly as they take the time to really help you make your event the best it can be. It is full of very talented individuals that truly go out of their way to make your event successful.

I would have liked to see a more robust reporting and analytics tool to review our event once it had finished, which I know that is something the Socio team is working on right now!

Initially, when we invested in Socio, COVID-19 had not turned the events world upside down. So the initial problem we were solving was having a more engaging and useful tool to use during the conference. Having intuitive agendas, conference maps, live displays and more. However, if we didn't choose to make that move to want to have a more engaging platform we would not have been able to take our conference completely virtual in a matter of a few months.

Customer Service. Integrations.Navigation. Streaming. New Features: Polling and group video chatting networking.

App Icons are limited. Need more gamification templates.

Full agenda and speaker navigation. RMTP streaming via mobile and desktop. Accessible from anywhere.

All the features housed in one spot for users to access. Made communication easier.

That removing one passcode (of the web-based application), did not also remove the passcode off the mobile app for users to access the event.

It solved the fact that we had to cancel our in-person conference. This allowed us to still be able to offer CEUs in a virtual format. The benefit was allowing users to watch 16 hours of CEUs over the course of days. They were able to complete at their own pace.