Enhance your events and community with the Yunits Conference Module

Bring event management and community management together in one central location.

‘Members are highly engaged with my association during events and conferences, but afterwards, not so much.’ Sound familiar? It doesn’t have to be that way. With the Yunits Conference Module, you can keep members engaged before, during, and after an event. But how exactly do you achieve that?

By: Mathijs Vleeming

To maintain member engagement, you can encourage interaction with and between (potential) participants before, during, and after the event. This helps make the conference or event resonate even more with your audience. The Conference Module, an additional module within your Yunits platform, is specifically designed for this purpose. When combined with your existing Yunits community platform, you add extra value to your event.

Before the conference: share important information

Through the conference module, you can share all information about the conference in an organised way in one place on your community platform. The module’s logical navigation structure helps you step-by-step to include all the essential event details:

General information

  Share key general information about the conference, such as:

• date and time
• related themes and topics
• maximum number of registrations
• registration period 

Perhaps you even have an introductory video to share?

Programme

Include a comprehensive programme. Participants can click on a session title to view its timing, speakers (with links to their profiles), location, and detailed session descriptions. Attendees can mark sessions as favourites during registration and save them in “My Programme.” They can also sign up for specific sessions via the platform. As the organiser, you can create parallel sessions in multiple rounds.

Speakers

Introduce speakers and clearly show which sessions they will deliver. Include a link to these sessions in the programme. If a speaker also has a profile on the Yunits platform, you can easily link to it.

Location

Share information about the venue. For example, add a map so participants can plan their route or provide additional details like parking facilities.

Media and downloads

Share important documents such as reports, photos, and background information about the event.

Contact page

Provide the most important contact details, so participants know whom to reach out to with any questions.

Participant list

Encourage participants to sign up by showing who has already registered. Especially for events with limited spots, you create a Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) effect.

Registration and payments 

Participants can easily register:

• Step 1 – Details: After logging in, participants choose the appropriate rate (e.g., “standard rate” or “discount rate”) and select which day(s) they will attend. Their personal details are automatically filled in based on their profile on the platform. They can also enter billing details and dietary preferences or allergies.
• Step 2 – Programme: Participants put together their personal programme and register for specific sessions.
• Step 3 – Review: Participants review their details, make adjustments if necessary, and complete their registration. The system then sends an invoice, or the participant is redirected to an existing payment system to pay directly.

Before the conference: organisation and management 

The conference module also includes handy features for event organisers. This allows you to manage all aspects of event management centrally via your Yunits platform, eliminating the need for separate event registration software.

Staff

Add volunteers or conference staff to your event so organisers know who will be present and when. These staff members do not affect the total number of participants or available spots.

Waiting list

Is there a maximum number of participants? Then you can automatically add extra registrations to a waiting list.

Registrations

Manage registrations and the status of invoicing and payments.

Statistics

Get an overview of the total number of participants and the number of participants per session.

Email communication

Send emails from the platform to:

• all participants
• all speakers
• only participants registered for a specific session
• individual participants
• a specific group

Before the conference: encourage members to participate 

The Yunits platform is also highly suitable for promoting the conference among members. You can use the conference module and the existing activity module for this purpose. For example, by:

• Showing who has already registered using the activity and conference modules.
• Using Q&A, polls, and surveys to ask members about their challenges, and then designing a relevant educational programme and choosing speakers accordingly.
• Introducing speakers and their sessions via News and Blogs.

The Yunits platform will automatically send notifications to (potential) participants who are interested in the event’s topic. This way, you encourage members to register.

Before the conference: use conference registration to grow your community

To register for a conference, participants need an account on the Yunits community platform. Participants who don’t have one will need to register first. This allows you to use the event to increase the number of community members. The event then becomes the starting point for onboarding onto the community platform. After that, you can continue communication in a relevant, partially automated way and keep members engaged with relevant content and notifications.

Before the conference: connect members and spark conversation 

Connect participants – and potentially the speakers – before the conference. Create a (work)group for participants, which can serve as an interactive communication channel for the event. Within the workgroup, you can use modules like News or Blogs, Q&A, polls, or surveys to share practical information, allow participants to ask questions, or collect input for the speakers’ sessions. Furthermore, you can already introduce participants to each other for networking purposes.

This encourages engagement and interaction between participants before your conference. You can also communicate centrally with participants about the event here.

Like every other Yunits module, the conference module is available for the entire platform as well as within a workgroup. This allows you to make a specific event accessible only to members of an existing committee, workgroup, or geographical group.

During the conference: livestream and interaction 

Utilise your Yunits platform during the conference as well. For example:

• Organising a hybrid conference? Provide the livestream link via the platform, so all members have access in a secure environment.
• Share a poll or short survey during the event that participants can fill in right away.
• Use the Q&A module to make questions and answers visible to everyone.
• Collect needs and feedback in an interactive way during the event. This data is then immediately documented on your platform, allowing for an organic follow-up later.

After the conference: keep the conversation going 

Use the various modules within the workgroup to continue the conversation after the conference. For example:

• Use polls or surveys for evaluation: What did participants like, and what can be improved next time?
• Use the Notice Board module to let participants share photos of the event.
• Share presentations and any session recordings in a general knowledge base outside of the workgroup. This way, they are accessible and searchable for everyone.

In short, the Conference Module offers many possibilities to integrate activities around events with the ongoing activity on your community platform. This is especially true when you combine the Conference Module with the other modules.

Want to know more?

Contact us. We are happy to advise you on how to keep your members engaged throughout the year using the Conference Module.

About the Author

Mathijs Vleeming: Association Consultant at Yard | Digital Agency

Mathijs believes that associations can increase their impact by connecting their members throughout the year and facilitating knowledge sharing. He draws on his 20 years of experience in the “heart of the world of professional community builders,” specifically in the international meetings industry for association conferences and events at the International Congress and Convention Association, where he was Director of Marketing.

For over 3 years, Mathijs has worked as a community strategist and consultant. In this role, he helps associations and other organizations create online community strategies. He does this at Yard Digital Agency, the market leader in digital communication and community solutions for associations and public organizations in the Netherlands.

Mathijs wrote an eBook with input from associations and community leaders titled “The Association Community Compendium: How to Harness the Collective Power of Your Members.” He is also a board member of the Community Consultants Collective and a contributing expert for Association Meetings International.