Infographic
Congress planning best practices checklist
Is your congress planning:
- Tech-enabled?
- Backed by strategy?
- Part of your holistic insights management approach?
If you answered no to all three questions, consider this: congress events are just part of a bigger picture, and have value far beyond a week-long event. To make the most of these important opportunities, use these best practices to get started with a more modern, insights-driven congress strategy that makes sense of complex planning and yields deeper, more actionable insights.
#1 Use social media listening to help achieve your goals
Your planning checklist is likely exhaustive and includes everything from determining attendees and assessing logistics to scoping abstracts and planning publications. Social listening can inform important pre-congress preparations, including:
- Gathering info on the KOLs and DOLs attending
- Scanning relevant scientific abstracts
- Monitoring breaking news and competitor activity
These information streams will help you stay on top of critical topics and the people you’ll want to talk to during the event. Monitoring social platforms can also take place off-site, meaning your peers at the event can focus on congress activities.
#2 Conduct asynchronous meetings during the congress
While it’s true you can’t be in two places at once, you can fully participate in face-to-face congress activities and meet with your colleagues asynchronously. Teams can log in to a virtual platform on their own schedule to capture feedback in near real-time:
- Share impressions from 1:1 KOL engagements
- Review trends and communicate key concepts
- Interact with peers who couldn’t attend in-person
Rather than waiting until after the congress is over to compile insights, teams can start sharing information in the moment, when recall is fresh and new input is top-of-mind.
# 3 Refocus social listening and asynchronous interaction after the congress
Organizing all of the information you gather during a congress can take weeks or months – time in which new data may emerge to change the scientific narrative. Get ahead of this challenge by using post-congress social listening to:
- Understand KOLs’ top takeaways
- Keep up with discussion around your disease community
- Monitor conversations about your brand
Finally, use asynchronous collaboration to share what you learned, plan KOL/DOL engagements, and update field teams and MSL strategy.
Download our free e-book to learn how your peers use insights management technology to streamline the congress experience.
