This past weekend, SwiftMobile beta-tested our new iPhone app for the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (BCEC).
Using the SwiftMobile platform, we customized myBCEC for the American Library Association’s midwinter conference, adding complete conference details, schedules, and agendas. We designed the App as a great way to manage event maps, program, and buzz. Even before the App was launched, we discovered conference attendees were already tweeting it up.
We built robust analytics into the App so we could learn how people were using it and use that information for updates and also surveyed users for feedback.
Now the results are in:
- People liked it! Sixty percent of users gave it a positive or very positive rating.
- People used it! In fact, they used it a lot. The average visit was almost 13 minutes long!
- People benefited from it! The most popular features were SwiftMobile’s Nearby (an integrated mash-up of restaurants, hotels, and services within walking distance of the venue) followed closely by our very handy Venue Maps. Other popular features included the transit shuttle bus page, airport departures, and MBTA alerts.
- People connected through it! The App gathered more than 10,000 event-specific tweets in Swift’s Tweeter so users could stay on top of what people were saying. And of the other social networking features built into the App, SwiftMobile’s People Pages were the most popular feature.
Our friends at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center were excited by the results, and we’re already talking about the next event.
So what’s this mean for the future?
- We’re continuing to tweak the App’s usability. We’re looking at every user comment to see what we can do to make the App completely user friendly—as well as really fun to use.
- We’re enhancing the App’s ability to deliver new revenue streams to venues and producers. By integrating advertising, digital signage, sponsorships, and couponing and promotion into the platform, we can open up an exciting new marketing channel to venues and producers.
- We’re enhancing the analytics. The data our App can potentially generate will provide valuable insights into the interests, concerns and behavior of conference attendees—data that can be used to produce better events and as well as better marketing.
- We’re updating the mobile web version that can be used by any smartphone browser and looking to build native Blackberry and Android versions of the platform.
See a demo here.
Download the myBCEC iPhone App here.
Check out some press coverage of the myBCEC launch here:
If you are interested in a mobile application for your venue or your event, please contact us at sales@imswift.com. Or give us a call: 617/942-1535.
