Mingling Activities for Socialization, Connection and Networking

Socialization, connection, and networking are the outcomes of a good interactive networking activity.

An interactive networking mingling activity that gets people who may have never met in person to get to know each other beyond.

Interactive Networking Gets People Talking!

Effective mingling activities are created from good interactive networking. The focus for interactive networking is getting people to interact and engage with each other, and a good interactive networking activity focuses on helping people engage and talk with each other, and less on an activity that is talked about.

• Get people talking and engaging with each other.
• Not just an activity to be talked about.

The more the activity gets people engaging with each other, the better it is as an interactive networking activity.

The main reason is that it makes people feel seen, heard, and understood. When people feel these three emotions, they will instantly feel that they belong.

Networking is a way to help people mingle and connect, and creating an interactive networking experience could be the difference between a good event and a fantastic experience for the attendee.

An interactive networking mingling activity that gets people who may have never met in person to get to know each other matters because it allows people to connect without the usual awkwardness.

Introverted attendees can struggle when networking at events. Perhaps they struggle with “What to say?”, “Who to approach?”, “How to approach?” … the list can go on, and people hesitate and end up holding back on networking.

Interactive networking is all about creating space for networking, specifically for people who often struggle to make new connections.

Networking that feels like play is networking that allows everyone in attendance to build real connections and have meaningful conversations that lead to new opportunities.

JamSocial talks about how one in three meaningful conversations at events leads to a new opportunity. This creates new opportunities such as friendships, relationships, a stronger community, and referrals without the chaos and stress of setting up an activity or printing sheets.

What interactive networking is all about is making networking fun and exciting while creating space for meaningful conversations to happen. Finding the balance between fun and meaningful is especially important for an effective networking activity.

Ease of use is first and foremost necessary for any activity.

Most people will be experiencing the networking activity for the first time; it must be intuitive. If you spend 10 minutes explaining the rules, you’ve lost the momentum.

Accessibility is a big one! Whether someone is a social butterfly or a quiet observer, the activity should have a low barrier to entry. It should work for people with different physical abilities, language fluencies, and social comfort levels.

Networking shouldn’t be an "afterthought" or something people have to do while balancing a plate of food. A good interactive activity has a dedicated slot in the agenda, signaling to attendees that connecting is just as important as the keynote speech.

Usually, depending on your event, your dedicated networking time can be before or after food is served (if there’s food), or about 15–20 minutes into the event.

The activity should remove the "fear of rejection." By gamifying the interaction, the "ask" isn't "Will you talk to me?" but rather "Can you help me with this task?" This shift reduces anxiety and makes the reward—a new connection—feel organic.

JamBingo is an interactive networking tool to connect people, especially to connect the right people.

It helps facilitate conversations between people (who may not all know each other) and gives people conversation prompts:

These Jam Bingo conversation prompts empower people with “What to say” and “Who to approach,” gamifying how people connect with each other.

This way, attendees feel confident approaching and talking with new people, as opposed to the usual small talk like, “What do you do?”

It makes a good interactive networking activity that gets more people connecting and interacting with each other.

Something that makes JamBingo unique is its ‘Introduce Me’ feature. In short, it’s a matchmaker feature that can be incredibly useful for attendees to connect with the right people at events.

Brella is an event app that has many sub-products, one of which is a smart networking tool that uses AI to power matchmaking. On its website, it focuses on adding value to both attendees and sponsors with AI-powered matchmaking.

It is very focused on driving meetings: one-to-one meetings, meetings with sponsors, and the meetings are goal oriented (perhaps best suited for business focused events).

A great interactive networking activity gives people an opportunity to connect with new people in the room and get to know them beyond, “What do you do?”

Small talk often kills most conversations before it starts, not because it’s objectively bad, but because the foundation for real connections is missing. A great interactive networking activity, like one of my favourites, JamBingo, or other interactive tools, takes on the heavy lifting of helping people mingle and connect.

You can choose a networking activity based on your group size and how well acquainted the group already is.

What should you do if the group is well acquainted?

• If the group is well acquainted, you can pick activities that go deeper and ask questions that create space for new conversations. They already know of each other; now you can dive in.

If the group is meeting each other for the first time, you want something that gives everyone an equal chance to meet everyone. JamBingo is really good for this because it’s a networking tool that focuses on getting people to engage with each other via conversation prompts.

Whichever activity you pick, it must follow the principle of being easy to understand, accessible, and low-stakes yet high-reward.

15 to 30 minutes into the event is a good time to start the activity; this will ensure you have the majority of the people who will attend in the room and ready to go.

If you’ll have snacks or food, it is best to have the networking activity either before or after people eat, not during.

The duration of the activity is up to you and the timeline you have. Some activities are naturally shorter than others, and the most important thing to keep in mind is the quality of the connection - many are better than the quantity.

Get feedback from your guests and attendees. People will generally tell you about your activity not with words, but by returning to your future events.

This is how you truly gauge success: the percentage of people who attend your following events because they had a blast.

Collecting written feedback is great, as it will give you an idea of things to improve for future events.

Interactive networking gets people talking! It gets people connecting and learning more about each other. A great networking activity is one that helps people feel they belong.