Businesses may use online meetings and webinars to promote themselves and strengthen their relationships with current clients, employees, and customers, as well as reach out to, connect with, and interact with potential clients and customers.
Webinars are multimedia events that incorporate audio-visual features such as HD video and built-in audio, as well as additional features such as live polls and more, to link and engage viewers from all over the world.
These sites can be used to host online gatherings, high school conferences, offer business or academic presentations, and quickly exchange critical messages with thousands of people all over the world.
So, if you use this tool for a good cause and create some interesting and informative webinar material, you’ll get fantastic results and people will be eagerly anticipating your next presentation!
Bottom Line Upfront:
Social Hour is one of the best tools for the host to engage in virtual Platforms. It’s perfect for Networking events, virtual happy hours, Award ceremonies, fundraisers, family reunions, and many more. Through this platform, Attendees can move in and out from small group conversations—just like at in-person events. Events can have many rooms, each with its own set of tables. It offers a free event with core features for small events including 30 guests for 60 minutes.
Choosing the best tool from among them may leave you perplexed, and you may end up signing up for mediocre software. So, to save you the trouble of comparing various online webinar resources, we’ll tell you about a simple but effective platform called Social Hour.
Table of Contents
What is Social Hour?
Social Hour is a platform that allows you to remotely interact with your team at social activities in order to foster positive organizational cultures.
With recommendations or on your own, determine the number of tables and people per table. Send your guests the event connection or make announcements to the whole party at any time. The software is used by professionals as well as small and medium businesses.
Features of Social Hour
Social Hour has been designed to compete with these platforms with the objective to provide you the best online video conferencing solutions at the most reasonable price, without compromising on performance and quality.
The platform is loaded with powerful features and even the most basic free package gives you access to all the major features and functions that you would want except for event metrics, custom user profiles, and the ability to play uploaded videos.
Here is a quick list of all the key features which you would get to play with while using Social Hour for hosting your online events and conferences.
- Tables
The heart of the Social hour experience is table conversations. Small dynamic communities, where participants can come and go as they please, we believe, provide the richest social interaction.
- Stages
Give a talk, moderate a panel, show a video, and so much more. Our stage set-up is straightforward but adaptable to your needs.
- Stages with tables
It’s like having the best of both worlds! Consider a wedding dinner or a gala. Stop by other seats, watch and debate stage speakers and presentations, and hang out at a table with your colleagues.
- Emoji feedback
Emojis may be used to respond to the speaker. Without interrupting, applaud, laugh, and raise your hand.
- Background music
Set the tone with carefully selected playlists that play quietly in the background and in the lobby.
- Word game
To add some variety, play an anagram game with your tablemates.
- Live video & chat support
You can still rely on someone needing a little extra help, which is why we’ll be there in person or on camera to help them out.
- User profiles
Make unforgettable interactions by having guests add a little personal information that is available on their video stream during the event.
- Multiple hosts
With the support of your team, create your case. Invite a decision-maker to sign off on the design of your case.
- Announcements
With video announcements, you can address all of your guests at once. Interject small table discussions gracefully to remind guests about upcoming speakers or something else you want.
- Pre-recorded videos
Before the case, test your video presentation material and upload it so you’ll be able to press play when it’s time to reveal your video.
- Branding
It’s your party, so make it look like it! Add the company (or personal) logo to be displayed during the case.
- Custom colors & backgrounds
Social Hour believes in your vision and will work with you to make it a reality. Choose from one of their pre-selected colors and backgrounds, or build your own.
- Event metrics
You would want to know how it turned out? Who came and when, what tables were common, and everything else is all shown in event metrics.
How Social Hour works?
Social Hour is a neat, well-organized, and easy-to-use platform that allows anyone and everyone to host top-quality online events, conferences, and webinars from anywhere and at any time. The functions and working of the platform have been neatly allocated for both the hosts and guests of an event.
For Hosts
- Host sets up event
Create your event and fill in the blanks to assist us in recommending the best experience for your occasion.
- Host customizes event
Customize the colors, backgrounds, and logos for your case.
- Host sets table topics
Select a table and seat layout for your case, as well as interesting table topics.
- The host can add a stage
Add a stage for one or more speakers to give presentations and participate in panels.
- The host chooses extra features
Announcements, a word game, background music, pre-recorded videos, and personalized user profiles are all examples of unique features.
For Guests
- Guests join the event via the link
Guests register for the event using a variety of sign-in services and build personalized user profiles.
- Guests enter the lobby and choose a table or stage
Guests will display and enter the rooms and tables that they are most interested in.
- Guests converse in small groups
Guests can converse in small groups about a popular table subject.
- Guests watch a presentation
Guests are welcome to attend and participate in a presentation by one or more speakers.
- Guests watch a presentation from a table
Guests may participate in a presentation or panel discussion while conversing with others at their table.
Resources to learn
The developers of Social Hour have made sure that whenever their users encounter any technical issues or problems, they can solve them by themselves, because frankly speaking, Social Hour is THAT easy to use, that even the problems you encounter can be easily resolved.
Keeping that in mind, the team has developed a knowledge base that offers several kinds of guides focusing on various key and trivial problems that users usually encounter while hosting online events. Let’s quickly discuss these!
Ebook – “How to Host Virtual Networking Sessions People Will Love”
Many marketing departments will be focusing on virtual and hybrid activities in 2021, with 92 percent of businesses planning to host a digital gathering, conference, or meet-up at some point during the year.
To learn more about how organizations can have effective networking opportunities for virtual event participants, download their ebook. This ebook can really come in handy if you wish to:
- Delight and satisfy your attendees
- Attract fresh business leads for your team
- Build and grow your business and online communities
- Establish your business as a top name in digital event experiences
If you want to download this free ebook, then you can simple just navigate to the Social Hour ebook page and just enter your email in the field at the bottom of the screen and hit “Download”
Best Practices Guide
The Social Hour team has curated some guides that discuss and explain some practices that you should follow if you want to host top quality online events and bring out the best from it. These guides cover several aspects of online video conferencing including:
- Audio & Echo
- Updating your operating system and browser software
- Maximizing internet speed
- Using mobile devices and tablets
For instance, if we are talking about “Audio & echo”, then here’s what the team suggests as the best practice to achieve fruitful results from your online event.
It’s safer to use headphones to get the most out of the noise-cancellation technology that’s already integrated into your system.
This is because the microphone in your headphones knows for sure which sounds are coming from your mouth and which are coming from your speaker, and it treats each sound source appropriately (you don’t hear your own voice coming out of your speakers, for example).
Using peripheral speakers and microphones, including those connected to peripheral cameras, makes it more difficult for the device to distinguish between the audio you want to hear from your speaker and the audio you’re saying, which can lead to echo issues.
But don’t be concerned! By wearing earphones, you can reduce or remove any audio echo you can hear.
- Best if you use wired earphones and don’t use a camera or microphone on the side.
- Second Best – wireless earphones, but no camera or microphone on the side.
- Third, use your device’s built-in microphones, camera, and microphone (but don’t use any “peripherals” like a USB camera or microphone). If you have a second, larger screen, you can use it.
The Presenter’s Guide
There isn’t much for us to explain about this part. As the name clearly suggests, these are a set of guides that lay down several key practices one should follow as the presenter of the online event. These include several aspects like:
- Checking your setup
- Getting on stage
- Toggling your microphone and camera
- Sharing your screen
- Interacting with the attendees
And a lot more.
SSO Integrations
For those who understand a little bit of coding and want to add some extra functionalities to their online events, Social Hour also allows you to add JWT tokens as SSO integrations into your events.
These tokens provide more versatility than “Sign in with Google” and other third-party providers, but they do necessitate some development work on the event host’s part.
The event host may use tokens to allow seamless authentication with their own platform, where attendees are already logged in.
Basic Troubleshooting
If you are facing some trivial problems that 90% of the users come across while trying to host an online event and are looking for troubleshooting solutions, then this sections will provide you with short and crisp step-by-step guides on how to manage and resolve various basic technical issues like:
- Camera not working
- Echo in the audio
- Choppy or laggy audio/video
- Not being able to hear others
How much does Social Hour cost?
Social Hour currently offers users to choose from 4 different packages out of which one is a free plan and the others are paid plans which are priced per event.
The free package offers all the major features and functions that you would want except for event metrics, custom user profiles, and the ability to play uploaded videos. It also comes with a limit of 30 guests per event and events of up to 60 minutes.
Free
Price: $0
- Guests: Up to 30
- Event length: Up to 60 minutes
- Announcements
- Custom colors
- Branding
- Music
- Word game
Basic
Price: $49 per event
- Guests: Up to 60
- Event length: Up to 90 minutes
- Announcements
- Custom colors
- Branding
- Music
- Word game
- Event metrics
Pro
Price: $79 per event
- Guests: Up to 90
- Event length: Up to 2 hours
- Announcements
- Custom colors
- Branding
- Music
- Word game
- Event metrics
- Play uploaded videos
- Custom user profiles
Custom
Price: Contact customer team for a quote
- Guests: Up to 5,000
- Event length: Multiple days
- Announcements
- Custom colors
- Branding
- Music
- Word game
- Event metrics
- Play uploaded videos
- Custom user profiles
If you wish to know more about these packages, then you can simply visit the Social Hour pricing page to get more information.
Comparison with leading online conference platforms
It is quite obvious that when you are planning to host an online event and looking for the best and most dependable platform to host the event, then you will come across many leading industry names like Zoom, Airmeet, Remo, and Hopin, which are popularly used by thousands of users across the globe.
So it is not a surprise that Social Hour has been designed to compete with these platforms with the objective to provide you the best online video conferencing solutions at the most reasonable price, without compromising on performance and quality.
So here is a quick comparison of Social Hour with some leading online video conferencing and webinar tools, so that you can understand where they stand in the competition and what perhaps makes them slightly better than others. In this section we will be comparing:
- Social Hour Vs Zoom
- Social Hour Vs Remo
- Social Hour Vs Airmeet
Social Hour Vs Zoom
Social Hour
- By using a logo and a custom background color or picture, hosts can personalize their event and give it a branded look and feel.
- Attendees are free to visit whatever tables or topics they choose, and new topic tables can be created as discussions progress.
- Games and background music are included as standard features, allowing attendees to have a good time and start a conversation with icebreakers.
- Event hosts will assess the quality of their event by looking at data such as the number of connections made, the most common tables, and overall attendee participation.
- Using announcements, event hosts can discuss their entire event with video and audio.
Zoom
- Zoom hosts can only configure the landing page for their event if they have a vanity URL that has been accepted.
- Zoom hosts may allow guests to choose their own breakout room, but unless they are a co-host, they cannot rename or build rooms.
- There are no built-in games or icebreakers in Zoom.
- Zoom provides a usage report that includes minimal details such as a list of all meetings, attendees, and meeting duration.
- Only text chats can be broadcast to all breakout rooms by event hosts.
Social Hour Vs Remo
Social Hour
- Number of Attendees: 5,000 attendees are permitted
- Guests per table: 7 guests
- Event duration: Unlimited
- Simultaneous events: Unlimited
- Attendees may create their own discussion topics and prompt for their table, and invite others to join in.
- Hosts can organize multi-track activities and community tables in rooms with specific themes.
- Video announcements enable event hosts to discuss their entire event.
- Event hosts will create a playlist and play background music during the event.
- At each table, each attendee has the opportunity to screen share.
- At a stage or a table, event hosts will upload and play videos for attendees.
- By using a logo and selecting a background color, hosts may give each event a branded look and feel.
- Guests enter the event via the lobby, where they can choose which table they want to sit at. They hear background music, announcements, and invitations to enter a table in the lobby.
- Attendees are free to network and visit whatever tables or topics they want, as long as the host does not delegate them.
- Attendees are encouraged to move around the room and meet new people.
- Digital name cards, which include a profile photo, job title, business, and other custom fields, are located underneath each video stream and enable attendees to learn the basics about their tablemates.
- Attendees have the option of sharing their profile information and contact information with other guests so that they can interact after the case.
- Admins may assess the quality of their event by looking at data such as the number of connections made, the most common tables, and overall attendee engagement.
- Attendees receive a rundown of the contacts they made at the case, which includes links to their LinkedIn profiles.
Remo
- Number of Attendees: Only 850 attendees are permitted
- Guests per table: 8 guests
- Event duration: 8 hours
- Simultaneous events: 5 events
- Only event managers have the ability to change table names within the event.
- The idea of floors with rooms/tables is present, but the hosts are unable to name the floors.
- Hosts can only send updates to anyone on all floors/tables through text chats.
- Hosts are unable to set background music for the entire event or individual breakout rooms using Remo.
- Attendees may use a whiteboard to screen share, add text, insert media, and collaborate.
- Presenters may share their screen or stream videos from YouTube, Twitch, or Vimeo.
- Remo allows you to add a logo and a domain, but it does not allow you to customize the overall look and feel with branded background colors.
- When your guests first arrive at the gathering, Remo distributes them among the floors at random.
- Attendees will switch around in Remo’s conversation mode to have private conversations with other attendees.
- Remo doesn’t have any features that force you to rotate your network.
- Remo has basic information about each attendee, such as their name, photo, job/company, and website.
- By default, attendees can see the profiles and contact details of other attendees.
- Admins do not receive case notifications from Remo.
- Remo does not offer event summaries to attendees.
Social Hour Vs Airmeet
Social Hour
- Number of Attendees: 5,000 attendees are permitted
- Guests per table: 7 guests
- Event duration: Unlimited
- Simultaneous events: Unlimited
- Attendees may create their own discussion topics and prompt for their table, and invite others to join in.
- Hosts can organize multi-track activities and community tables in rooms with specific themes.
- Video announcements enable event hosts to discuss their entire event.
- Event hosts will create a playlist and play background music during the event.
- At each table, each attendee has the opportunity to screen-share.
- At a stage or a table, event hosts will upload and play videos for attendees.
- By using a logo and selecting a background color, hosts may give each event a branded look and feel.
- Guests enter the event via the lobby, where they can choose which table they want to sit at. They hear background music, announcements, and invitations to enter a table in the lobby.
- Attendees are free to network and visit whatever tables or topics they want, as long as the host does not delegate them.
- Attendees are encouraged to move around the room and meet new people.
- Digital name cards, which include a profile photo, job title, business, and other custom fields, are located underneath each video stream and enable attendees to learn the basics about their tablemates.
- Attendees have the option of sharing their profile information and contact information with other guests so that they can interact after the case.
- Admins may assess the quality of their event by looking at data such as the number of connections made, the most common tables, and overall attendee engagement.
- Attendees receive a rundown of the contacts they made at the case, which includes links to their LinkedIn profiles.
Airmeet
- Number of Attendees: 100,000 attendees are permitted
- Guests per table: 8 guests
- Event duration: Unlimited
- Simultaneous events: Unlimited
- Inside the case, Airmeet only allows event managers to modify table names.
- Parallel sessions and multi-track activities are possible with Airmeet.
- Hosts of Airmeet events can only submit text notifications to all attendees.
- Background music for the whole event or individual networking tables is not possible with Airmeet.
- When on stage, presenters will share their screen.
- On the stage, presenters can upload and play videos.
- Although Airmeet allows hosts to add promo photos, it does not allow them to alter the overall look and feel of the meeting by using branded background colors.
- Attendees access the social lounge area of the case, where they can network quickly.
- Attendees at Airmeet have access to a social lounge where they can mingle with other attendees.
- While Airmeet has speed networking capabilities, the length of each session is determined solely by the event organizer.
- Basic attendee profile information, such as name, place, and job/company, is available on Airmeet.
- Attendees will digitally exchange their business cards.
- Airmeet provides comprehensive analytics on the event description, participant information, and event chats.
- Airmeet does not offer event summaries to attendees.
Customer Reviews
Frequently asked questions on Social Hour
✔Can I use Social Hour for free?
Yes! Social Hour does offer a free plan with limited features if you are looking to host small-scale online events. The free package offers all the major features and functions that you would want except for event metrics, custom user profiles, and the ability to play uploaded videos. It also comes with a limit of 30 guests per event and events of up to 60 minutes.
👓 Do I need to know coding to use Social Hour?
No! Social Hour is an easy-to-use platform that can be used by anyone, anywhere, regardless of their profession or IT skills. However, if you do know a little bit of coding and want to add some extra functionalities to their online events, Social Hour also allows you to add JWT tokens as SSO integrations into your events. These tokens provide more versatility than Sign in with Google and other third-party providers, but they do necessitate some development work on the event host's part. The event host may use tokens to allow seamless authentication with their own platform, where attendees are already logged in.
🔥 What if I face some problem?
Social Hour is extremely easy to use, so much so, that even you yourself can resolve the problems you encounter while using the platform. Keeping that in mind, the team has developed a knowledge base that offers several kinds of guides focusing on various key and trivial problems that users usually encounter while hosting online events.
💥How does Social Hour compare with other platforms?
Social Hour has been designed to compete with platforms like Zoom, Airmeet, Remo, and Hopin, which are popularly used by thousands of users across the globe, with the objective to provide you the best online video conferencing solutions at the most reasonable price, without compromising on performance and quality.
✔Is Social Hour easy to use?
Yes! Social Hour is a neat, well-organized, and easy-to-use platform that allows anyone and everyone to host top-quality online events, conferences, and webinars from anywhere and at any time. The functions and working of the platform have been neatly allocated for both the hosts and guests of an event.
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Final Thoughts: Is Social Hour Worth the Hype? Social Hour Review
Social Hour is a secure and dependable cloud-based online webinar solution with awesome and useful video conferencing tools like screen sharing and pre-recorded videos, as well as customizable branding options and analytics tools for audience engagement monitoring.
Thousands of entrepreneurs and corporate leaders use the site, which has been praised for the use of the most modern video conferencing technologies to offer a sophisticated and secure experience while conducting online meetings and webinars.
So, if you are looking for a platform that provides you with the best online video conferencing solutions at the most reasonable price, without compromising on performance and quality, then you should definitely give Social Hour a shot!
