Social media + Photo booths = the FOMO generators for your next event
Why? Photo booths successfully give attendees elaborate selfies (with props and background, kitschy decor et al.) to create a visual homage.
Moreover,
These are fun.
These are viral.
These generate leads.
They successfully recreate the selfie-buzz.
And, they are great for engagement and reach.
Snap a pic. Add a sticker. Make a GIF. Virtual photo booths, though seemingly simple, can have a big impact on your virtual trade show or event.
When attendees share their photo booth creations, your event’s reach on social media expands. Virtual photo booths create a positive emotional connection with your brand through active participation. This can help people remember the event long after it has passed.
But to reap these benefits, you’ll need the right virtual photo booth software. In this guide, we walk you through how to set up your own booth, ideas that will drive engagement, and apps that will make the entire experience easier to manage.
Benefits of integrating virtual photo booth for events
1. Creates memorable experiences
Virtual booths add a fun and personalized element to events, allowing attendees to capture unique moments. These photo booths offer features like branded filters and custom backgrounds, allowing participants to click pictures with their friends and peers.
2. Encourages engagement and networking
By incorporating virtual photo booths into events, organizers can facilitate connections between attendees in a fun and informal way. It can be utilized in icebreakers and group activities.
The pictures can also be displayed on a virtual event social wall, allowing attendees to comment and interact with each other’s pictures.
3. Supports post-event marketing
Photos generated during the event can be incorporated into social media materials showing the event’s appeal among target audiences. It can also be shared as a collage or video in the follow-up campaigns for continued interaction.
4. Enhances brand visibility
When attendees share their event photos on social media, it provides your company with valuable visual brand exposure.
These shares help elevate your brand image, expand reach through attendee networks, and increase the likelihood of gaining more traction for your brand and future events.
How to create a virtual photo booth?
The first step is to choose a virtual photo booth software that offers the features you’re looking for. You might want a platform that includes GIF creation, background removal, automated backgrounds, stickers, and other special effects.
Once you’ve chosen your software, you’ll want to select virtual backgrounds and stickers that will automatically add your event information and branding. Most apps allow you to modify their image templates or design your own.
Next, you’ll need to generate a unique link for your virtual photo booth. You can embed this link in your virtual event platform. You might create a banner image inviting people to use the photo booth. Plus, you can share the link via email and social media in advance.
For hybrid events, offer a QR code so in-person attendees can use the online photo booth as well.
6 virtual photo booth ideas to dial up the fun at your virtual events
Make your virtual photo booth experience a success with these engaging ideas.
Having the right technology is important, but to really bump up engagement, you need to provide prompts and interactivity.
1. Pet pics
If you feel like your audience might be camera shy, help take the pressure off. Encourage attendees to use your online photo booth with their pets. They can snap a photo of themselves holding their pet, or just take a pic of fido sitting in their office chair pretending to work.
This is an easy way to offer a fun activity without making people feel like they need to be all dressed up.
2. Informational mugshots
For in-person events, people usually hold up a sign as part of their silly mugshot. Convert this idea into a virtual concept by allowing people to write whatever they want on the digital sign. They might write their name, where they’re from, and their role at the company.
This way, everyone can learn more about each other by perusing the mugshots.
3. Fun challenges
Does your audience love some friendly competition? Host a challenge inside of your online photo booth.
Create a competition for the funniest photo or the most on-brand pic (something with the most branded swag or the image that fits the event theme the best). Then announce the winner during your event, showcase their photo, and award them with a prize.
4. Cheers with drinks
Photo booths for virtual events don’t have to be complicated. Keep things simple with this easy prompt: just ask everyone to pick up their drink and cheer for the camera.
This idea works great because everyone will likely have some kind of drink at hand, whether it’s a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. And if you’re planning on shipping drinks ahead of time to event attendees, this idea is a no-brainer.
5. Sweepstakes
You can also increase participation with your virtual photo booth app by hosting sweepstakes. This is different from a challenge or competition because everyone has an equal chance to win, regardless of the quality of their photo. Offer one entry per participant. The sweepstakes prize could be a gift card, a weekend retreat, or a box full of your best products.
6. Social walls
You can create a social wall that runs before, during, and after your event inside of your event platform. Give attendees the option of adding their favorite photo booth pics to the public wall.
At large virtual events, social walls can help add an element of community-building. The event will feel more lifelike, and attendees can get to know each other better. Meanwhile, at smaller events, social walls are great for spotting familiar faces and bonding.
When choosing which idea to pursue, consider the experience you want to provide for attendees and the type of user-generated content you hope the booth will yield.
7. Pair it with a virtual booth to boost reach
You can also pair photo booths with your virtual booth at online events to boost booth visits and brand exposure.
9 vest virtual photo booth apps and software
To easily add an online photo booth to your next virtual experience, you need the right software. Check out the best tools for small and large events.
1. Snapshot by Snapbar
Snapshot is a virtual photo booth app offered by Snapbar, which is an online headshot solution for hybrid teams. Their target market is large enterprises, and you’ll need to work with sales to sign up, as there’s no self-serve purchase option.
Features:
- Works on any device
- No need to download an app
- Virtual backgrounds
- Multilanguage support
- Photo editor
- Social wall
- Slideshow
- Social media posting integrations
Pricing:
Snapshot doesn’t offer a free plan and only provides custom pricing, so you’ll need to get in touch with the sales team for a quote.
2. Simple Booth’s Virtual Booth
Simple Booth launched their Virtual Booth platform to make it easy to set up an online photo booth. You can purchase a subscription directly from their website and get started right away.
Features:
- Custom branding and messaging
- Magic background replacement
- Overlays and stickers
- QR code and capture link
- Participant data capture (email, phone, etc.)
- Filters and effects
- Social media sharing
Pricing:
Their plans are largely dependent on credits. Photo uploads cost 1 to 3 credits each depending on complexity. The Lite plan costs $99 per month for 500 credits. Or choose the Standard plan for $149 per month to get 1,000 credits.
3. Snappic
Snappic is a photo booth app with affordable plans for both small businesses and enterprises. You can capture a variety of image types, allowing users to create content in their favorite style.
Features:
- Supports still images, GIFs, boomerangs, and videos
- Template overlays
- Frame layout creator
- Animated effects and buttons
- Branded microsite galleries
- Microsite gallery templates
- Video templates
- Slideshows
- Sharing links and QR codes
- Green screen
- No need to download an app
- Photo competitions
Pricing:
The Pro plan costs $69 per month and offers basic features and image enhancements. To access green screens, photo competitions, and other advanced features, you’ll need the Enterprise plan for $169 per month.
4. Studio Z Photo Booths
With Studio Z Photo Booths, you can add a fully embeddable and customizable photo booth experience to your virtual event platform.
Features:
- Capture on any device
- Supports still images, GIFs, and boomerangs
- AI background removal
- Mosaic displays
- Contest mode for sweepstakes
- Participant data capture and analytics
- Embeddable in your event platform of choice
Pricing:
You’ll need to get in touch with their team for a custom quote, as they don’t offer one-size-fits-all pricing.
5. Brandmatic
Brandmatic is great for both user-generated content campaigns and virtual events. You can set up your virtual photo booth and then share it with a link or QR code.
Features:
- Supports still images, GIFs, and boomerangs
- Overlays, backgrounds, and stickers
- Mosaic image displays
- Image live stream feed
- Custom branding
- No app download required
- Virtual photo booth analytics
- Link and QR code sharing
Pricing:
Brandmatic doesn’t offer self-serve subscriptions, so you’ll need to get in touch with them for a custom quote.
6. VirtualBooth
VirtualBooth is a great choice because of its low pricing, useful features, and integration with Dropbox. You get a lot of bang for your buck with this option.
Features:
- Supports still images, GIFs, and boomerangs
- Works on any device
- No app download required
- Dropbox integration
- Image frame templates
- Stickers
- Filters
- Background removal
- Galleries
- Slideshows
Pricing:
While VirtualBooth doesn’t have a free plan, it is the most affordable option if you’re looking for a photo booth software that doesn’t require users to download an app. The Solo plan costs $9.99 per month for one event and unlimited photos. To unlock all features, choose the Complete plan for $39.99 per month.
7. TapBooth
TapBooth is a free virtual photo booth app that basic image capture and social media sharing. It doesn’t include virtual backgrounds or overlays, however.
Features:
- iOS app
- Social media sharing
- Custom captions and hashtags
- Photo countdown timer
Pricing:
TapBooth offers a free plan, but their app only works for iOS and it inserts TapBooth’s branding in your images and social media post hashtags. You can purchase access to remove all of their advertising, add custom hashtags, and use the app offline. You can choose to pay $2.99 for one week’s access, $10.99 for a month, or $74.99 for a year.
8. Ubersnap
With Ubersnap, virtual event attendees can easily create innovative photos and GIFs. Their virtual photo booth offers the most advanced AR filters of any platform we were able to find, so if you’re looking for AR, definitely check this app out.
Features:
- Supports image stills, GIFs, and videos
- AR filters for all content formats
- Custom frames
- Stickers
- Virtual backgrounds
- Live galleries
- Photo contest management
- Mosaic displays
Pricing:
Ubersnap only offers custom pricing, so get in touch with them for a quote.
9. PixiWeb
PixiWeb offers simple photo booth and gallery features. You get access to all of their features in one plan, making this a good option for companies who want to save money and avoid enterprise pricing.
Features:
- Photo overlays
- Embeddable galleries
- QR code and link sharing
- Photo approval queue
- Live stream slideshows
- Drag and drop gallery website builder
Pricing:
You get all features in their sole subscription, which costs $99 per month.
Virtual photo booths are just one way to make your next event more engaging. To take your event to the next level, use a virtual event platform that helps attendees connect with each other.
How does the photo booth in Airmeet work?
- Begin with choosing the right photo booth platform. Purchase a plan most suited for your event format
- The virtual photo booth provider will customize a unique link for a specific event. For example, it can be something like eventname.virtualbooth.co
Now that this has been set up, it’s time to plug in this link to your Airmeet event.
- Go to Airmeet, log in and set up your virtual event – whether it is a Meetup or Conference or a single-session.
Once this step is done, there are multiple options for plugging in your shareable photo booth link, in the Airmeet platform.
- Conference format – You can add the photo booth link to your custom Reception page. Highly recommended, as this is where all your attendees will land once they enter the event.
All other event formats –
- Pin it to the event chat so that your attendees can always see the link. See how here.
- Catch your participant’s attention by broadcasting the link via the Announcement feature.
There are multiple options for plugging in your shareable photo booth link, in the Airmeet platform.
Sounds interesting? See how Brandmatic worked perfectly with Airmeet at a virtual conference.
Note: This is not an integration. You’ll have to choose an online virtual photo booth platform and share or embed the link generated by the platform.
FAQs about virtual photo booths
No. You can use the shareable link provided by the virtual photo booth platform and embed it on your website landing page.
Most of the virtual photo booths don’t require an app download. Once you share/embed a link, the user can click a photo and share it (if they want) on social media platforms.
Most of these photo booths offer customization in appearance, color scheme, image output, and even the URL that people access. Check with the platform before purchasing.
Yes, certain photo booth apps offer free plans as well, like TapBooth, Booth.Events, and Mini Photobooth.
No, it is only accessible to iOS users.
Virtual photo booths contribute to creating a unique and interactive user experience by offering options like custom backgrounds, filters, and overlays to tailor their photos. These features enable participants to personalize their virtual experience, fostering a sense of connection and creativity.
Some unique features of virtual photo booths include magic backgrounds, customizable photomontages for personalized branding, and social sharing, enabling users to instantly share their photos on various platforms.
Customizable photomontages in virtual photo booths are digital overlays or templates that users can add to their photos, providing a personalized touch. This feature presents a distinct opportunity for personalized branding as it enables users to seamlessly integrate specific logos, graphics, or branding elements into their photos, aligning them with their preferences.
Many virtual photo booth software—including Snapshot by Snapbar, Brandmatic, Ubersnap, and PixiWeb—offers virtual backgrounds as part of their feature set.
A green screen virtual photo booth app uses chroma key technology or AI background remover and allows its users to replace the green background with custom images.
Tools like Snappic (Enterprise Plan) and Simple Booth (for iPad) offer green screen features.
A virtual selfie booth is one of the types of virtual event photo booths that allow attendees to click selfies and take pictures using their device’s front camera.
All fun and loads of images
Now that you know how these virtual photo booths can help you, it’s time to explore a bit more. First things first,
Pick a theme that flows well with your virtual event
Customize and personalize. That should be your mantra when playing around with themes for your photo booth and virtual event experience. Use gifs, stickers, music (maybe a Spotify link), brand colors – the opportunities to exploit this is never-ending.
Play with this new branding opportunity
Photo booths come with branding opportunities. Want to showcase your sponsors? – Use a virtual photo booth and set it up in the reception area. Let them use their colors and logo. Promote your sponsors and engage your attendees – all at one place.
Creating an event album
Once the event is over, you can use the photos to create memorabilia and send it to your attendees. You can leave the album open or make it gated to get more information about your participants.
Use a real-time social media feed
Set up a real-time social media feed on your virtual/hybrid event landing page. Use it to showcase engagement. For example, the images captured using Brandmatic can be used to feed into your website landing page, an innovative way to bring together remote guests.
Checklist for your virtual photo booth
Must-have features of your online photo booth.
- Unique photo booth link for the event
- Shareable and embeddable links for the event
- Custom photo frames and brand-able stickers
- Downloading the image files, and sharing it across social media platforms
- Galleries of all the photos, to view and moderate
- Analytics
- Social media image mosaics
Remember, you don’t want a boring photo booth – for then, your audience will not click photos. So select the platform that best fits your needs and make everyone camera-happy!
Playing the online photo booth cards right
Easy to set up and fun to use – online photo booths are here to stay. And for savvy event organizers and marketers, this helps them to aggregate data and use it to promote the event and increase its shelf-life.
Do you think photo booths are here to stay – Yasss or Nahh? Send us what you are thinking about when we say online photo booths and virtual events are a match made in heaven.
