At this year’s IARA Spring Roundtable, the technology committee held a joint meeting with the social media committee to discuss what could be done to drive up user engagement on the IARA website. 

The technology committee co-chairs include Venkat Krishnamoorthy, Steve Solomon, and the newest addition, John Sullivan of GM Financial.

“I am excited to join Venkat Krishnamoorthy and Steve Solomon on the IARA Technology Committee as a Co-Chair.  Technology has had such a huge impact on our daily productivity and continues to evolve quickly,” he said. “The IARA brings everyone together to share ideas on how this technology can be used to improve our business and I am looking forward to being a part of the discussion and application of these new in technologies in the remarketing industry.”

One of the methods that the technology committee is championing in order to boost user engagement is better analyzing website metrics to identify areas where the IARA is doing well, and other areas of its website where it could improve.  

Through collaboration with IARA’s social media committee, the committee plans to share any changes made to the website to IARA’s social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. With more frequent updates on social media, the goal is that IARA’s audience will be driven to the IARA website more often, and when they’re there they’ll be more likely to interact.

The IARA’s Systems and Communications Administrator, Sharon Sutton, will aid in this effort by finding usage logs of the audience visiting IARA’s website. Sutton will also help remove old or outdated information found on IARA’s website to ensure that all information found on the IARA’s website is current and still relevant.

The IARA website is not the only area where the technology committee hopes to boost engagement numbers on. Another area where the committee is targeting engagement is surveys. A goal for this year will be too increase the participation rate for surveys distributed by the IARA to its members, Krishnamoorthy added.

Another focus point on the committee’s docket is the current layout of information on the IARA website. As it stands, it takes too long to get to news pertaining to the IARA. One method of addressing this is recomposing the layout of the website to display that information sooner, according to Krishnamoorthy.

Looking ahead, the technology committee plans to collaborate with Bobit Business Media to find a few consignors to talk about the technological challenges that they have faced as an organization, and what they’re putting in place, in terms of technology, to overcome those challenges.

Information gathered from these discussions will be published through IARA as a resource for members to gain insights from.