Online events are a good way to talk to your audience. It may be a conference, summit, or product launch. What matters is that you have an engagement solution up your sleeve.

A question and answer session is always a good idea for any online event. You give your audience a voice. Because you listen to their voices, you make them heard.

In an online event with a Q&A session, the audience is free to ask whatever they want. However, it can be confusing to see all questions coming in the group chat simultaneously. 

So, how can you hold an online event with a Q&A without failing?

Let’s see why having a moderated chat is the perfect engagement solution.

Increasing your engagement rate

When you arrange a live event, it’s usually held on a website or a social media page. They will have the following:

• A live chat wherein the audience is continuously sending messages, leading to a non-stop message spree.
• A group chat wherein everyone can send messages.

This can be a good solution for some online events like small conferences or community discussions. However, if you’re holding a larger event like conferences or summits, then you would need a better engagement solution such as a moderated chat.

For example, at large events, thousand of people are watching and commenting. Messages are coming in fast, and you cannot handle this influx of messages. So, how can you answer the questions?

This scenario is not good for both the audience and the speakers.

Therefore, it’s better to choose from one of these solutions:

1. Ask questions using downloadable live chat software.
2. Hold a Q&A session through a moderated chat with a group chat platform.

With RumbleTalk group chat, you can easily create a moderated chat that you can use for Q&As. No download needed.

For event pros, using a separate group chat platform for your live events is better. Let us show you how to add a moderated chat for your event.

How to add a moderated chat and use it as your engagement solution

The moderated chat is one of the chat types that RumbleTalk offers. It’s a chat type that lets admins approve messages before they appear in the group chat.

If you want to use the moderated chat your chat type, here are the steps that you need to follow.

• First, go to Settings > General & Logins.
• Next, see the list of chat types available. Choose Moderated chat.

Starting now, all messages need to be approved by admins. So, the next step is to add admins, which will act as moderators, to your chat.

To add admins, follow this guide.

• Select Settings > Users.
• Then, click Add new user and type all the details needed such as username and password.
• Lastly, choose if they will have room-only access or global access.

When everything’s done, you can start using the moderated chat next to your live stream.

Here’s how the moderated chat looks like.

Unless the admins approve a message, it won’t appear in the non-admin users’ group chat. Furthermore, only admins can approve or delete messages.

So, the chat is free of spam and stays clean. No unnecessary messages, no clutter, and most of all organized. This is the reason why the moderated chat is the best for large events like conferences and summits.

Read this related article on organizing a Q&A session: Step-by-Step Guide for Organizing a Q&A Live Session

Advantages of using a separate group chat for live events

Engage your audience

When the event is ongoing or after the event, make your audience submit questions. This keeps them engaged and lets them feel that their opinions are heard.

If you choose to answer their questions, then they will be engaged to send more.

If you practice being a good speaker and moderator, you’re giving your audience the best event experience.

Let them know there’s a group chat

Don’t forget to let your audience know that there’s a separate group chat where they can talk. This should be done before the event starts. Advise them that it’s being moderated by admins to make them feel that the chat is secure. Also, let them know that they can send in their questions whenever they want.

Just make sure to send relevant questions, and then their question will have a chance to be answered.

Great event experience and engagement solution

Through using the moderated chat, you have a dedicated chat for Q&A sessions. With this, you get full control of your chat.

Your appointed admins are also there to help you. With their assistance, questions will be arranged and there will be necessary messages only in the chat.

No trolls, no spam, and no hate speech.

If you want to see the questions for future reference, you can easily export the chat transcript.

You can also share this with your audience.

Then, upload it on email, social media, or directly in the group chat so they can access it.

Level up your online event with this engagement solution

So, are you switching to a dedicated chat platform for your next online event? By sharing these tips and tricks, we hope this helps you set up a moderated chat for your event.

Engage your audience with a Q&A session. Sign up today.

Engagement is the main reason why you use a group chat on your website. Group chats increase engagement by 20%. When website owners add a group chat, users stay longer. Forums often add group chats to their page.

This is an interesting idea, but to understand this, we must first compare the two.

Group chats vs forums

Both forums and group chats are methods to communicate with other users over the Internet but are used differently. Group chat conversations are real-time, whereas forums are discussion-oriented where not all participants need to be logged in at the same time.

In a forum, discussions are separated into “threads”. So, this makes it more organized and people will be able to search for a topic immediately. Alos, posts take longer to answer in a forum. The reason behind this is not all participants are active at the same time.

In a group chat, conversations are real-time. Therefore, when a participant wants to get an answer immediately, he can direct his question in the group chat.

Using a group chat in a forum

To get both types of communication and benefits in one place, using a group chat in a web forum is ideal. There are two places of discussion. 

1. Forum threads – Add questions and answers anytime. No need to be online everytime.
2. Group chat – Answer questions immediately. Real-time conversations only.

Visitors of a forum can answer questions even after days it was posted. In a group chat discussion, this is not possible. A group chat happens in real-time and takes place at a much faster pace.

Forums also stick to one topic, whereas group chat conversation can rapidly change, depending on the participants.

Using a group chat within a forum can lead to faster answers to urgent questions. As opposed to a forum, the group chat can be online only when the moderator is active to prevent non-relevant discussions and spam. Or, leave it open to let participants talk freely.

How to add a group chat to a forum

To add a group chat to your forum, all you need is to copy and paste a line of code. RumbleTalk will be providing this.

1. Login to your admin panel and click Embed.
2. Choose from Embedded or Floating. You can also set the chat size.
3. Copy your code by clicking Get Code.

You’re done! You can now use the group chat in your forum.

You can choose what chat type you want to use for your forum and see which works best.

Currently, there are four chat types. They are as follows: group chat, expert’s chat, moderated chat, and private chat.

We recommend using the group chat for open, social conversations. Then, if you want more moderation, you can use the moderated chat.

If you’re using Wix, WordPress, or other websites with plugins, then you can check out the Plugins page. There are specific instructions for each plugin.

The use of group chats in forums

It’s all about time and efficiency. If you need immediate answers, then go to the group chat. If you want to gather more input for your topic, then go to the forum.

However, if you combine both, then you can use the strengths of each platform. Embed a group chat on your forum with RumbleTalk.

Exporting your chat transcript should come with every group chat you use. Why do you need to export your chat transcript? There are several reasons, but we’ll give you the top ones.

The first reason is SEO. Website owners want to be able to add the chat transcript to their website.

It’s because the chat transcript consists of highly targeted keywords, it is perfect for SEO. This is one of the easiest ways to target an audience and let your site take the first spot through SEO.

The second reason is websites have communities. These communities have members that have different log-in times. Therefore, they will not be able to read all the messages in the group chat.

If they can export the chat transcript, members that were not able to participate in the conversation can catch up and keep updated about the various topics.

With that, let’s talk about how you can do it.

How can you export your chat transcript?

You can export your chat transcript via three options.

1. To export your chat transcript, you must first log in to your account.
2. Then, on the admin panel, click History.
3. Choose Export.
4. After, you will see the three options in which you can export your chat transcript. They are as follows.

• HTML
• CSV
• Doc

When you export your chat transcript, it will export the messages sent in the chat. This means that it will export the chat transcript from the day itself. You can see the messages that will be exported below. 

If you want to export older messages, then choose the date range from the date that you want to start exporting. When you export your chat transcript from the admin panel, the files’ export will differ in some ways.

For example, when you export it into a Doc file, it will show the users’ avatars. However, in the HTML and CSV file, it will only show the text and URLs.

You can discover it for yourself and see what works the best for you.

Another way that you can do that is directly in the group chat.

Just open the chat settings and you will see the Export transcript button. When you click that, it will automatically export the transcript in an HTML file.

Then, it will only export the messages that are loaded in the group chat. If you wish to export older messages from the group chat, you will need to scroll up in the chat area to load older messages.

Can I hide the export chat button?

You can hide the export chat button if you wish to do so. There are two ways that you can do this. The first one is doing it on your admin panel.

1. First, click Menu Options.
2. After that, you will see the menu options. Choose if you want to hide or show only for admins the button.

The second option is doing it via CSS. If you have a developer, then you can ask him to do this for you or simply paste the code into your CSS editor. To do this, follow these simple steps.

1. Go to your chat settings and click Visual Design.
2. Copy this code into the CSS editor.

#options #export { display: none !important; }

Additionally, there was a trash icon in the group chat previously. This was used to clear the screen temporarily. When chatters wanted to clear their messages easily, they can use this. The purpose of this trash icon was only for making it easier to read messages in the group chat. However, it did not actually delete messages in the group chat.

Here’s the CSS code for the trash icon if someone needs it.

#options #clear { display: inline-block !important; }

Showing your chat archive

The chat archive is not usually enabled in the group chat. A chat owner must enable it in the admin panel. You can find it in the History tab.

When you choose to show archived messages in the chat, older messages can be loaded. This means that a user can scroll up and more messages will be shown. The user can then include these messages when he exports the chat transcript.

NOTE: This option is only available for the group chat.

Enjoying features like this

When you sign up for RumbleTalk group chat, you can enjoy features like this. Aside from exporting your chat transcript, you can also export the users’ list, private chat, and chat names.

So, what are you waiting for? Register now to enjoy the group chat platform to its fullest.