When you have chatters in the chat room, sometimes it’s hard to keep up with all the messages. You just feel the need for a quick solution like mentions.

Not everyone will be able to see a specific message. Mentiones help you pinpoint who you direct the message too.

I’m excited to share with you a new feature called Mentions. The Mentions option offers a simple solution to avoid missing important messages.

Here’s what you should know.

What are Mentions?

Think of Mentions as tagging someone. When you type @ in the chat room, you will see a list of users.

Firstly, it can help you better manage messages in the chat room. Secondly, you can capture the attention of a specific user in a particular message.

Once you’ve tagged a user, he/she can immediately see the message. It will be highlighted in blue.

Another cool feature is that, when a user clicks on the tagged user, his user info will be displayed. The private chat will also open.

When to use Mentions?

You can use Mentions anytime you like. Whether you’re in a normal group chat or a hectic moderated chat, use the feature infinitely.

Additionally, here are some examples when it can help you the most.

Notify another user

Mentions are used to refer to another user in your chat room. This can help notify them that you are replying to them.

Join a conversation

Using the Mentions option is a great way to get others to join a conversation. Then, you can also use this to share interesting topics with other users in the chat.

Remember that any punctuation, special character, or space breaks the mention. So, skip those in your mentions. You can include them anywhere on your message.

How to use it?

The new feature is an extension of the current option to choose a user name from the user’s list.

As said previously, when you type @, a list of users will pop up.

When you hover on the list of users, different colors represent the authority level of each user. The colors are as follows.

• When admin users are mentioned, the background color is red.

• When non-admin users are mentioned, the background color is green.

NOTE: You can disable the option on your admin panel via CSS. Just paste the following CSS on the Design tab.

.mention-tooltip {
display: none !important;
}

Using Mentions

If you need help regarding the new feature, make sure to read about it on the knowledge base.

We’d love to hear what you think. If you have any comments or suggestions on Mentions or new features that you’d like to see, connect with us on Twitter and Facebook.

Alternatively, you can contact us via Support on your admin panel.

Get your group chat here.

Handling a panel discussion is a complicated task. It either ends up positive or negative, and it’s all up to the moderator to control the conversation.

However, stay in your seat. Even if it’s your first time moderating a panel discussion, I’ve got you covered.

You can share this guide with your appointed moderators as well. As long as you know the basics, you can have an effective panel discussion. These tips are already proven. You can try them for yourself and let me know if they helped!

Research about the panel discussion and meet your speakers

The first thing you need to do for every venture is research. Without it, you’d be lost. So, it’s good if you have knowledge about the topic. In that way, you won’t be surprised at the discussion itself.

Research as much as you can about your speakers. Search for their works and published articles. In addition, you can also visit their social media profiles so you can get an idea of who they are as a person, what tone they use, their stand, and more.

This goes hand in hand with meeting your speakers. You can discuss the flow of the panel and what topics might be touched upon. Having an idea of the flow gives some background, leading to a more natural flow of conversation.

If you lack time to meet a week before or two, you can arrange to meet on the day itself. It’s better to be late than never they say.

Time management and being neutral

Go through every question. You have your own questions, and you also have the audience’s questions. Have time for both. You have to ensure that the speakers have enough time to answer.

Some questions are simple and some are tough. As said earlier, you can ask the speakers how much time they will allot for answering questions. Additionally, you can discuss signals to alert them if they’re running behind or still have some time. You can also add time counters for every session so they’ll know when to stop.

Discussing questions makes you think about the perspectives of the audience, the speakers, and yourself. You’re bound to have different takes on the topics. Therefore, as a moderator, be neutral. Do not take sides or choose the question that you agree with.

Choose questions that will benefit the whole panel. Also, avoid approving messages that say ‘Thank you,’ ‘Wow,’ etc. You’re the moderator. Therefore, you should choose questions and facilitate the conversation. If you choose messages like that, it may seem that you’re picking sides.

Mixing it up

Combine your questions and the audience’s to create a conversation dynamic. Don’t just stick to your accustomed flow. It’s good to crowdsource questions from the audience in real-time. To do this, you’ll need a Q&A chat platform.

Create a Q&A chat with RumbleTalk. Just follow the steps below.

• Firstly, sign up for an account.
• Next, choose moderated chat as your preferred chat type.
• Set the chat moderators, which includes you and maybe other moderators. This depends on the size of the panel discussion.
• Be sure to share your chat’s link and direct the audience to ask their questions here.
• NOTE: You can also use these for other live events with Q&A sessions. Additionally, you can change chat types anytime so you can use it as a normal group chat as well.

There are two options that you can do for your Q&A session.

1. The first one is by allotting time for Q&A at the end of each session. This takes a lot of willpower and multitasking. You have to screen messages when the Q&A is happening. Therefore, this works best when you have a lot of moderators with you.
2. The second option is to allow specific time for Q&A. This means that all questions will only be answered at this time. You can do this if you’re short on manpower. For example, if you’re the only moderator on the panel discussion, you can collect all messages and approve the ones on the dedicated Q&A slot. However, you have to take a great risk since you can lose the audience’s attention. Some are not patient enough to wait for a whole hour just for an answer.

Concluding with a question

End the discussion with questions that can lead to a quick statement. Try: “Since we have time for one more question, what will be your final recommendation for the audience?”

This will wrap up the panel. Don’t forget to thank the speakers and the audience for their participation.

Moderating a panel discussion can be hard. However, when you’re prepared, you can give the audience and speakers a good time and an engaging discussion.

Got questions? Message us on Facebook and Twitter. Or, immediately create your chat and get started here.

I hope you can use this on your next panel. Good luck and always be ready!

New option to control your group chat menu. Do you have an account with us? If yes, I’m sure you’ve seen the chat menu. This is all the options a user or admin (which have more options) can change in the menu options.

Now, we made it easier for you to turn on/off any menu option.

In the newest feature, all the options that you see above can now be hidden or enabled for select users only. This blog post will show the use of the new feature. Also, it will tackle how you can use it on your admin panel.

Where to use the menu options?

The menu options are useful for members of the chat, specifically chat owners. Chat owners will be the ones to decide who gets to use a specific option in the chat menu.

It can be for admins only or select options are only available for non-admin members of the chat. A chat owner can also go as far as hiding all options for all members. So, the decision relies on the chat owner.

Why should you use it?

Different chat rooms have different uses. A public chat may not need as many options, whereas a membership chat is more customizable. Public chat rooms don’t also use the export option as much. Therefore, the export option can be hidden for non-admin members. This is just one of the examples.

The menu options let you take control of your chat room. It gives you more command of what direction your chat will take.

How do you use the menu options?

You can see the menu options on your admin panel.

• Firstly, click “Settings” on your admin panel.
• Secondly, choose “Menu options.”
• Lastly, choose the options you want to show, hide, or for admins only.

Here’s an example if you hide the sound and private chat popup options in the chat menu.

It’s that easy! Also, the menu options are applied to both mobile and web browsers.

More new features

This new feature is just one of the upcoming features. RumbleTalk is consistently listening to customers wishest. Therefore, you can send your comments and suggestions to us. You can send them on our contact page.

If you’re following us on our social media pages (Facebook, Twitter), you can also send your messages there. We love hearing your feedback!

You can check out our latest blogs if you want to know more about new features and updates. Additionally, you can also check our social media pages.

Please continue to support RumbleTalk in the future!