President Obama’s July Twitter Town Hall meeting allowed him to connect with an entire country while dialoguing with individuals and it all happened live. Obama received over 70,000 tweeted questions, many of which came from people on mobile devices. Near the end of the event, tweets were answered in near real-time.

The ability to overcome limits of space and time to reach individuals wherever they are is the power of live social chat. Many organizations are already doing live webinars and video events, and they are realizing that making their events interactive allows them to reach more customers and impact larger audiences.

Live chat also gives credibility. Obama’s live broadcast helped him to seem unrehearsed, lending trust and authority to not only his words, but also to himself. In short, it elevated his brand.

Brands, from marketing agencies to large retailers to entertainment media, are using social networks and live chat events to impact audiences. But selecting the right chat platform can be more difficult than it may seem. There may not be one platform that is perfect for every scenario. Twitter, for instance, might be great for certain events, but it is limited in the way audience members can interact with each other; a key factor in audience engagement.

With the growing number of available live chat platforms, you need to keep a number of important factors in mind when selecting the one that’s the right fit:

- Scalability. Most software suites that have a chat component cannot handle the amount of data that is generated by a large event. Live events generate exponential amounts of data as audience size grows, making events difficult to manage without;dedicated;real-time infrastructure;and effective moderation tools. If the proper infrastructure isn’t in place, your events could become a disaster, as audience interaction grinds to a painful halt.

- Real-time analytics. It is important to be able to monitor an event as it happens in order to understand how audience members are being drawn in and are responding to the event. This allows you to make tweaks in real-time, which can impact the success of your event, rather than depending on retrospective analysis.

- Mobile capabilities. With many people preferring to join events and interact using mobile devices such as iPhones, iPads and Android devices, live social events need to be accessible everywhere. Technology requirements that involve extra effort; such as having to download and upgrade software; are barriers to audience attendance and participation. While downloading an app is easy, users don’t want to manage dozens of apps for every brand interaction they may want. Platforms built using open, standards-based technology such as HTML5 will ensure mobile success for years to come.

- Social network integration. With massive usage of social networks fragmented across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and now Google+, there is no single point of integration to achieve 100% audience reach. Your live event needs to be promoted everywhere, on every network. By limiting your event to a single network, you are missing out on an opportunity to maximize your impact and the size of your audience. Look for platforms that integrate with multiple social networks seamlessly and automatically.

- Audience engagement and interaction. The ability to interact with presenters; but more importantly, with other audience members; makes live events a powerful social media tool. Being part of an event creates a positive environment that helps audience members to get excited about ideas being presented, which often leads to sales. The best events leave audiences with memorable experiences that stay with them long after the event. After all, what could be more memorable than having the President answer your question directly, or chatting with a celebrity?

- Viral promotion. Live events generate buzz, which with the right tools; can virally draw more people to your event. Social media tools like Facebook’s Recommend plug-in, when applied correctly, can be leveraged to let audience members easily tell others about an event. Since word-of-mouth is one of the best ways to grow an audience and customer base, taking advantage of platforms with built-in viral promotion capabilities will have a direct impact on both the size and loyalty of your audience.

With live chat platforms becoming more robust, the next 1-3 years will see staggering growth in the number and quality of live social chat events run by the world’s largest and most well-known brands.

As organizations realize the potential of using interactive online events to gain market share, the social component of live events will become just as important, if not more so, than the events themselves.

Follow these 6 simple steps to setup your vBulletin Chat in 60 seconds:

1) Create your Chatroll »

2) Download and Save the vBulletin Chat product-chatroll.xml file.
(File download is available when you create your Chatroll in Step 1.)

3) From the Admin Control Panel (ACP) menu, go to Plugins & Products -> Manage Products

4) Click [Add/Import Product] and upload product-chatroll.xml saved from Step 1).

5) From the Admin Control Panel (ACP) vBulletin Options page, select Chatroll Live Chat Settings, and click Edit

6) Copy and paste your Chatroll’s Shortcode, into the vBulletin’s Chatroll Shortcode input, then click Save.

From this point, simply put $chatroll[html] anywhere in your vBulletin templates to display your Chatroll.  It’s that easy!

Why wait?
Get the Chatroll vBulletin Chat Now »

Follow these 7 simple steps and you’ll be done in 2 minutes:

1) Create your Chatroll »

2) Download and Extract the Chatroll phpBB mod: phpbb_chatroll.zip.
(Link to phpbb_chatroll.zip is accessible when you create your Chatroll.)

3) Copy phpbb_chatroll.php and chatroll.php to your phpBB includes/ subdirectory.

4) Open and edit /includes/functions.php from your phpBB installation directory:

Find:
<?php
Add after:
include($phpbb_root_path . 'includes/phpbb_chatroll.php');

Find:
'BOARD_URL'
Add after:
'CHATROLL' => chatroll_render("<shortcode>");
Replace:
<shortcode> above with your Chatroll Shortcode

4) From the Admin Control Panel (ACP) -> Styles -> Templates page, Edit your current template

5) Enter {CHATROLL} where you want your Chatroll to appear. We suggest overall_header.html or overall_footer.html.

6) Click Submit to save, and you’re done!

Get the Chatroll phpBB Chat Mod Now »

Here is a demo:  Chatroll phpBB Chat Demo

Have questions?  Ask the Chatroll Team!

Follow these 5 easy steps to get started:

1) Create your Chatroll »

2) Download the Chatroll Drupal Chat Module.

3) Extract the .zip file, and upload the chatroll/ folder to your Drupal installation sites/all/modules/ folder

4) Enable the module from your Drupal’s Administrator -> Site Building -> Modules page

5) Copy and paste your Chatroll’s Shortcode into the Chatroll Live Chat block configuration settings, from the Administrator -> Site Building -> Blocks page.

That’s it!

Get the Chatroll Drupal Chat Module Now »

Want to see a live demo? Check out our Drupal chat demo »

Want to learn more? Visit us at chatroll.com and learn more about our Drupal Chat Module.

Follow these simple steps to add a free live chat / shoutbox to your Joomla site in 60 seconds.  Lets get started!

Step 1: Click here to Create your own Chatroll

Step 2: From your Joomla administrator menu, go to Extensions -> Install/Uninstall

Step 3: Copy this URL:

and Paste it into the Install From URL tool, to install your Joomla chat module as shown below:

Step 4: Go to Extensions -> Module Manager and click on
Chatroll Live Chat on the list of modules:

Step 5: Set Enabled to Yes to enable this Joomla chat module

Step 6: Copy and paste your Chatroll’s Shortcode into the Shortcode module parameter box

Step 7: Click Save, and you’re done!

Get Chatroll Joomla Chat »

Looking for ideas on the best ways to use Chatroll?
Check out our live Chatroll Joomla Chat demo!

Have questions or feedback for our Joomla Chat Module? Contact Us »

• Smile: :) =) :-)
• Grin: :D :d =d =D
• Wink: ;) ;-)
• Surprised: :o :O =o =O
• Tongue: :p :P =P :-P :-p
• Evil Grin: >:) >:D >:-) >=)
• Frown: :( =( :-(

If you want an emoticon added to Chatroll, or have ideas for new emoticons, let us know in the comments!

Adding real-time chat functionality to any large community site is useful for many reasons. While traditional blog posts are a great way for community members to publish their content, live chat gives members a chance to exchange ideas and help each other in a whole new way. The additional functionality you can offer is limited only by your imagination: live blogs, interviews, commentary for live events, virtual community meetings, and more.

WordPress MU and Chatroll can work together in harmony to create a great experience for your members. As usual, it’s simple to get a Chatroll community up and running. But, there are a few tricks you’ll need in order to integrate Chatroll perfectly into your multi-user WordPress site.

The challenge (easily overcome!) is getting WordPress MU to embed what’s called an “IFrame”. Chatroll uses IFrames as a way to seamlessly insert live chat into pages of your WordPress site. While single-author versions of WordPress have no issues with IFrame embedding, WordPress MU seems to disable this functionality by default, likely for security reasons.

While chatting with another WordPress MU user in Chatroll’s support community, we discovered a way to let WordPress MU embed Chatroll’s chat box IFrame.

1. Install the Google Maps Quicktag plugin. Make sure to install the WordPress MU version!
2. Copy the chat box embed code from your Chatroll community. This is the code that contains the chat box IFrame.
3. Paste the IFrame code in your WordPress MU post using the Google Maps Quicktag plugin.

That’s it! Now you can add Chatroll live chat to any page on your WordPress multi-user site.

If you have access to your site’s WordPress theme, you can also paste the Chatroll embed code directly into the theme files. This gives you more precise control over the position of the chat box, and is useful if you want the chat to span multiple pages. One of Chatroll’s unique features is the ability for users to navigate around your site while staying in the chat. This can be extremely powerful if used correctly.

As always, please leave comments or questions below. Let us know how well Chatroll and WPMu work for you!

Here’s a screenshot of a Blogger blog with a chat box embedded in the main column:

These steps are easy enough for anyone, but if you have any trouble, you can contact Chatroll Support via live chat or email. Let’s get straight to it!

1. Create a Chatroll live community to use for your chat box.
   Go to Chatroll, enter your community’s name in the “Name Your Live Community…” box and click “Create”. Choose a name that fits with your blog, as this name will appear in the chat box title. Write an attractive and detailed description so that people can easily find your new Chatroll community (this will also help drive traffic to your blog).
   
2. Copy the chat window embed code from your live community’s home page.
   In your new live community’s home page (the page that is shown after your community has been successfully created) copy the embed code from the text box labeled ‘embed’. This text box is located under the chat window, as shown below:
   
3. Edit your Layout in Blogger.
   In Blogger, click on the “Layout” tab to show your blog’s layout:
   
4. Add a new HTML/Javascript gadget.
   On your blog’s layout screen, click the “Add a Gadget” link to open the Add a Gadget window:
   
   In the Add a Gadget window, scroll down and find the “HTML/Javascript” gadget. Click on the “+” icon to add it.
   
5. Paste the Chatroll embed code into the HTML/Javascript gadget.
   On the new HTML/Javascript gadget screen, enter a title for the gadget. A good title should alert your readers that this is your site’s live chat. Here’s the important part: Paste the chat window embed code into the Content area (this is the code you copied from Chatroll in step 2):
   
   Finally, click “Save”. The gadget should now be visible in your blog’s layout.

That’s it! You’ve just chat-enabled your Blogger or Blogspot blog! You can now use the Blogger Layout tab to drag the chat box widget wherever you want in your blog’s layout.

Here’s a few more tips for best results:

• Position the chat box so it appears on every page: For best results, place the chat box where it will appear on every page, so that your readers can continue their conversation even if they move from one page to another within your blog.
• Match the chat box colors and size to your blog’s template: To further maximize your chat widgets’s success, you’ll want to customize it to match your site design. Chatroll lets you customize the position, size, and color of the chat to fit in perfectly with your blog’s template. Each time you customize the chat, simply click “Edit” on the chat gadget in the Blogger Layout page and re-paste the embed code.

Thank you for reading, we hope this article has been useful for you. Feel free to contact Chatroll Support if you need any help. Enjoy your new Chatroll chat box widget!

1. Create a Chatroll to use for your WordPress chat box. Click here to create a Chatroll for your site. Enter your Chatroll’s name in the Name box, then enter your account information and click Continue. The name you choose will appear in the chatbox title.
   
   
2. Choose your WordPress Chat install instructions. If your WordPress blog is hosted on WordPress.com, choose the WordPress.com instructions. If you host your own WordPress blog (i.e. you can install WordPress plugins), choose the WordPress (Self-Hosted) instructions.
   
   
3. For WordPress.com, paste the embed code into a post using HTML Editor, or into a new Text Widget. From the WordPress.com instructions, copy (Ctrl-C) the HTML embed code.
   
   
   Edit a post and click the HTML tab to switch to the HTML Editor. Paste (Ctrl-V) the code where you want the chatbox to appear.
   
   
   
   Note: You MUST switch to the HTML editor! Your Chatroll may disappear if you edit your post in the Visual Editor!
4. For WordPress (Self-Hosted), install the Chatroll WordPress Chat Plugin. Follow the WordPress (Self-Hosted) instructions to find and install the plugin and add Chatroll to your sidebar, posts and pages.
   
   
5. Customize your Chatroll. Click Continue to proceed to your Settings page. Use this page to manage all your Chatroll’s settings, including appearance, moderation tools and more.

You’re done! Here’s what your chat box should look like:

Congratulations, you’ve just chat-enabled your WordPress blog! If you have any problems along the way, just send an email to Chatroll Support and ask for help.

You’ve now covered the basics, but you’ll want to tweak your embedded chat box to maximize its success. Chatroll lets you customize the position, size, and color of the chat box to fit in perfectly and make the most of real-time interaction on your site.

Simply click the “Customize” link from your Chatroll live community home page and a set of options will appear for you to set your colors, size and sound.