Live chat at DesMoinesRegister.com

Live chat at DesMoinesRegister.com

Earlier this year, we started doing live chats with sports columnist Sean Keeler in the forums at DesMoinesRegister.com. It got the job done, but it had some downside. The interface was slow, and you couldn’t really organize the conversation – new questions would roll in before old questions were answered.

That’s when we discovered the live blogging tool CoverItLive. After a little internal testing, we started using it for live chats.

Since then, we have expanded to include chats with athletes, actors and even city officials during the June floods.

Here’s how it works.

  1. You sign up for an account.
  2. You create and launch a live chat.
  3. You embed the chat on your site with the provided code.
  4. You use the admin tools to monitor the chat.
  5. Once the chat is done, you get an archive of the chat that can live on at your site (you can download the entire chat text, or just keep the option of replaying the chat in their widget).

Here’s what I like about CoverItLive for chats.

  • Reader comments go into a queue, so you can approve a comment, answer the comment and then move onto the next one. If you get a comment that violates the standards of your site, simply leave it in the queue and it will never appear on your site. If dozens of comments come in all at once, you still maintain control of the conversation.
  • CoverItLive allows you to upload your company logo to customize the look of the chat window.
  • You can set up certain people so their comments are always allowed. So if you are doing a chat with a member of High School Musical (we did), you don’t have to find that person’s comments and manually approve them.
  • Readers don’t need to register to participate. They click on your page and can take part right away.
  • You get an archive of all of your chats.
  • You get statistics from all of your chats (unique users, average time on the chat, total views, etc.)
  • CoverItLive is still small enough (for now) that you can email the company president and actually get a response.

Here are a few examples of how we have used CoverItLive at DesMoinesRegister.com.

  • Weekly chats with sports columnist Sean Keeler (Keeler invites guests on a regular basis)
  • We did flood-related chats with city officials and with FEMA
  • We did a chat with cartoonist Brian Duffy before our annual bicycle ride across Iowa (Duffy is a host). That chat had 10 participants who spent an average of 39 minutes on the page.
  • A chat with Drake basketball player Klayton Korver before the NCAA tournament

Some best practices:

  • Tag team it. Have one person monitoring the questions and one person chatting – at least in the early stages. Once you are comfortable, you can go solo.
  • Start asking for questioons 30+ minutes before the chat starts so you will have questions right at the start. Sometimes it takes awhile for readers to start asking questions, so chats start slow and really take off at the end.
  • CoverItLive says its chats are ideal for a 1-person to 20-people conversation. We’ve had chats with 100+ people with no problem (a majority of people will just read without asking questions), but it’s easier to manage of you keep things small and focused.
  • When doing a chat with a guest, it’s best to be right next to that person (or on the phone with them). You can tell them what questions you will approve into the chat next so they are ready and don’t have to waste time reading everything.
  • Consider having a host and a guest on a chat. If readers are slow to ask questions, the host can chat with the guest. So it’s like a live interview where readers can join in by asking questions.