With the popularity of online events growing, there is an emerging need for tools that work in real-time. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use the Conversation and Forum tools in live mode to keep the discussion flowing.

Digital engagement tools are traditionally designed to support asynchronous engagement, meaning people use them to participate over several days, weeks or even months. This approach offers convenience, as participants can get involved whenever it works best for them.

With the popularity of live, digital events quickly growing, the demand for tools that not only work asynchronously but also in live environments is also increasing. However, tools designed for asynchronous engagement are not always capable of supporting the simultaneous participation required for live environments, at least not in a way that provides a good user experience.

Thanks to a recent update to Social Pinpoint, the Conversation and Forum tools now support real-time commenting. You can take advantage of this feature to host live events and facilitate flowing, real-time discussions.

Rather than having to manually refresh the page (like was previously the case), participants get automatically notified when new comments arrive. This lets conversations evolve naturally as if they were happening in a chat application or in real life, letting participants interact with each other

This feature is turned off by default, but switching it on is dead easy. You'll just need to know when it's appropriate to use and when it's not. Here's how to set it up.

First, add a new Conversation or Forum tool (or edit an existing instance). Next, in the Block Settings, navigate to the Activity tab and enable the switch next to the 'Real time Comments' option. Finally, click the blue 'Save' button to commit the changes.

That's it, you're done! Your participants will now see new comments arriving within a few minutes after they are submitted.

It's a good idea to keep this feature off if you're not hosting a live discussion. It consumes system resources and may slow down your site if you have it enabled in too many instances.

We love the idea of using this feature for live focus groups, public meetings, webinars and more. If you want to take things up another level, pair it with our Zoom integration to run live video conferences and webinars directly on a Social Pinpoint page, without the need for participants to download the Zoom software.

Having these discussions in Social Pinpoint (rather than Zoom for instance) gives you a record of the feedback and you can take advantage of the text-analysis tools to analyse the comments and build reports.