How To Integrate A Chat Room Into Your WordPress Members Plugin?

If your WordPress hosted website has a membership option (plugin), there is a 50% chance that you are using a WordPress members plugin. As you probably know, members-only chat room is something that is essential for community engagement, whether a daily chat or once in a while.

Before we dig into the group chat plugin, let’s first understand the member’s plugin concept. There are several WordPress member plugins, though they all essentially perform the same function. Plugins allow a webmaster to set up a members-only area on their website with exclusive content and special features.

Choosing the right plugin for your site is important, as the various features the plugins offer can affect how many people stay engaged on your website.

Below, we will answer a few questions you may have regarding the integration of a chat room into your WordPress members’ plugins.

What Are Members Chat Rooms?

A members chat room is a chat room that can only be accessed by website members.

Having a members chat room on your website can be helpful. It can encourage site visitors to become members in order to participate in conversations and join the site community.

A chat of today includes also video and audio messages and video and audio live calls.

What Types of WordPress Members Plugin to use?

When in the market for a plugin, it is important to do a little research before making a decision. There are many options out there and we will discuss a few below.

  • MemberPress – MemberPress is a good option when looking for a plugin. It is simple to set up and has quite several features. Webmasters can have a lot of control over who accesses what on their site and at what time. This plugin also conveniently allows for integration with other services you may want to use on your website. Some of these include MailChimp, MadMimi, and BluBrry. The company uses PayPal and Stripe, making it easy for members to make payments. You can choose from two versions of this plugin, either the Business Edition or the Developer Edition. Users of MemberPress often say that this plugin is one of the simplest to use with WordPress, especially for beginners.
  • Paid Memberships Pro – This plugin offers a couple of options. There is a basic version that is entirely free to use, as well as the standard version for a yearly fee and the plus version. Keep in mind the basic free version does not offer many features but may give users a taste of what they can expect in the more advanced versions. Paid Membership Pro also allows for integration with various other services and WordPress members plugins, as well as adding in the Plus version. For users who don’t have a lot of experience working with websites and plugins, this particular one may be rather difficult to use.
  • Ultimate Member – Ultimate Member is yet another option when it comes to plugins. This plugin is extremely simple to use, as no knowledge of coding is required to integrate it into your website. It adapts to mobile devices, allowing users to access members-only content from their computers as well as their mobile devices. Ultimate Member offers a number of extensions that webmasters can pay for, such as Instagram, MailChimp, and User Reviews. There are also a couple of free extensions, like the ability to display what users are online.

How to Integrate a Plugin Into Your Website

We built the RumbleTalk chat room plugin to integrate with most members plugins.
Most WordPress members plugins use the WordPress built-in user management.

RumbleTalk chat room service is integrated with WordPress built-in users management. This means that both the chat and members use the same users base and therefore are integrated by nature, the integration can take practically 1 minute.. (Note, Integration on the chat side is done with one checkbox click, we made it extra easy).

So In practice, what’s next?

You will need the two components installed in your WordPress to create chat room integration.

This can be quite handy because if you have a WordPress Members plugin installed, you can easily incorporate the Rumbletalk plugin into your WordPress website. This will allow you to have a members-only chat room.

The steps to do so are below (we just use ultimate member as an example).

members plugin with a chat room

Step 1
1 – Install the Member plugin and follow the setup instructions.

2 – Install the  RumbleTalk chat room plugin and follow the setup instructions.

Performing these two steps will automatically integrate the chat with the Members Plugin users base. By doing so, we will allow only members of the site to log in automatically to your chat with their username.

Step 2
After the installation of the plugins has finished, you then must create an account via the RumbleTalk chat plugin.

Account wordpress setup

Step 3
Once done, you will see the window below. Make sure to check the “Member” box to complete the process.

detailed info on the wp plugin

For more information and troubleshooting, check this link

You are done! 

As you can see, it is quite a simple process!  If you need more information about settings or the installation process, you can check out the introductions in here.

For any additional questions or comments, please contact us at support <the sign @> rumbletalk.com.

Integrating a chat into your WordPress website

Since the past years, more and more people are starting their own WordPress websites. WordPress is the most popular website builder.

You can dedicate a WordPress website to any niche that you want. Because WordPress is flexible, it can be used for businesses, blogs, or a personal journal. It holds many possibilities.

As WordPress is user-friendly, beginners and developers can create customized and highly intuitive websites. WordPress has plugins that users can download to enhance their websites.

These plugins help users to personalize their websites and this is what we’ll be talking about today. Since we’re focusing on a WordPress website, how can you integrate a chat on your site?

Here’s a quick and easy guide to the RumbleTalk chat plugin and what features it has.

Guide to your own chat

WordPress has a plugin website for all of the plugins available to use in WordPress. To add RumbleTalk to your WordPress website, here’s what you need to do.

  • Download and install the RumbleTalk chat plugin.
  • Register and create your chat. Go to WordPress Settings, choose RumbleTalk chat, and register (email + password).
  • For users that already have an account, click on “Already have account?“. Then, add your 2 fields token hyperlink and add your account token (two fields can be found in your admin panel under Integration in Account Settings).
  • After registering, your chat code (hash) will show in the chatroom code field. This is a unique string for every chat room.
  • NOTE: In case you do not get the hash code, you will need to manually register at RumbleTalk and get your code.
wordpress blog

  • Setting your chat plugin:
    • Add chat room – Create more chat rooms.
    • Members – Connect your chat to your members’ userbase. Let your members to auto-login to your chat.
    • Size – Resize the chat. In some WordPress themes, the size of the chat might be smaller or longer than expected. In that case, see troubleshooting.
    • Floating – If you want your chat to show as an icon in the lower right corner, choose this.
    • Settings – Change your chat design, add admins, etc.
wordpress website
  • To add RumbleTalk group chat to your site, go to a page or post in your WordPress admin.
  • In case you have only one room, use the phrase (rumbletalk-chat) in your post’s visual mode to position the chat widget where you need it.
wordpress blog

  • If you have more than one room, use the green button or add the exact hash in the phrase (rumbletalk-chat hash=”insert here your chat hash”).
wordpress website

After those steps, see the chat on your WordPress website.

Why should you add a chat on your WordPress website?

Since lots of your site visitors are coming and out of your website, why don’t you grab the opportunity to convert them to followers?

By being followers of your content, they are more than just frequent visitors. They keep up with your latest updates, posts, and follow you on your social media sites.

Visitors usually like what they see on a website. If they visited your site, then it means that they’re interested in your content. What if you made a group chat wherein you can talk with your followers?

If you’re active on your WordPress website, then you can chat with anyone who wants to chat. It can be a visitor or follower. As long as they’re on your WordPress website, then they can join the group chat.

Additionally, if you’re not active, you can open the group chat for anyone. Since the group chat is public, followers and visitors alike can chat with each other.

This can help strengthen your community and leads to higher visitor conversion rates.

Add more than one chat room

If your site is gaining more traffic, then you can add more chat rooms. It’s easy to add chat rooms with the RumbleTalk chat plugin. Just go to your chat settings and add how many rooms you want.

wordpress website

Set entrance and subscription fees for your chat

With PayConnect, you can actually charge users for entering your chat. You can choose an entrance fee, where users have limited chat access.

Or, you can choose subscription fees for unlimited chat access.

rumbletalk

As the chat owner, this depends on you. Do you feel that your users would like to access your chat for a short time only or a longer period of time?

With the RumbleTalk chat plugin, you can add paid access so you can monetize your WordPress website.

Adding InText Keywords to redirect users

Now that you have your chat, you can add keywords where you link URLs to specific keywords. For example, if you use Facebook as a keyword, you can redirect users to your Facebook page.

To add a keyword, go to Settings on your admin panel. Then, choose Manage Keywords.

elearning

Input the keyword and the URL you want it to redirect to. Keywords are shared in all rooms. Therefore, if you have multiple chat rooms, note that your keywords will apply to all chat rooms.

Your WordPress website chat

group chat in wordpress

If you follow the instructions above, it’s easy to add a chat on your WordPress website. With a chat, you can easily connect with your site’s visitors or followers.

No need for third-party websites or social media groups/messaging app. You have it all in one place.

This is what integrating a chat does to your WordPress website. It increases your site’s traffic and the length of stay of your visitors. This gives a higher average than those without a chat.

Interaction is key to these visits. Also, by chatting with your frequent visitors, you can create a community. By building a community, you lead more visitors and followers to become your dedicated circle.

So, what will you choose? A site without a chat or a site with one?

WordPress Group Chat – Plugin Features

We are happy to introduce the new RumbleTalk WordPress group chat plugin. As always, we are constantly working hard to simplify the plugin’s implementation and management, as well as include features that we release on the global service to the WP plugin.

The changes to the plugin are divided into several aspects:

  1. UX
  2. Keywords
  3. Multiple Chat Rooms
  4. Technical

UX Changes

The WP plugin has evolved dramatically, but some questions and requests from our users kept persisting. We tried to answer most of these using a smart UX design.

One question we kept on getting was the option to upgrade to a multiple chats account. To fix this, we put a large orange button on top of the chat with a clear indication of the current account status (Number of Seats, Rooms, and Keywords).

Wordpress group chat settings

Adding the Keywords Feature

Recently, we released a new feature called InText Keywords. Since then, we have received many questions regarding the option to add it to the WP plugin. We are pleased to announce that it is now there! Also, note that the Keywords option is shared among all rooms, so in the event that you have more than one room and have you created an InText keywords list, it will be applied to all rooms in your account.

Easy Setting to Add More Than One Chat Room

The need to add more rooms while working with the plugin was often a question posed to our support team. We updated the plugin to make it easy to add more and more rooms and see each room with a clear view.

A single Room Settings and editing

Charge Users for Entering the Chat

This is another feature that we’ve been working on behind the scenes. We get a lot of comments from you guys that we should add a monetization option. So, we did. Currently, there are two ways to monetize for entering the chat room.

The first one is to put an entrance fee to your group chat or expert’s chat. To do that, just simply choose from paid group chat or paid expert’s chat. Any paid chat type means that it’s monetized.

wordpress group chat

You can set your fees on the “Monetize” section of your admin panel. Just click on “Monetize Settings.” Then, set your fees and make sure that you’re charging for entrance. Also, save your changes before you go.

wordpress group chat

The second one is to add a subscription fee. This is great for membership chats and closed communities. Subscription fees are less hectic than entrance fees because members pay monthly or annually. For instance, they don’t need to extend every minute or hour.

This option works the same as the entrance fee option. The only difference here is that you choose the subscription option. That’s basically it!

WordPress Group Chat Technical Changes

We have implemented many technical changes behind the scenes. For example, you may notice that the folder structure has changed. We’ve made these changes to adapt to the most recent WP plugin instructions and recommendations.

If you need to step-by-step instructions on how to add our WordPress group chat service to your site, see our instructions here.

To download the RumbleTalk WordPress group chat plugin, please go to the WP plugin website.