Learn how to build in-app communities that boost engagement, retention, and loyalty through chat, moderation, and user-driven features.

What Are In-App Communities, and How to Build Them From Scratch

Exploring how community-based live chat has positively impacted the utility of various platforms and how to integrate it easily.

How and Why to Integrate Live Chat: Crucial Reasons and Simple Steps

<div style="font-size:14px;line-height:1;" id="toc">On this page&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Why-Add-Community-Live-Chat-to-Your-Platform">Why Add Community Live Chat to Your Platform?</a>&nbsp;<a href="#Reclaim-Users-from-Social-Media">Reclaim Users from Social Media</a>&nbsp;<a href="#Differentiate-from-Competitors">Differentiate from Competitors</a>&nbsp;<a href="#Increase-Retention-Rates">Increase Retention Rates</a>&nbsp;<a href="#Understand-customers-needs-and-pains">Understand your customers’ needs and pains</a>&nbsp;<a href="#How-to-Implement-Live-Chat">How to Implement In-App Live Chat</a>&nbsp;<a href="#key-steps">Key Steps</a>&nbsp;<a href="#Get-in-Touch">Get in Touch</a>&nbsp;<hr style="margin-bottom:1vw;">User retention and engagement growth are among the most critical performance metrics for any digital platform. Research shows that improving customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by up to 95% (Bain &amp; Company). One of the most effective ways to achieve this is through community-based live chat features, which encourage users to connect, share experiences, and return regularly to your platform.Think of it as creating a digital coffee table — a place where your users naturally gather to discuss shared passions, whether it’s sports, language learning, or TV series. With the right tools, your platform becomes a hub of conversation, loyalty, and repeat engagement.<h2 id="Why-Add-Community-Live-Chat-to-Your-Platform">Why Add Community Live Chat to Your Platform?</h2><h3 id="Reclaim-Users-from-Social-Media">Reclaim Users from Social Media</h3>Businesses spend millions building audiences on social networks, but without in-app chat, users drift to external platforms to share their opinions. By implementing real-time chat functionality, you ensure conversations happen on your website or app, not on Facebook, X, or Instagram.<ul data-start="1518" data-end="1660"><li data-start="1518" data-end="1582">Users spend 2x longer on platforms with integrated chat.</li><li data-start="1583" data-end="1660"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232957437_Consumer_Engagement_in_a_Virtual_Brand_Community_An_Exploratory_Analysis">Engagement</a> increases by 30–40% when community features are available.</li></ul><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.laliga.com/en-GB/news/enjoy-the-clasico-with-la-liga-virtual-arena">A prime example is La Liga.</a> Despite millions of social media followers, La Liga struggled with limited access to first-party user data. By launching an app-based chat and “second-screen” experience via QR codes, they not only attracted fans directly to their app but also gained valuable behavioural insights. This move strengthened fan communities and boosted in-app retention rates significantly.<h3 id="Differentiate-from-Competitors">Differentiate from Competitors</h3>When users compare platforms, they choose the one offering the most interactive and engaging experience. Adding community live chat creates the same “stickiness” as social media — people log back in to check conversations, respond to mentions, and catch up with peers.<ul data-start="2392" data-end="2586"><li data-start="2392" data-end="2500">Platforms with unique social features report a 25% higher return rate compared to those without.</li><li data-start="2501" data-end="2586">Keeping users engaged in-app also reduces exposure to competitor advertising.</li></ul><h3 id="Increase-Retention-Rates">Increase Retention Rates</h3>The number one challenge for digital platforms is customer churn. Studies reveal that the average app loses 77% of daily active users (DAUs) within three days of installation. Community-based live chat directly combats this by encouraging frequent interaction, keeping users active and invested.<ul data-start="2934" data-end="3105"><li data-start="2934" data-end="3015">Retention improves <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.alexanderjarvis.com/what-is-community-engagement-index-in-ecommerce/#:~:text=You'll%20find%20that%20a,others%20into%20your%20business%20ecosystem.">by 15–20%</a> with integrated chat and community features.</li><li data-start="3016" data-end="3105">Users who feel part of a community are 3x more likely to remain loyal to a brand.</li></ul><h3 id="Understand-customers-needs-and-pains">Understand your customers’ needs and pains</h3>Traditional analytics and support tickets show limited behaviour patterns — usually focused on problems. Live chat provides authentic insights into user interests, habits, and needs.You can track:<ul data-start="3357" data-end="3485"><li data-start="3357" data-end="3402">Which topics spark the most conversation.</li><li data-start="3403" data-end="3441">When your audience is most active.</li><li data-start="3442" data-end="3485">How users engage with specific content.</li></ul>This allows you to refine your platform, create more relevant content, and build a data-driven engagement strategy.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1000/1000;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/474c51ed-5545-49df-859a-51c44d631984.png" width="1000" height="1000"></figure><h2 id="How-to-Implement-Live-Chat">How to Implement In-App Live Chat</h2>Launching a community chat feature doesn’t have to be complex. Using modern SDKs, chat APIs, and webview integrations, you can quickly add scalable live chat functionality without lengthy development cycles.<h3 id="key-steps">Key Steps:</h3><ol data-start="3892" data-end="4496"><li data-start="3892" data-end="4064">Define Chat Visibility&nbsp;Will chat be open to all visitors or only authenticated users? Similar to a paywall, you can require a login or a subscription to participate.</li><li data-start="4065" data-end="4177">Choose AuthenticationAllow users to chat under their platform profile or create anonymous nicknames.</li><li data-start="4178" data-end="4307">Set the Entry PointPlace chat where it drives the most value (homepage, event pages, video content, or live streams).</li><li data-start="4308" data-end="4496">Customise and ModerateTailor the chat design, enable moderation features, and integrate engagement tools like polls, quizzes, or interactive widgets to keep discussions lively.</li></ol>By following these steps, you can create an engaging community that drives user retention, improves brand loyalty, and enhances the overall experience on your platform. By keeping conversations inside your platform, you gain control over user behaviour insights, reduce churn, and strengthen your competitive edge.***<h2 id="Get-in-Touch">Get In Touch</h2><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://calendly.com/watchers-platform/social-tools-for-your">Book a call</a> if you'd like to integrate in-app community chats with the high-level moderation system into your website, app, or game. We'll be happy to help you find the best solution.</div>

Discover why gaming is better with a community. Explore features like in-app live streaming and real-time communication to improve engagement and keep customers coming back

Learn how to enhance engagement on your site through innovative features like in-app live streaming, chat widgets, and real-time communication. Integrate these tools into your platform to build a gaming community hub full of happy customers.

You Never Game Alone: Live Chats and In-app Live-Streaming to Make Gaming Brighter

Keep your audience interested in your brand. Grow your business on your terms with our six effective strategies to boost user engagement and grow retention. These methods are designed to encourage the audience to interact and remain loyal.

How to Grow User Engagement and Why You Should: Proven Strategies for Retention and Growth

<div style="font-size:14px;line-height:1;" id="toc">Table of Contents&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#what-is-the-user-engagement">What Is User Engagement?&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;<a href="#how-user-engagement-drives">How User Engagement Drives Retention&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;<a href="#proven-strategies">Proven Strategies to Boost User Engagement and Retention</a>&nbsp;<a href="#Get-in-Touch">Get in Touch</a>&nbsp;</div><hr style="margin-bottom:1vw;">User engagement varies significantly across digital products. Whether you operate a VOD platform, sports book, or fitness app, engagement isn’t just about volume but about how deeply users interact with your platform.Some businesses can easily measure engagement, such as tracking likes, shares, and comments on social media platforms. However, engagement is often assessed through retention rates, lifetime value (LTV), and revenue impact for content-driven platforms. Failing to focus on user engagement can leave your users feeling bored, disconnected, or lost, leading them to abandon the platform. That’s why prioritising engagement is not just about keeping users active; it’s a strategic necessity for driving retention growth and long-term profitability.Before discussing actionable strategies to enhance engagement, let’s define user engagement in a product-focused context and explain why it is a critical metric.<h2 id="what-is-the-user-engagement">What Is User Engagement?</h2>User engagement reflects users' interest and interaction with a product. It represents their ongoing experiences with your platform, whether through consuming content, using features, or actively participating in the product ecosystem.Key engagement metrics vary based on the platform type but commonly include&nbsp;clicks, likes,&nbsp;and&nbsp;shares&nbsp;within an application;&nbsp;content interactions—such as rating content, adding items to favourites, or saving content for later;&nbsp;and social amplification, where users share content across external platforms. However, engagement should not be viewed as an isolated number. The actual value lies in how it influences&nbsp;high-impact business metrics&nbsp;like time spent on the platform and LTV. Increased engagement typically leads to higher retention rates, improved conversion, and, ultimately, stronger business growth.<figure class="image" style="margin-bottom:1vw;"><img style="aspect-ratio:1301/1304;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/22368673-6219-460d-a8f3-cc3729281c25.jpg" alt="how to increase your platform engagement and user loyalty with live real0time community chats" width="1301" height="1304"></figure><h2 id="how-user-engagement-drives">How User Engagement Drives Retention</h2>Customer retention measures a business’s ability to keep users engaged over time, reducing churn and increasing long-term loyalty. High retention rates indicate that users find continuous value in your product, leading to recurring usage and sustained revenue.Engagement is a&nbsp;key driver of retention—when users actively interact with a product, they are more likely to return, provide feedback, and even advocate for it. A well-engaged user base contributes to:<ol><li data-list="bullet">Higher customer loyalty</li><li data-list="bullet">Improved retention growth</li><li data-list="bullet">A steady stream of recurring revenue</li></ol>Without meaningful engagement, even the most well-designed platform risks losing users. That’s why implementing engagement strategies is critical to encourage users to stay, interact, and ultimately convert into loyal customers.<h2 id="proven-strategies">Proven strategies to boost user engagement and retention</h2>Now that we’ve established why engagement is crucial, let’s explore several actionable strategies, backed by real-world examples, to enhance user engagement and increase retention growth rates.<h3>Building an In-App Community</h3>This refers to users' interactions and activities within your platform. Many brands engage their users on social media, and their users spend their time (and money) on social media. There is a surprise: they could communicate, text, chat, comment, and exchange stickers directly on your app and discuss your content if you provide them with in-app tools for it. They can even participate in events directly on your platform. What, you don’t have any events? Yet you should, it’s easy and works perfectly.<h4>Real-time events</h4>For many platforms, it is still difficult to imagine that they can host events without any additional tools, just by providing video or audio live streams in-app. Invite guests, influencers, celebrities, athletes, brand ambassadors, anybody, and users, along with these guests' followers, who will engage on the main platform without any Instagram or Twitch. Do you have a sports app? Let’s have commentators or athletes host a meeting with users. Do you provide video streaming? Invite critics, bloggers, actors, or any other people who can talk about films or TV. Is your app for fitness? Without counsellors, athletes are the best hosts for live streaming on how to make more effective training.<figure class="image" style="margin-bottom:1vw;"><img style="aspect-ratio:1500/1000;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/c6730e50-0866-4e6a-9281-7452d764c15d.jpg" alt="how to increase your user engagement and loyalty with real-time live community chats" width="1500" height="1000"></figure><h4>Real-time communication&nbsp;</h4>It is what grabs users' attention. It’s impossible to turn off the sports channel during the break if you are talking about the game or an episode with someone right now. The right tools help boost user engagement even more: try AI chatbots or personalised messages, which greatly enhance engagement and improve the user’s overall experience.<h4>Gather user feedback and Quality data</h4>In-app community chats always show your users’ preferences and behaviours. You can also use surveys and polls to get more information and insights from your audience than ever before, and your users will appreciate being heard.<h3>Enhancing the Customer Experience Through Gamification</h3>Gamification integrates game-like elements into the user experience, transforming routine interactions into engaging and enjoyable experiences.Implement a point system—reward customers with points for purchases, interactions, or consuming content. Points can be redeemed for discounts or special offers, encouraging repeat engagement.Offer rewards—introduce engaging challenges or quests where users earn rewards for completing specific actions, such as surveys or brand promotions.Create interactive experiences—use quizzes, polls, and interactive content relevant to your business to boost engagement.<figure class="image" style="margin-bottom:1vw;"><img style="aspect-ratio:2000/1333;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/b90fc373-f63f-425a-ad84-01e9a2e94408.jpg" width="2000" height="1333"></figure>Build a community around your brand—provide users with a space to share experiences, celebrate achievements, and exchange tips, fostering a sense of belonging.Gamify customer support—reward customers for using self-service options or assisting others in forums, making support more engaging.Enable social recognition—remember that people like to show off. If your users have badges or specific awards, they need a place to display them. Community public chats can be the best place for them to showcase their awards and expertise and advise other users on how to get the same goodies.<h3>Using Tools for User Feedback</h3>If you do not understand your users' basic needs, how will they engage with your platform? Without clear communication, they may become frustrated. To foster engagement, provide users with tools to send feedback and never ignore their questions. User loyalty is essential for long-term business growth.<h4>Tips for Effective Feedback Management:</h4><ol><li data-list="bullet">Gather customer feedback regularly to improve satisfaction and surpass expectations. Gaining insights into their views and needs is essential for delivering outstanding interactive experiences.</li><li data-list="bullet">Personalise the customer experience to match individual preferences, leading to more meaningful engagements.</li><li data-list="bullet">Offer incentives such as unexpected gifts to returning customers to strengthen their loyalty and appreciation.</li><li data-list="bullet">Use automated systems, such as raffles for loyal customers, to streamline engagement efforts.</li></ol><h3>Personalising User-Interactive Experiences</h3>Incorporating personalisation into a business strategy can significantly enhance customer retention and growth. When customers feel acknowledged and valued based on their previous interactions, they are more likely to return, leading to an increase in repeat purchases. Additionally, personalised recommendations enable customers to discover products they may not have found independently, enriching their shopping experience.<hr style="margin-bottom:0.8vw;"><h2 id="Get-in-Touch">Get in Touch</h2><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:transparent;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Inter;font-size:0.9375vw;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:1.35417vw;margin:0px 0px 1.30208vw;orphans:2;outline:0px;padding:0px;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:transparent;border:1pt none windowtext;box-sizing:border-box;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;line-height:16.1px;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0cm;vertical-align:baseline;" lang="EN-GB" dir="ltr">Please <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://calendly.com/watchers-platform/social-tools-for-your?month=2025-08"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:transparent;border:1pt none windowtext;box-sizing:border-box;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;line-height:16.1px;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0cm;vertical-align:baseline;" lang="EN-GB" dir="ltr">book a call</a><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:transparent;border:1pt none windowtext;box-sizing:border-box;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;line-height:16.1px;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0cm;vertical-align:baseline;" lang="EN-GB" dir="ltr"> to explore how integrating community chats can boost your platform engagement and optimise your business performance. We'll be happy to help you find the best solution.&nbsp;

How to use interactive consumption content pattern to boost the platform usage?

Boost content engagement with integrated community chats and interactive tools. Audiences of all ages now seek interaction through mobile devices, gaming, and second-screen strategies. Increase retention with live chats and gamification features.

​​​​Who enjoys the interaction while consuming content? Spoiler: Not just Gen Z

Who enjoys the interaction while consuming content? Who finds classical TV broadcasting a bit outdated and struggling for interaction while watching news, shows, and sports, applying to their smartphones and other mobile devices? Who adores interacting with a gamer before gaming themselves? The popular answer to this question is Gen Z, but this answer looks a bit outdated.&nbsp;When Gen Zers became a goal of entertaining companies, patterns with high levels of engagement and interactions appeared. However, patterns quickly spread around users and viewers of different ages and generations. As discussed during the ‘The Future of Content Viewing’ talk at the IBC summit this year in Amsterdam, talking about YouTube users as only young people is a mistake. That’s just a cliche; if you use it, you just avoid statistics and big data provided quite widely.Yet, if the cause differs, conclusions stay the same and even become more critical. Suppose such a pattern is widespread and applied by various people. In that case, services and brands must meet these needs through communication strategies and product development.Let’s look at various cases of such content viewing to realise how platforms can use this new habit for the greater good of both the business and the users.<h3>Boost games with social interaction</h3>There are different ways for games: from video games to iGaming, from single-player games to group and public ones. All of them can be enhanced with a high level of interaction while gaming, if we are talking about group games, and observing other players’ games, or between games, considering single-player games. This player can comment on their actions with audio or video, while other users comment on a chat with text, stickers, emojis, and gifs. Twitch, it seems like a video stream with commenting actions is a more customary and convenient approach, but we can argue that audio is much simpler. Streamers don’t need to prepare much for the technical part or, for example, their appearance; if the game is simple, they can play and comment from any place they locate in a moment. Also, their audio won’t distract users from the game when the video stream is too complete, content itself and sometimes can be very distracting from the main content we want users to pay attention to. At the same time, they can like, share, comment and respond to the streamer and the game process; this is engaging and sticky: users share their emotions here and are more likely to come back to your platform/app as they used to come back to Twitch and YouTube.&nbsp;How to do itYou can add audio or video streams with a chat to your platform with any type of game. Your gamers will provide streams to their gaming process, which will accumulate more users. Particular gamers can gather communities with the habit of consuming gaming content on your platform.<h3>Enhance watching of sports with dynamic interactivity and after-messengers habit</h3>Mobile-first and mobile-only audiences are growing, at the same time, the same audience watches programmes on TV because of traditions, habits, collective watching, and coverage. For example, some significant sports games and popular reality shows are broadcasted exclusively on TV. Such viewers lack attention to the TV screen and consume mobile content while watching TV. So, the goal for such an audience is to ‘keep their attention to the main content. It can be achieved with several tools. The first and primary is a second-screen approach: if viewers want to use their mobile phones while watching TV, you can provide them with this opportunity with a link to the main content. They can chat and discuss what’s going on in the main content; in this case, the second screen will be used as a community-building tool. Also, the second-screen approach helps to provide additional content for viewers, such as polls, quizzes, trivia, and bots that enhance the watching experience and focus the viewers’ attention on the content even when they would love to be distracted by their phones.How to do itThere are simple and more complicated ways. The easiest one is to connect a big screen to a mobile phone by scanning a QR code. So, users can scan QR on a TV screen and get into the chat as a specific mobile page or into your main app with additional features, polls, and tools for communications. The next level is to connect these devices in both directions: when users get into mobile by scanning something on the big screen, then they can send something to this screen: it can be some moderated messages, stickers, or emojis, which will be shown as a feed, or poll results.<h3>Grow retention with specific tournaments and rewards</h3>When users play on your platform, watch something, or use your app in any other ways but regularly, spending much time there, they wish to be noticed, and they wish to be entertained. Such a desire is also connected with gaming as it is: people get used to getting rewards even for the activities they like. Because of that, you can use gamification mechanics for users by assigning them different badges and achievements. But what does it mean if they can not show off with their rewards? It returns us to the talk about the community. Even achievements work better and give more joy to their owners if other users can see them and comment. Also, users value specific and exclusive things like special stickers, emojis, or new opportunities, with the usage of tools unavailable to most other community members. Users become sticky to the service if they get something there—you don’t want to throw away something you achieve.How to do itYou can add an opportunity for users to communicate in community chat, show their achievements there, and reward them with specific stickers. When you award users with badges, it is necessary to show the others how to get such a badge and stimulate them to take the target actions.*There are many opportunities to give users tools and ways to communicate how they got used to doing so. Variants depend on the type of content on your platform and the results you want to achieve. However, you should remember that retention is a crucial metric for almost all platforms, and successfully integrated community-building solutions grow it in any case.***<a style="color:inherit;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://watchers.io/form">Connect with us</a>&nbsp;if you plan to integrate or develop in-app social tools for real-time communication. We will help you find the most suitable solution.

What are the advantages of integrated community chat, and how can extra tools, such as engagement widgets, achievements, audio and video streaming, help your content platform keep users and boost transactions? Let's discover.

Boost Engagement with Integrated Live and Community Chats

<div style="font-size:14px;line-height:1;" id="toc">On this page&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#seamless-chat">Convenient, Seamless Chats</a>&nbsp;<a href="#clear-features">Clear and Intuitive Features</a>&nbsp;<a href="#safe-and-trusted-space">Safe and Trusted Spaces</a>&nbsp;<a href="#real-time-messaging">Real-Time Messaging</a>&nbsp;<a href="#rich-tools">Rich Conversation Tools</a>&nbsp;<a href="#integration">Personalised Integration</a>&nbsp;<a href="#extra-engagement">Extra Engagement Tools</a>&nbsp;<a href="#next-steps">Next Steps: Make Your Platform a Community Hub</a>&nbsp;<hr style="margin-bottom:1vw;" data-end="450">Great content alone doesn’t guarantee user engagement. Today, people consume content while chatting, sharing, and interacting—whether on social media, YouTube, or Twitch. The secret to their success? They don’t just deliver content—they create connection.When your platform enables users to chat, share emotions, and discuss what they love, it transforms from just another app into a sticky, loved brand.<h2 id="seamless-chat">1. Convenient, Seamless Chats</h2>A chat feature should feel as natural as breathing. If users need to struggle with menus, search for settings, or wait for messages to load, they will quickly disengage. Convenience means:<ul data-start="1215" data-end="1517"><li data-start="1215" data-end="1307">Replies work smoothly, so users can easily involve others in conversations.</li><li data-start="1308" data-end="1400">Settings like muting are accessible with just a few taps.</li><li data-start="1401" data-end="1517">The entire experience runs without noticeable delays or glitches, making real-time conversation truly real-time.</li></ul>When chats are seamless, users stay longer, interact more, and naturally build habits around your platform.<h2 id="clear-features">2. Clear and Intuitive Features</h2>Nobody wants to stop mid-conversation to figure out how to reply, react, or share content. A chat system should be simple enough to understand instantly, yet powerful enough to support dynamic interaction.<ul data-start="1878" data-end="2137"><li data-start="1878" data-end="1954">Core actions (reply, react, etc.) must be visible and self-explanatory.</li><li data-start="1955" data-end="2046">The interface should reduce cognitive load—users shouldn’t have to learn how to chat.</li><li data-start="2047" data-end="2137">Onboarding should feel invisible; the product teaches itself through intuitive design.</li></ul>The easier it is to use, the more likely users are to explore and engage actively.<h2 id="safe-and-trusted-space">3. Safe and Trusted Spaces</h2>Engagement thrives only in environments where users feel respected and safe. Without trust, people hold back. A healthy chat space requires:<ul data-start="2403" data-end="2629"><li data-start="2403" data-end="2488">Strong moderation tools that act instantly against harmful or offensive messages.</li><li data-start="2489" data-end="2558">Clear reporting systems so users can flag issues with confidence.</li><li data-start="2559" data-end="2629">Transparent rules and consistent enforcement to maintain fairness.</li></ul>Creating a secure environment isn’t just a technical task—it’s a promise that your platform values community well-being.<h2 id="real-time-messaging">4. Real-Time Messaging</h2>Nothing kills excitement like delay. Real-time messaging ensures conversations flow naturally, especially when paired with:<ul data-start="2914" data-end="3165"><li data-start="2914" data-end="2995">Read receipts and presence indicators, so users know when others are engaged.</li><li data-start="2996" data-end="3059">Synchronisation across devices for a consistent experience.</li><li data-start="3060" data-end="3165">Stability during high-traffic moments, like live sports, trending shows, or real-time market updates.</li></ul>This instant interaction is what keeps users glued to the platform, making every moment feel alive.<figure class="image" style="margin-bottom:1vw;"><img style="aspect-ratio:1000/1000;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/34f1966e-14d4-425b-9d5c-5e4d44260730.png" width="1000" height="1000"><figcaption>Compare chats without rich tools and with them</figcaption></figure><h2 id="rich-tools">5. Rich Conversation Tools</h2>Words aren’t always enough. Users want to express themselves quickly and visually. That’s where rich tools come in:<ul data-start="3425" data-end="3649"><li data-start="3425" data-end="3480">Stickers, emojis, and pictures add personality and fun.</li><li data-start="3481" data-end="3569">Reactions allow users to show support, agreement, or disagreement with a single tap.</li></ul>These small touches turn ordinary chat into something vibrant, emotional, and addictive.<h2 id="integration">6. Personalised Integration</h2>Chat should never feel bolted on—it should feel like a native part of the platform. This creates continuity and strengthens brand identity.<ul data-start="3923" data-end="4200"><li data-start="3923" data-end="4004">Customisation and adaptable layouts that match your product’s design.</li><li data-start="4005" data-end="4089">Smart integration so users can switch between content and chat without friction.</li><li data-start="4090" data-end="4200">Personalisation options (like nicknames, avatars, or profile badges) that make each community feel unique.</li></ul>When chat feels like your chat, users associate the positive experience directly with your platform.<h2 id="extra-engagement">7. Extra Engagement Tools</h2>Not every user wants to type messages—but they still want to be part of the conversation. Engagement tools give everyone a voice:<ul data-start="4476" data-end="4682"><li data-start="4476" data-end="4543">Polls that capture instant opinions, even from passive readers.</li><li data-start="4544" data-end="4610">Interactive buttons that let users participate with one click.</li><li data-start="4611" data-end="4682">Quizzes, challenges, badges, drops, and gamified elements that reward interaction.</li></ul>These features activate silent users, increasing participation and community vibrancy.<h2 id="next-steps">8. Next Steps: Make Your Platform a Community Hub</h2>By combining these elements, your platform won’t just compete with familiar social media—it will replace the need for it.<hr style="margin-bottom:1vw;" data-end="450"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://calendly.com/watchers-platform/social-tools-for-your">Book a call </a>with our team to discover how easily you can integrate community chats and transform your platform into a thriving, connected space.</div>

What ways do platforms choose to engage viewers and to keep their loyalty?

Discover how real-time messaging can increase engagement on your website or app for VOD platforms. Enhance viewer interaction while watching TV series and films, making the experience more engaging

How can we engage viewers during co-watching, and…is this necessary?

How to increase viewer engagement on VOD platforms while watching TV series and films? Or do films and TV shows provide enough entertainment, especially when viewers aren’t watching alone?We've analysed how VOD services and their partners launch watch parties and other entertaining events to determine if the ‘movie plus communication’ mix is compelling or if viewers require more.<h3>Guests, Hosts and Influencers</h3>Guest appearances are the most popular and obvious idea for attracting and entertaining an audience while they are watching movies and TV shows. Almost all group co-viewing solutions assume that the chat room stream has a host who invites participants, manages the viewing process, comments on it, and can generally perform any function within this field, from thanking sponsors to critical comments on what is happening.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:800/450;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/9672ddee-88c0-40c7-9d98-0eabbfccc806.gif" width="800" height="450"></figure>Of course, watching the content with a host or guests originates in TV shows, where experts come on to programs, present films before they start, and discuss them after they finish.Live premieres and screenings in offline cinemas and festivals operate similarly. For example, directors, actors or any other member of the film crew can present the film, and then discuss it with the audience afterwards, answering their questions.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:2936/1378;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/7647a62f-65c9-42cf-b0c7-778a583466a0.png" width="2936" height="1378"><figcaption>Sandman event for Netflix provided by Scener</figcaption></figure>However, the digital watching format offers new opportunities for presentations with guests. For example, a film can be discussed in real time, especially if it is not a premiere, thus turning viewing video content into an open podcast. It offers many options, resulting in a kind of vlog, YouTube analysis mix, or Twitch stream, in addition to some of the more classic genre formats mentioned above.This is the path that Netflix, for example, is following. From time to time, in partnership with the Scener browser extension, the streaming service arranges premieres of major releases. Thus, in August, the&nbsp;<a style="color:inherit;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://thesandman.scener.com/">release</a>&nbsp;of the “Sandman” series went like this: anyone could join in co-viewing, and members of the film crew, as well as Neil Gaiman himself, acted as hosts.<blockquote>Social networks are the main competitors for VoD services. What are they doing? Watching the feeds collected for them, following UG content, communicating and following influencers.</blockquote><blockquote>According to a&nbsp;<a style="color:inherit;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/technology/digital-media-trends-consumption-habits-survey/summary.html">Deloitte report</a>, influencers are what is most important to users all around the global: about 80% of users follow at least one influencer. This means that if an influencer joins a platform, a part of his audience will most likely follow him.</blockquote>HBO Max also held its own premieres with the help of a browser extension. Zack Snyder was one of the brightest hosts of their online Q&amp;A events, and he connected to his “Justice League” premiere.<h3>Additional Content</h3>When are viewers distracted from watching? It’s when they fail to follow a story and lose context. But even this is easy to avoid. People have gotten used to browsing social networks in parallel with their primary activity, even when no need exists. To maintain engagement and make usage of the OTT platform more conscious, capturing the moment when a viewer craves distraction and preventing them from turning to a social network for entertainment or to a browser for more information is essential.Amazon Prime has pioneered this route. They tested X-ray functionality on Kindle books (sending users more information about the books while they were reading) and decided to examine films and TV series more closely.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1354/902;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/504365ec-c07f-4cc3-95c2-0f5eec177743.png" width="1354" height="902"><figcaption>X-Ray at Prime</figcaption></figure>So, for many Prime Video titles, additional content has been created, tied to certain moments within a film or series. The viewer accesses this content by pressing the player’s pause button during playback. This extra content often includes all the information on the title’s IMDb page (Amazon also owns this movie database).This was a bright, innovative solution suitable for movie lovers, though it was implemented in a rather dull and mundane fashion, and the extra content is too predictable. If you are a cinephile, you're likely already familiar with the wealth of information available on IMDb. If you are a serious movie lover or preparing for a premiere, you've probably already searched for all the details on IMDb. But this innovative idea, which began to be implemented back in 2012 and gradually&nbsp;<a style="font-size:16px;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/22/amazon-brings-x-ray-to-web-video/">spread to&nbsp;</a>different devices, is still alive and active, meaning that there are still plenty of X-Ray fans.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1350/756;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/f8ba50c1-c8c4-4438-8536-de7b8b8c244a.png" width="1350" height="756"><figcaption>Watchers’ Cinephile additional content</figcaption></figure>In addition to keeping users “on platform,”&nbsp;X-Ray helps Amazon create native cross-platform promotions.&nbsp;For example, it sends viewers to Amazon Music for music from a film, to Kindle for books, and to the Amazon marketplace to purchase goods related to the title.However, whereas the content sent by X-Ray is relatively dry, emotionless, and purely informative, the content Cosmopolitan sent to viewers in its joint project with Google was, on the contrary, seemingly too emotional and editorial. In 2019, Cosmopolitan decided to support the release of the second season of the “You” series, which was very popular among the site’s readers. Together with Google News Lab, they&nbsp;<a style="color:inherit;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/tv/a30090671/cosmo-google-netflix-you-watch-party-second-screen/">created</a>&nbsp;an in-app page (which can also be accessed via a link in a browser), which was supposed to operate as a second screen on a laptop or TV where the viewer was watching the show. Viewers simultaneously tuned into Netflix and the additional content page, which was followed by messages from Cosmo displayed on a dedicated screen at specific points in the series.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1346/1030;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/ea8a19c7-3ca9-4840-b3dc-af6040e924b3.png" width="1346" height="1030"><figcaption>Additional content to You, by Cosmo</figcaption></figure>While Google News Lab data lead Simon Rogers&nbsp;<a style="color:inherit;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/26/cosmo-watch-party/">called</a>&nbsp;the experiment a success, not everyone agreed. There was too much content from Cosmo during the browsing process, and this information was often delivered as friendly comments. While this might work with familiar films/series, it provided a distraction as users tried to acquaint themselves with the premiere. In addition, funny gifs flashed between the messages on the second screen, distracting viewers from immersion.Last year, after learning from competitors’ and partners’ mistakes, Netflix&nbsp;<a style="color:inherit;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.bgr.in/news/netflix-to-launch-a-new-n-plus-subscription-for-exclusive-content-know-details-958532/">announced</a>&nbsp;its plan to launch the N-Plus service. This will enable viewers to do many things right within the platform, including creating playlists of any tracks that appear in originals, receiving photos and videos from filming, getting additional content information ‘here and now’ so that they do not have to Google it, and so on.<h3>Animated Reactions</h3>Almost all services that allow viewers to watch content together allow users to send animated emojis: in some cases, they fly into the chat, and in some, they even appear on the TV screen. Users love this interactive format: it’s an easy and quick way to share an experience without formulating a comment or being distracted from viewing for a longer time.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:2294/1404;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/04a702d9-98bd-466a-9cdb-78eaed099e7b.png" width="2294" height="1404"><figcaption>Emojis at Disney+ Group Watch</figcaption></figure>The attractiveness of animated emojis was used completely unexpectedly by Disney Plus for group viewing. There, users can only send emojis during co-viewing, as neither text nor voice chat is available. However, users have many concerns about this format for interaction, the most obvious being how they explain what they are happy or unhappy about. Because of this, they still have to go to instant messengers, so why not send emojis in the messengers, themselves?<h3>Surveys and quizzes</h3>Most services that allow content co-watching use practically no polls or quizzes, or do this in association with sports content. But why? Viewers support their favourite heroes in the same way while watching TV series, as they do their favourite teams while watching sports, and they also like to share their opinions and search for other like-minded viewers. That’s why we at Watchers see the potential of engaging tools for any content, whether award broadcasts, reality shows, film premieres, or familiar classics.What might users ask each other during an old movie? Just about anything! Learn who other viewers see as their favourite character, share a story or a fact, or put something on to play. In addition, engagement tools make it possible to enable the same cross-promotion and native marketing that Amazon does within its own limited ecosystem. Widgets in the co-browsing chat allow users to buy clothes worn by a film character on demand, order an interior similar to the one in that apartment being shown, or fly to Italy to walk around the filming locations.Thus, although engagement tools primarily perform their primary function, involving and increasing ER, they can also be the solution to many additional tasks that a content platform has set for itself.***If you are looking for a way to increase engagement and provide additional content on your website or app, please fill out the form below. We will be happy to help you find the most suitable solution.

Blog with tag: engagement