By Spencer Kitley

As reader’s appetites for consumption and engagement grow so to should your strategy for interaction and entertainment within your CoveritLive events. One thing that separates CoveritLive from all other real-time platforms is how simple it is to add video, images, audio clips and even your own polls and gaming into your live event.

Users can load items into their personal Media Library ahead of time or upload on the fly using the Media Uploader. Everything is formatted to play within the viewer window making it simple for the event producer to integrate multimedia elements into the real-time event.

If the user knows there are video or audio clips, photos or polls that are needed in advance of the event it is highly-recommended that they are set up prior to the start of the event in the Media library.

Below are five tips for managing your Media Library prior to and during your next event.

1.       Click on the ‘My Account’ tab and save images, audio or video files into your ‘Media Library’ under the corresponding directory. (Do this before you launch your live event). You can also choose to update the image name and add a caption or notes.

2.       If you are involved in hosting an event that necessitates live photos and video you can upload those items live and on the fly. During your live event, open your ‘Media Library’ and double-click the image, video or audio file. The uploaded item will instantly appear for your readers in the viewer window. If the image is large, the image will auto-resize to fit in your viewer window and readers can always click the "Expand" link to view the image at full size.

3.       Engage your readers by using CoveritLive’s polls that allow readers to interact by answering questions and weigh their opinions against those of other readers. Polling questions are a great way to keep readers engaged during live events and CoveritLive makes it quick and easy to use. Polls can be constructed and saved prior to the event beginning or they can be created and deployed on the fly during the event. Before the event begins, access polls by entering the Polls/Interactive tab and naming, creating and saving your poll. To create a poll during an event, select Quick Polls, enter your answer choices and publish.

4.       Enhance your live event with videos from YouTube. Users can preload all of their YouTube links into the Media Library in advance of the event. If the user desires to add the links manually, he/she should bookmark all the YouTube pages they want to use or copy and paste all of the embed codes into a document for easy insertion into the event. During the event, users can simply open the Twitter & Video tab in the console and paste the video embed code that was generated on YouTube’s web site into the box that is showing within the tab. Once the user clicks to publish the video it will instantly play for all readers in the viewer window.

5.       Want to create an all-encompassing multimedia live experience? Setup a CoveritLive event to run concurrently with your live streaming video. Execution of this synchronization is easily executed by opening the Twitter & Video tab, copying the embed code for your video from the appropriate live video web site (UStream, Livestream, Qik) and pasting the code into the corresponding box. Once the user clicks publish, the live video will instantly play for readers in a small window right next to the viewer window.

The Media Library can be an important and highly-effective component of your live event strategy. The combination of engaging commentary and different elements of multimedia will build a strong interactive experience for your entire audience.