I think everyone would agree that before you begin a battle, you need to understand the area, at least roughly. The same goes for community development: Before you start you need to have a plan of actions. Below I’ve listed themes I think are worth focusing on if you are at the beginning of your “community” journey.
I tried to keep this article as brief as possible. If you’d like to learn more about building online communities, please take a look at my book!
So, what do you need to work on if you set out to build a gaming community effectively?
1. Narrative
Humans are narrative creatures. We perceive the world around us through stories. The stories you tell your players are your key communication tool. (By the way, storytelling is one of the most important skills you should master if you really want to build a community.)
Here are two main types of narrative.
1. Narrative around the idea of the game
Imagine if your game were a fiction book. What would that book look like?
Essentially, the purpose of writing narratives about your game is to set the context that you leave behind in the gameplay. Through narrative, you help players immerse themselves in the game’s setting, connect with the ideas behind the gameplay, and activate their imagination. So when people play, they become part of the world you’ve created in their minds. To accomplish that, write the posts like you are working on a fiction book. Write the history of the antagonist and protagonist, and the story of their confrontation. Does your game have a storyline? Even better!
From the perspective of community management theory, those stories are analogous to the mission of an online community. The narratives you write are aimed at answering the question of why and how people should play your game.
2. Narrative around the community
In addition to creating the game’s context, it’s necessary to create the community’s context—that is, to write the story of your community. This aimed to reach many goals. Below are two of the most important ones.
Introduce people to each other
One of the most important motivators to participate in a community is social motivation. I’m sure that out of many cafes in your block, you’ll go to the one where you’re most likely to meet a friend you’re really interested in (yes, even if the coffee there isn’t the best one at all!). A similar situation is true to your game too: the more friendships players have, the more often they will play and the longer they’ll stay in your game. Text or video interviews, blog posts or any other form of storytelling about the users are fine!
Create a social hierarchy
This one is quite simple: Any stable group of people must have a clear structure; people simply can’t live any other way. Digests, leaderboards, and milestones all will help create a social hierarchy in your community.
Social initiatives
A community, by definition, is a group of people united by a common goal or interest and interacting in a common environment. By definition, a community exists as long as the people within it share a common goal and take actions to achieve that goal. Therefore, the community manager’s job is to continually set goals that players will want to achieve and be able to ask for players’ help in achieving these goals.
I think there are three important areas of work in terms of social initiatives.
1. Joint events
These could be contests, competitions, shared gaming sessions—anything that has time constraints and involves (or even requires) the participation of a group of users.
2. Creating opportunities for users to show off themselves
In addition to group events, community managers need to intentionally create “engagement traps”—opportunities for players to show off their skills within the community. The more such opportunities you create, and the easier they are to use, the more active your community will be. For example, asking players to invite a friend to the game, helping another player master a complex mechanic, writing an article about the game on the forum, or providing feedback on a new feature, etc.
3. Developing a sense of ownership
Oh, and I almost forgot. One of the foundations of community engagement and retention is a sense of ownership. Ownership arises when users have the power to shape the environment in which they interact, whether it’s a game or the community forum. The easiest way to achieve this is to constantly solicit players’ thoughts about the game and community and, whenever possible, implement the best ideas. The more users invest in the community and the game his way, the more your product will become part of their identity.
The must have initiatives: Onboarding programs
The initial experience of participating in a game and its community is critically important. The gameplay and the friendliness of your community are irrelevant if people leave your product immediately after they join. Therefore, the first step after launching a community is to ensure user onboarding is optimized as much as possible.
It’s important to note that the community and the game go hand in hand and form a single whole: In the game, we add incentives to encourage players to participate in the community. At the same time, the community itself exists to encourage players to play more actively and for longer, and to enjoy the in-game experience even more. Therefore, it’s crucial that users don’t get lost in either places, and that your onboarding programs in the community and the game complement each other.
Building relationships with others
Much of a manager’s work is focused on creating connections between users. At the same time, it’s important to remember to build relationships between the users and company employees. The more human your company is—that is, the more people on the development team players know as “real people”—the more they will see the game as something truly unique and personal.
Typically, the company-player connection builds naturally through social initiatives, working with user feedback, fixing bugs, and so on. However, I highly recommend strengthening it. A good practice is for company employees to proactively participate in the chat at least once a week.
That was a ”rough map” that we are going to use to help build a community for our client step by step. (And you can do too!) I will share more details about each item soon. To stay up to date, register on the website and receive updates by email!
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