Tips & Tricks on Social Media

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Nicou   No comments   Social Media, Tips & Tricks 03 October 2022

Tips & Tricks on Social Media

We have touched a few topics already, Community & Social Media, Press, Influencer, Data, … and I hope that these articles were useful to you!

Today for our social Media category, I’m giving you a few tips collected during my adventure. Just a few…

Summary:

 

The Social Media

I have already explained the different social networks in a past article, Social Media.
Many websites could give you basics details about how to improve your networks; But as always, I aim to give you authentic information gathered from the field.
Thank you for reading CM Adventures! 🙂

 

Media is the plural form of Medium.
In Latin, the word “medius” designates an object positioned in the middle, playing an intermediary role: A system used to interact & communicate with someone.
Much like fungus becomes fungi in plural form. A cactus, cacti. A scenario, scenarii. A crisis, crises. A criterion, criteria….. A datum…. Data…. Annnnd that’s enough Latin tags.

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Tips & Tricks

Yep, that’s the category you are looking for.
Read on!

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The Community’s Power

If you are on social Media, it is because you are growing a community!

Ask questions in your posts, a Call to Action to foster interactions, feature interesting members of your community, and make them feel like a true part of your game/product.
If you support them, they will support you.

I have written about Press & Influencers, and Influencers Strategy.
Leverage their incredible power and let them participate in the social adventure.

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Strategy, Calendar, Consistency

You will be efficient if you have a clear plan in your head, but even more structured & coherent if everything is ordered ‘on paper’.

Use a calendar and plan everything in it. It will really help you to create diverse content, and stick to a consistent schedule in the long run.
💡 I love Asana because it is highly customisable with plenty of features, but you could use Notion, or Trello, or even a physical calendar & post-it if you prefer.

 

Two things I must share with you about scheduling/automation of postings:

  • Try not to automate everything, post manually whenever you can to keep in touch with your content. It feels rewarding, and you can also engage rapidly with your community once the deed is done. Automation is great for week-ends, late posts, when you are too busy or unavailable.
  • The world is weird, and sometimes something bad can happen that will impact everyone on internet. You absolutely don’t want to schedule a post about [Content], then you forgot about it, a similar [Content] happens in real life and it’s really bad… And then your post about [Content] comes in, immediate drama. Be aware of your surroundings.

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Quality Visuals & Dimensions

▲ Visuals:

The asset used for your content is the first thing players will see on socials, and often the only thing. Good image? You get my Like.
It is of the highest importance that your Assets & Copies are top level!

💡 Assets are the media used: like an image, a video, or content that you use alongside your copy.
💡 A Copy is your message: It must be well-thought, not too long, not too short, clear visual symbols & emojis, call to action, engaging, informative, …

People are more likely to share visual content on social networks.

Growth Users will find visuals attractive and it will assist in generating more traffic, increasing sales, and taking you to the top.
Core User will enjoy your visuals and also read your copy & CtA.

 

▲ Best assets dimensions:

  • Facebook
    • 1200 x 630 Standard post
    • 1920 x 731 Banner
    • 1080 x 1080 if you post 4 images in a quadriptych
  • Twitter
    • 1200 x 630 Standard post
    • 1500 x 500 Banner
    • 1080 x 612 or higher ratio (1929 x 1093) if you post 4 images in a quadriptych
      • You can even keep that 1929 x 1093 center part, and have a total dimension of 1929 x 3264 to create secret HD images like this one from World of Warcraft.
  • Discord
    • 1200 x 630 Standard post, or 1920 x 1040 works as well
  • Instagram
    • 1080 x 1080 Standard Post
    • 1080 x 1920 Story/Reels/Ads, and try not to put important text a quarter top and a quarter bottom.
  • Tik Tok
    • 1080 x 1920 Videos
  • Steam
    • 1920 x 622 Header
    • 2108 x 460 Spotlight
    • 800 x 450 Cover
  • LinkedIn
    • 1200 x 630 Standard post
    • 1584 x 396 Banner

Profile Pictures’s dimensions, use 1080 x 1080 HD or 400 x 400 for all socials.
💡 Keep in mind that the final result Profile Pic should fit in a round shape so again, put the important visual at the centre.

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Content Consumption

When you create content for your community, keep this in mind: they don’t have time!
Even you when reading my articles, you skip things and read only if the topic is appealing to you. You stop at images as well, and the symbols get your attention.

💡 In real life when you meet someone, you instinctively ‘judge’ them in 3 seconds. On social Media, you only have 1-2s to catch the viewers’ attention.

Create content that is easily understandable by the masses, do not rely too much on memes though.
Tik Tok is a platform that leans heavily into the “no time, quick content, high engagement, full fun”.

 

Content, format and tone have changed considerably with the pandemic.
The rules of communication have changed with the massive use of social networks during lockdowns.

Users want more, faster. It is now necessary to consider creating specific content for different generations and communities.
Consumers are looking for stories that are tailored to them, both in terms of information and style. They want more transparency & authenticity (with the #NoMoreBullshit trend for example). The right targeting combined with personalised content will be key to success.

Also, videos continue to win over text, and audio has become a popular format.
Audio clearly needs to be integrated into its communication strategy with podcasts as we progress to 2023.

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Storytelling

There is so much content on socials nowadays that soulless posts will not perform well.
It is important that each of your posts are part of a campaign/strategy aiming at touching the players’ hearts & minds. Emotion is extremely important if you want your content to reach new heights. Understand your community, connects with them, and create the content they want to see.

I have explained a storytelling process in my article Deconstructing Crusader Kings III Royal Court Strategy.

To be short: We, humans, connect to stories. That’s why we love movies, series, books, games, Warhammers 😜

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Emojis & Symbols

I know some professionals who consider emojis to be unprofessional. I don’t think it is.
It focuses the attention where we want it to be. It gives the general vibe of the message.

When we communicate in real life, we have dozens of facial expressions happening in a single short conversation. This part is missing online and could lead to misunderstandings.

  • What have you done, this is so dumb! – Unsure about the intention, what’s happening?!
  • What have you done, this is so dumb! 😂 – Now we know that it is not so bad, and it is even funny
  • What have you done, this is so dumb! 😡 – Oh oh… no cuddles for you tonight.

In the following examples, I used visual cues to increase Engagement & Reach.

  • unicode characters, it’s not ‘letters’ so beware and don’t use it if you have a particular focus on text-readers as the softwares won’t be able to read it.
  • Emoji ⚔️ to give the vibe of the message and reinforce the title.
  • medium sized copy, with the most important words at the beginning of the message : “Today” & ” Release of Fate of Iberia”, the DLC.
    • To be honest it’s a bit too long, I would have rather gone with “Today, we release Fate of Iberia & the free Update 1.6!”
  • space space ALT+16 space LINK: my go to call to action that proved really efficient. It’s my signature, don’t copy me with this! ^-^ ALT+16 is my arrow right ►
  • Visual with Dev Diary and the title in the middle.

More examples

Emoji & link to a very important modder of the CK3 community

 

Teaser & cheeky brag

 

Community Challenge & correct use of emoji

 

Update with a “No Man’s Sky format” presenting major features with emojis

 

💡Emojis are also useful for recurring topics.
If the emoji comes back on regular days for specific topics: players will recognise it and consider the post to be interesting before even reading the text.

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Social Advertisements

Pushing for players to BUY THE PRODUCT on social Media isn’t going to work very well.

You have to touch the players’ emotions and make them understand they are buying more than a game: an experience they don’t want to miss, whether it is because of the community, the sheer amount of content, the great features of your games, your excellent activity & fun on socials… or even all of that at once.

💡 Posting your Sale, Merch, and other pure ads more than twice a month isn’t advised.

 

Paid advertising can be a reliable strategy to gain a much higher visibility, for example ahead of a Major Update where you advertise the best features in short & engaging videos.

The benefits of ads go far beyond increasing your Reach among your own audience. Platforms usually let you target people who share your audience’s interests, exposing your brand to people who are most likely to be interested in what you offer. Tap into these reserves of players!

You can also create very focused messaging that target specific demographics from age & location down to what kind of device they are using when they see the ad.

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Inclusivity & Alt Text

Inclusivity isn’t only letting players choose their pronouns in your game.
If you can, try and make your game available to as many people as possible: people with visual, physical, auditory, and cognitive disabilities.

On social Media you can help at least some of these disabilities, mostly auditory & visual, by being extra cautious when creating content:

  • Certain colours might look too similar for colour-blind players, use different tones of colours.
    • I am slightly colour-blind Deuteranopia myself, I really appreciate to play games in Deute mode like Valorant, Sea of Thieves, Apex Legends, Cyberpunk 2077, Destiny 2, Diablo III, Battlefield 4, … it makes a big difference for me when playing, especially to better see enemies’s colours/sides.
  • The text’s size in your asset must be visible enough, avoid small and exotic fonts
  • Use ALT Text for your images, so a screen readers can describe what the content of the image represents
  • Subtitles for your videos

ALT Text is visible on Twitter

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Each networks are differents

I often see posts pushed on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, … all at once, and sometimes it just doesn’t click.
Hashtags will not work, the text might be too long, the @user tagged might not work, the asset’s dimension is incorrect, the link might not work…

Don’t do this, or make sure the message will work correctly on each platforms before you send it.

  • You can use ~5 hashtags on Instagram as a standard at the end of your message, where it would look really weird on Facebook or Twitter;
  • Keep text short on Twitter, make it longer on Facebook if necessary;
  • Links don’t work on Instagram, so keep a Linktr.ee in your Bio in your social networks;
  • Assets have different dimensions depending on the socials used;
  • Communities are different, you might want to write your copies differently;
  • On Discord, use <> between your link to prevent the platform from embedding them if you already have an asset.

 

If you want to succeed, you should treat each social media platform uniquely and consider its functionalities and features.
Use a creative strategy different for each social channel.

If you don’t have time & resources, simply cross-post to different platforms but make adjustements! 🙂

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Interactions & Criticism

Engage with your community as much as possible, but only if you think there is a value that you can bring to that interaction.
Check your accounts daily.

Players must feel good when you engage with them, and you must use your brand’s voice as described below in another chapter.
Depending on your brand, you could even troll/make fun slightly of your players if it’s the right thing to do (player’s behaviour, your voice, the moment, …).
Feel free to take time to create an asset only for this interaction if it adds a great deal to the engagement. Players will love the extra love/nudge.

► Examples of interactions with Crusader Kings III

 

Regarding Criticism: It is a natural process and players will give you their feedback about your product, whether it is positive, mixed, or even negative.
DO NOT ignore them or even worse kick/ban them from your community. Players should feel that it is ok to share their thoughts; It benefits everyone to listen.
► Reply to the players concerns and try to address them, even if it is a bit of an awkward interaction.

Of course, ignore players insulting you or writing troll comments. Don’t entertain obvious trolls.
This is not a constructive start to an interesting discussion.

Usually, try and redirect feedback to your forums or Discord if it needs more details.
It’s always a good idea to get more views from players concerning a specific feedback.

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Algorithm & Hashtags

The algorithms on each platforms are never 100% understood, and some of your posts might not work as much as you would have expected.
There are so many posts & content on social Media, and you would spend your life trying to find the content you love the most (don’t we all, already?). So Algorithms try to understand you, what you like, what you comment on, how long you watch specific posts… and they present you with things you might love as well.

Try and favour the algorithm by playing the platform’s rules. Craft posts that the algorithm like.
If the content is great, follow the platform rules, and has a lot of interactions: Snowball effect and it will be seen by more users.

► Usually, the algorithm displays posts thanks to these criteria: Recency → Engagement → Media is rich?

  • I encourage you to use an asset using the right dimensions & format. No YouTube videos links for example, download a .mp4 to the platform.
  • Ask your community questions to foster engagement
  • For Facebook & YouTube it is also great to drop a comment yourself, that users can like and engage with.
  • And reply to the users engagement IF it ads value, up to 4h max after the user’s reply.
  • Tag other users to help with visibility
  • Use the correct hashtags for discoverability
  • Post your content at the correct timing, for example 4pm CEST to reach EU & US timezones is excellent. It also depends on days, don’t post something heavy on Friday evening when everyone just wants to think about the week-end.
  • Follow a schedule and be consistent
  • Video content is favoured
  • Good captions/text on your images
  • Use a shortened link, or even no link at all. Social networks want to keep users on their platforms.
  • Vary your media from images, to gif, to videos, to poll, …
  • Analyse your posts’ metrics to understand if you are doing it correctly, don’t be afraid to test things

Facebook & Twitter have a default news feed as “TOP messages”, which means ‘bad posts’ could not be seen by a lot of users. You can see posts with a natural timeline if you prefer.

 

Don’t use more than 2 hashtags in a single Facebook & Twitter posts. If you don’t have any hashtag, it’s all good!
No more than 5 hashtags on Instagram, only if relevant to your content. It helps with discoverability, that’s how a large portion of the community uses Insta.

Too many hashtags will annoy people and can scale back your Engagement Rate.
From an analysis made by Linchpinseo: 1-2 hashtags increase your engagement by ~21%, and more than 2 hashtags have shown ~17% drop in engagement.

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Brand Voice & Tone

One of the most important things to have when you manage a social network: what Voice & Tone are you using?

  • The Voice is the personality, the adjectives that qualify your brand or company. It is the general overview of how you do things, the vibes you emanates.
  • The Tone is based on your voice, and will apply differently based on the engagement. For example you will have a different tone if you release an Update, if you thank someone for their fan-art, if you support someone with an issue, or if you post a fun piece of content. It’s the same thing, in different: The way you talk, in a more granular way.

 

If you are not experienced with it, you will need to train and think as the “Brand” or persona reflecting it, rather than yourself the employee.
Communicate with We in mind, the company, the brand. I really insist on this a lot when I mentor other CMs in needs, or students in schools.
Once you are used to it, it will come naturally and you will be exercising the brand voice every time you will talk, write, respond, and interact with users.

► For Crusader Kings III, a medieval strategy roleplay game, I was talking as The King. He was Attractive, Bold, Cheeky, Inspiring, Scholar, and of course Royal.
►But it is not mandatory to have a persona, you could simply have characteristic when adressing your community. For example with Baldur’s Gate 3, I’m interacting with the adjectives in mind: Artistic, Caring, Clever, Romantic, Silly, Playful.

Be close to your community, and use terms they would use. By listening to them, you will be able to use their language and meet them on their terms.

 

Exercise:

  1. If you are new to this, select three companies you like on Twitter.
  2. Read many of their posts & responses from last month.
  3. Then select 5 adjectives that would fit their voice.
Adjectives - Brand Voice

Adorable, Adventurous, Appealing, Artistic, Athletic, Attractive, Bold, Breathtaking, Bright, Busy, Calm, Capable, Caring, Casual, Charming, Cheerful, Chic, Classic, Clever, Collaborative, Colorful, Comfortable, Conservative, Contemporary, Convenient, Cool, Cocky, Creative, Daring, Dashing, Dazzling, Delicate, Delightful, Detailed, Dramatic, Dry, Earthy, Easy, Eccentric, Efficient, Elegant, Elevated, Enchanting, Endearing, Energetic, Ethereal, Exciting, Exuberant, Fabulous, Familiar, Fancy, Fantastic, Fashionable, Festive, Fierce, Flirty, Formal, Fresh, Friendly, Fun, Functional, Futuristic, Glamorous, Graceful, Hip, Historic, Honorable, Impressive, Industrial, Informal, Innovative, Inspiring, Intense, Inviting, Low Maintenance, Lively, Lush, Majestic, Modern, Natural, Nautical, Nifty, Noisy, No-nonsense, Nostalgic, Novel, Old, Organic, Playful, Pleasant, Powerful, Predictable, Professional, Quaint, Quirky, Radiant, Rebellious, Relaxing, Reliable, Retro, Revolutionary, Ritzy, Romantic, Royal, Rustic, Scholarly, Savvy, Secure, Serious, Silly, Sleek, Smart, Soothing, Sophisticated, Stable, Stimulating, Striking, Strong, Stunning, Stylish, Swanky, Tasteful, Thoughtful, Tranquil, Trustworthy, Unconventional, Unique, Upbeat, Urban, Versatile, Vintage, Whimsical, Wild, Witty, Wistful, Youthful

4. Then select 5 adjectives for your own brand.
5. Write something simple for your brand, and check if you are following these adjectives.

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Tools

I’ll give you some tools that I use for my job as a Community Manager:

    • The social networks of course: Facebook, Twitter, Discord, Instagram, Forums, Reddit, YouTube, Tik Tok mainly
    • A tool to chat with my team
    • The GSuite, like GSheets for measures, GDocs for Reports, GSlides for presentations, GForms for easy community forms so I don’t bother the web team.
    • Office Suite like Word, Excel, Powerpoint
    • Acrobat Reader to read & edit .pdf documents
    • A calendar, tasking & scheduling for social Media, for example Asana, or Notion, or Miro
    • Social Media overview & scheduling & Analytics tools like HootSuite and LevelUp Analytics
    • Photofiltre, quick images editing
    • Photoshop, advanced images editing
    • Premiere Pro, advanced videos editing
    • Irfanview, open almost every files you may have. Useful for retro-engineering files
    • ScreenToGif, create quality gif easily
    • VLC, open any video format
    • A Calculator, simple but necessary tool for data outside of my GSheet
    • Development tools for example to track bugs & team workspace for processes & knowledge
    • Linktr.ee, used by a lot of companies & influencers now to get all your social networks in one page
    • SubRedditStats, the true hero of Reddit’s metrics
    • StatBot, Discord servers’ metrics. Accurate metrics.
    • Yaytext, Unicode text tool
    • GetEmoji, all the emojis you need
    • EzGif, excellent gif tool
    • Feed.ly, social news monitoring
    • DeepL, an excellent translator or should I say… localisator? This tool is powerful and adapt the text to make it local and not a word-to-word translation
    • WorldTimeBuddy, with coworkers in the US, Belgium, Malaysia, Canada it is useful
    • Google, like… really.

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Tik Tok

Tik Tok offers brands great exposure & engagement formats.
Note that in the coming months, the platform will develop monetisation-oriented formats & features to appeal to brands.

The network offers formats and codes that are very different from other networks. A winning bet as content consumption is changing drastically.
The return on investment for brands is increasingly high, with the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt trend and innovative advertising formats.

Tik Tok will remain a pioneering platform in 2023 and will continue to inspire other platforms.

@larianstudios

Dealing with the biggest question at #paxwest the only way we know how. #paxwest2022 #pax #dungeonsanddragons #dandd #danddtiktok #mindflayer #vampire #elf #baldursgate #baldursgate3

♬ No. – Error 🙂

@larianstudios

Fred is ready for his glow-up. #grwm #paxwest #paxwest2022 #dandd #baldursgate3 #dungeonsanddragons #foryou #foryourpage #fyp #influencer

♬ Aesthetic – Tollan Kim

Our Tik Tok videos are produced by a small crew at Larian Studios: Ben Maltz-Jones, supported by Emily, SaloAtLarian & Mollygos from Publishing, Alice & François from the cinematics team, and I.

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Influencer Marketing

Neglecting Influencer Marketing in 2022-2023 means running the risk of seeing your consumer base stagnate. You want to tap into new sources of users!
I have written about Influencers Strategy recently.

YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and TikTok are the platforms to be favoured for your influencer marketing operations.

Also note that the number of influencers is growing, so it is important to choose the right ones according to their community, their engagement rate and their affinity with your brand!
It is essential to collaborate with influencers and create a real relationship with them.

Authenticity should be favoured to obtain good engagement rates.

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Metaverse

While it is not a topic I really fancy because of too many projects that simply aimed at robbing their userbase, it is an important matter.
This subject has gained momentum this year, and is undeniably one of the elements to be taken into account in the coming years.

The metaverse is a mixed universe between the real world, augmented reality, and virtual reality.
Facebook, now renamed Meta, has invested massively in this technology with ~$10b just for this year and the recruitment of 10,000 people in Europe. This implies that the evolution & development of this technology will rise rapidly in the coming years.
Meta is building a VR social platform, Roblox is facilitating user-generated video games, and some companies are trying to offer games with an attached NFT experience that is debatable.

In terms of uses, it has an enormous potential that brings new challenges for brands.
Wired offered an interesting look at what is the Metaverse, exactly.

 

A friend, Jérémie “Redsen” shares the following about Metaverses:

  • Most people think of it as a place, like we see in Ready Player One. They’re wrong. It’s not a place, it’s a moment in time. A gradual change that has been happening for 20 years. This moment is when our digital life is worth more to us than our physical life.
  • The thesis for the metaverse is simple: it’s about removing friction in our physical and digital lives.
    Let’s face it, we want everything, anywhere, anytime.
    You would love to go to your favorite artist concert, but he’s not coming near you when you are available.
    You would love to play football with your bestfriend, but he’s living 1 000 kms away.
    You would love to wear your Fortnite skin in other social worlds where your virtually meet friends, but there is no way to do that now.
    The metaverse is about taking the limitations of our virutal and physical worlds, and throw them out of the window.
    So that tomorrow, you will be able to attend virtual concerts of your favorite artist from your living room or play football with your best friend living 1 000 kms away from you, while wearing your favorite Fortnite skin.
    How long it will take and how open the metaverse will be still is unknown. But it’s the direction we’re going to.

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Analysis & Improvements

I can’t repeat it enough: if you don’t analyse your work and improve upon it, you are doing it wrong.
Because it is so important, I have crafted a dedicated article: How to Collect Data & Craft a Report.

Test, fail, analyse, improve, test, success.

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Crisis Communications

If the few negative reactions you received recently turned to a full-blown public relations problem: You have to be ready and know the process.
You need to have a plan for dealing with crises.

  • Who is going to craft & validate the response?
  • What will be that response?
  • Are you going to make a public statement or rather respond on a 1-1 basis?
  • What are the actions you need to take for all of these to happen?

If things become too negative, don’t try to reply to everything.
Pause for a moment, and ponder over the best course of action, and if you need back up from your leads.

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Trends & Newsjacking

Keep an eye on popular trends emerging on social platforms.
If you notice a pattern or strategy rising in popularity, and if it aligns with your Voice, then it might be a great idea to create content around it to get more Engagement.

Be wary of jumping on every news or trend you see! Creating posts that don’t align with your Voice & Culture is a quick way to hell, and you will alienate your target audience. You never need to create a particular type of content just because you see other brands doing it. Don’t be a sheep, think.

I have more examples but frankly short trends taken out of context aren’t meaningful ^-^
Like… you won’t get this unless you “lived” the trend.

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