Ol’ McDonald Had a Community

We have recently seen a challenge made by several publications, asking the MMO industry to start specializing in their games they create, asking them to find a niche and stray away from the “norm”. There are several challenges associated with the development of such a project, but we, as community experts ask the question, “How do I build an audience in a niche market?”

Part of our jobs as community professionals is to interact with the different teams associated with our projects, whether that is marketing, development, design, or a host of others. The first step of developing an audience is to plan side-by-side with these teams early in the development stages. Create an outline that coincides with the development plan so that you can feed your community information freely and in a timely fashion.

That being said, when you have your team leads outlines, it’s now time to develop your personal strategy. Long ago, when I was developing my niche audiences, I created my own personal “How to” based off of the letters E-I-E-I-O, because after all, Ol’ McDonald, turned out to be a pretty smart dude.

(E)ngage: When you first create your website, forums, social media platforms, and the “buzz” for your project first starts, you need to engage them quickly, friendly and efficiently. Let your newly founded community know who you are, what your title is, and what your specific role is within the development staff. Find out where your community came from, and how they heard of your project. Was it a fan site that posted a link? Was it off a major news publication? Check out these areas and familiarize yourself with them.

(I)nteract: After you’ve found out about your community, interact with them! Don’t hesitate to get involved in forum posts, facebook updates, or even fan sites. Involve yourself in every aspect of the community, large or small, and most importantly, make everyone feel like a rock star and that they belong. Plan contests and activities that surround the niche of your project, give them a reason to stay other than quickly checking your site to see what the current news items are.

(E)xcite: Early in development, there is a good possibility that you won’t have quite a bit to release or talk about. However, the tone of your excitement of the project will set the standard of excitement within your community. The phrase “No news is good news” does not apply to us. If you don’t have anything to share, add an air of mystery. For example: “There are so many awesome things happening! I can’t wait to share them with you guys.” Or tease them with: “I just came out of a meeting where we talked about implanting a cool newcalled!” Have fun with the community, keep them interested.

(I)ncrease: Growing the community is as important as maintaining it, as long as you have engaged, interacted, and excited your community, they will do the bulk of the work for you! Word of mouth is still the best advertising we have as community professionals. Entice your community to “spread the word” of your project, and dive in with that process, create fan kits, visit blogs, do interviews, even if the sites that your visiting, communicating on, or interviewing with have low readership. Make time to answer questions to individuals that are new in the community and make them feel special. You never know, that one community member that you made feel special might create the next big MMO news site.

(O)ptimize: As you are interacting with your community, they will let you know what can be fixed or made better. Weigh these suggestions heavily, submit them to the appropriate channels and teams and prepare a proposal on why the issues at hand should be changed. Do you have an activity that doesn’t work? Drop it. Have an idea for a new one? Implement it! Continuing the optimization of the community will be key to maintaining, and growing your community.

-Brian Fuhrman