I’m Jim, and I was recently hired by Nexus Mods to head up community development and public relations. I just wanted to take a minute to talk about the community development side of things, what that actually means, and how you can help us. Specifically, I will be focusing on our social media platforms and how they play into community development.
What is community development?
I suppose, before diving in, it would make sense to explain what that role actually means. In short, it means bringing more authors and their mods to Nexus Mods, attracting more users, chatting with game developers about using Nexus Mods as a primary hosting platform for their modding community, and anything else that will help the site grow. Part of this is handled through direct contact with these people via emails and forum messages. The other part of it happens through social media and events.
How does Nexus Mods use social media?
When I’m not in direct contact with authors and developers I’m on Facebook and Twitter, putting out a steady stream of what’s new on Nexus Mods. Right now that comes in the form of the latest mod releases, site features, and any other news relevant to the community. Over time I plan on expanding this to include some other routine site updates. Updates such as a monthly round up of new games that have been added to Nexus Mods and File of the Month winner announcements. We've also been discussing running the occasional big event, such as game key giveaways or contests.
If you’d like a steady source of what’s new on Nexus Mods, then following our social media platforms is the best way to get it. The site news is reserved for site features (such as Staff Picks or Sunday Discussion interviews) and major site news (such as the redesign announcement or our 2016 Year In Review article). It wouldn’t make sense to clog up the site news with multiple small articles throughout the day as the major site news and site features would get buried. So we are using social media for all that interesting stuff that doesn’t warrant a full news article on the site.
Why does social media matter?
Well, I’ve explained why it might matter to you (if you are someone who is interested in keeping up with the day to day Nexus Mods happenings). Why does social media matter to us at Nexus Mods though? Well for starters it’s another avenue for us to directly interact with our members. Whether it be helping an author by promoting their mod or pointing a user in the right direction, I’m always around; looking for new content to put out and responding to user questions and feedback.
Beyond that, social media carries a broader value, that may not be as obvious. That value comes in the form of leverage. Having a massive social media following can be used as a bargaining chip when talking with game developers and other companies about doing cross-promotion events, or when talking to a developer about why Nexus Mods would be a good choice for their modding community.
When I approach a game developer about a cross-promotion event, in which we use social media to give away game keys, and they see a site with 12 million members and a massive social media following, they are far more likely to want to participate than they would be if they just saw a site with 12 million members and no social media presence.
The reasoning behind this is that social media has a much broader reach, which leads to a greater ability to generate buzz and bring people in. Game developers and software/hardware companies are going to be more willing to collaborate if they can reach a broader audience and attract more people. For the same reasons, we could use our social media accounts to persuade companies to provide prizes for contests.
These are things we simply can’t do through the site alone.
What’s your point, Jim?
This part should be clear by now. If you want to be updated regularly on the latest from Nexus Mods, social media is the place for it. If you think contests and giveaways sound cool, come show your support so we can make those happen. Most importantly, if you want to support us as we nurture the continued growth and development of this community, helping us expand our social media following is a great way to do that.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I hope to see you over there!
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A moderator has closed this comment topic for the time beingAlso this is great info, thanks! -
Sod off with pushing social networks
Notification deleted - Again !
I am telling it like I saw it
The site software is obviously doing things you were previously not aware of .. And I just remembered an issue which is still open and unresolved ..
https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/4466205-need-new-preference-option-stop-article-notifications/
.. Possibly related ?
I'm a social marketing & community manager for a large consumer tech company and thought I would impart some tips for you guys, hope its of use (seriously learn from my mistakes!)
1. Social is pay to play when reaching new people. Consider promoting some posts at the start the ball rolling.
2. Organically - video content is king. FB algorithms are all about video or live video and will help drive the reach and engagements you need to grow in influence. Consider short 5 second clips emulating giffs for mod spotlights etc.
3. Retex and sharing of images is a HUGE part of the nexus - you might want to consider Instagram for this purpose.
4. Hashtags - use hashtagify.me to research into popular hashtags that are relevant to your audiences & abuse them on twitter and Instagram. However on Facebook- minimise usage- otherwise the algorithms will shut you down.
5. Take care with competitions - they can create the wrong kind of relationship with a developing community. You don't want 'compers' giving you false community metrics.
6. Keep Facebook post volumes low to start with - around 2 posts a day max: depending on your engagement rates, algorithms will consider you spam if you go OTT with the posting. On Twitter though- go OTT, its totally a volume game.
7. Don't feel afraid to re-use or revisit content, especially on Twitter, across different days. Your content will not get served to every fan (moreso when you get larger) so this ensures your content is delivered to a wider audience of people with different life schedules.
8. If you haven't got anything good to post- don't post. The moment your content lacks value is the moment people disengage,
Hope some of these tips help!
We'll definitely take what you have said on board. So you do social marketing, may need to tap into your brain at some point then?
Great punctuation.
Thanks for the support and feedback.
So do you do it for free?