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Community VS Marketing: What's the Difference? ✨ Community Dev Newsletter #48
Published 3 days ago • 3 min read
Community Dev Newsletter
Yoooooooo!
Happy summer of games season! I'm suuper excited that for this newsletter, we have not one but TWO guest stars explaining something that has confused many people: what is the difference between community and marketing? 🤔
Read on to find out!
This month's newsletter:
An overview on the difference between community and marketing
A community activity
Cool marketing/community related links and job posts
Community VS Marketing 📝
What’s the difference between working with community management and in marketing? Often, especially at indie studios, the Head of Marketing and Head of Community are combined into a single role, but their work differs.
So to talk about that, I'm delighted to have Hanna (Head of Community at Evil Landfall) and Josie (previously Massive Monster's Head of Marketing) here to break down the differences between their respective disciplines.
Thanks queens for your KNOWLEDGE. 🙏
Josie:
I think often community and marketing are lumped into one job, but both use very different parts of the brain.
Managing a community requires patience, calm, consistency, and a strong knowledge of your game. Marketing is fast-paced and needs a little more boldness.
The reality is, for me (Josie), I struggle with the day-to-day of bug reports and Discord moderation, but I’m great with video editing and grabbing people’s attention.
I am here to grab your attention, and in Hanna’s role, she's there to hold onto that attention for the rest of your life. We have you forever now.
Both roles are very different, and for larger IPs, it is very important to separate these roles out.
What Josie does:
I manage marketing campaigns, stunts, and asset creation — from video content right through to events.
I’m also here to be quick-witted, tap into viral trends, and turn attention into momentum for the studio.
Yeah, putting both community and marketing on the same person is a short-term solution for indies but long-term, it’s good to know that they are different disciplines and should be treated as such.
Good community work can be marketing, and good marketing can be good for the community, but not in every situation. Balancing both is important, and why it can be beneficial to have two separate roles. Josie’s much more bold and funny, while I’m more risk-averse and informative (boring), haha, but both are needed to market games and manage communities!
What Hanna does:
I manage player sentiment, expectations and enjoyment - I answer and communicate on the Steam forums, Discord, socials etc! I also oversee player support to make sure issues are brought to the developers and solutions are provided to players.
Essentially, it’s my job to make the players feel at home in our community, get them the right information and resources they need to enjoy the game and the spaces we curate for them. Sometimes that requires communicating through socials by making a video, but most of the time, I post on the less glamorous Steam forums.
Thanks to these two glorious powerful women for the insightful response! Make sure you give Josie and Hanna a follow on social media to keep up with their future shenanigans.
Community Activity 📝
Every month I ask a skill testing exercise! Have an activity idea or want to ask a question?Submit one anonymously.
The question:
Does your role land more in community or marketing? What tasks do you do that mesh together?
Feel free to email me back with your answer! I always respond.
Community Chatter 💬
Here are the interesting and helpful things I've seen this past month. A little shorter this month because I've been busy and less able to comb for info this time around, sorry!
Success through shenanigans with community management.
Hi, I'm Victoria! Join my Community Dev Newsletter for insight into games marketing, social, and community management. Get actionable tips, a skill testing question, and a roundup of resources straight to your inbox every month.
