Community Dev Newsletter

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii,

I'm back from GDC and general April Fools shenanigans! I've been busy since then so please excuse some crimes in this newsletter.

This month's newsletter dives into:

• When is it appropriate to have one studio social media account versus multiple game ones?
• MY COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT BOOK PRE-ORDERS. 😱
• A community activity that I didn't do oopsies.
• Marketing/community related job links and resources.

Multiple Accounts or Nah?

Should you make a game specific account every single time, or consolidate all your games under one studio account? Like any good community answer, the correct answer is: it depends!

Here are my quick recommendations when it comes to this:

• A studio specific account is good for:
  • Games with smaller playerbases
  • Studios that do not plan to develop games with constant content (e.g. live service) or have specific "end" timelines in mind for their games
  • Studios that only work on 1-2 games at a time
  • A smaller team with limited resources
  • Examples: Supergiant Games, AggroCrab, Behemoth, Young Horses
• Game-specific accounts tend to be best for:
  • Games with continual/constant updates
  • Sizeable playerbases that need specific, streamlined communication (e.g. multiplayer games or just incredibly popular ones)
  • Studios that work on multiple games at a time - more often seen with publishers
  • Often have enough news or gameplay to share and can keep up with the daily grind of content creation
  • Examples: Among Us, Cult of the Lamb, Astroneer, Vampire Survivors

There are a ton of different examples of folks succeeding in either case, so in the end it’s up to you!

Pre-order My Book!

Hehehehe. If you've seen my social media, you might have seen that pre-orders for my book Mastering Community Management is out!! AHH!!

I obviously talk about community management a lot, and I found that even with the increase of resources out there, games are a whole different beast. Plus - and I'm including my own talks/articles - where do you even start??? I wanted this book to be a core resource for interacting with players online that helps new folks figure out the work and professionals fine tune their craft without sweeping generalizations on their expertise.

Here's just some of what you can expect:

• Pre-launch to post-launch guide – specifically directed towards activities and strategies for each stage of development.
• Review activities in key sections to help readers reflect and actively engage with the material. (Very similar to what we do here regularly in the newsletters but in ✨book format✨).
• Case studies, step-by-step infrastructure, and background theory to help solidify the framework more practically.

I'm suuuper nervous about it and I'll be sure to do another post once it's actually out, but any sharing and spreading of the news is appreciated!!! AAAAH!!!

Community Activity 📝

Every month we do a skill testing exercise together - but this time I'm a CRIMINAL. I didn't have time to answer this question properly for the month so we're repeating it, sorry!!

Have an activity idea or want to ask a question? Submit one anonymously.

The question:

Feel free to email me back with your answer - I always respond. My answer will be in the next newsletter, I swear!

Community Chatter 💬

Here are the interesting and helpful things I've seen this past month.

General News

• ​Bluesky posts can now be up to 299 characters long
• ​YouTube Shorts will now count the number of times your Short starts to play or replay with no minimum watch time requirement
• You can finally play Instagram Reels at 2x speed (my attention span continues to rapidly deteriorate)

Community & Marketing Game Jobs​
​These are not endorsements.

• ​Aristocrat - Product Marketing Manager (Montreal, Canada)
• ​Coal Car Studio - Part-Time Community Manager (Remote)
• ​CRITICAL REFLEX - Brand Marketing Manager (Remote)
• ​Electronic Arts - Associate Brand Activation Manager, Apex Legends Esports (Los Angeles, USA or Vancouver, Canada)
• ​Evolve PR - Social Media & Community Specialist (Remote, Canada)
• ​Lo-Fi Games - Publishing Director (Bristol, UK)
• ​Nootbox Games - Part-Time Community Manager (Remote)
• ​poncle - Engagement Manager (Remote)
• ​Riot Games - Senior Manager, Social Strategy VALORANT (Los Angeles, USA)
• ​Sony - Sr Manager, Brand Marketing (Remote, US)
• ​Sucker Punch - Community and Support Specialist (Remote, US or Canada)
• ​System Era - Senior Community Manager (Remote, US or Canada)
• ​Vicarious PR - PR Specialist (Remote)

Hope living through unprecedented times is going well for you! Ha. Hahahaha.

❤️

Victoria

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