076: Building an Online Community part 2: Strategically building engagement

Courtney: 0:08

Hello and welcome to Roll Play Grow, the podcast for tabletop entrepreneurs, creators and fans. In this show, we dig into processes, challenges, tips and really look at how to grow a business in the tabletop role-play gaming space. Sit back and join in as we learn from the creators behind your favorite brands about who they are and how they are turning their passion for gaming into a career. Hello everybody, and welcome back to these fun special episodes with my lovely co-host, Matt Joro, aka Dungeon Glitch. My name is Courtney and we are here to do a deep dive into some super cool stuff around social media.

Matt: 0:48

Yeah, super fun stuff, hey everybody.

Courtney: 0:54

You sound so excited to talk about like your main thing.

Matt: 0:59

I really am and I’m trying my best to contain it, so maybe I’m overcompensating with it, because it’s like I’m dying to get into this stuff.

Courtney: 1:08

Yeah, so this is like our second recording of doing this, and when it was first like, oh, we could talk about growing social media accounts, and then like, oh, I want to talk about project management. And like, let’s figure out what episodes we’re going to do, and I’m like, okay, well, here’s a little like outline, if you want to add to it. And he’s like, yeah, I have 10 pages of notes.

Matt: 1:28

And that’s all I wrote today. If you let me keep going, it would have been more. I’m just putting my thoughts down and actually organizing them. So it’s like oh yeah, this is what I did, this is what everyone needs to do, this is what you used to work. This is what worked three years ago. That doesn’t work anymore. Yeah, okay.

Courtney: 1:48

So that’s pretty much why we are starting off with a series dedicated to growing a social media community. So, in our last episode two weeks ago, we gave you some homework around figuring out who your community is. Who’s your audience? Where are they? As everything shifts around and everybody tries a new platform, what are some goals that you can be working towards? What are some like super easy ways that you can start making content on a regular basis? But today we are going to build on that and we’re going to talk about actually fostering your engagement and interacting with this community that you’ve spent the last couple of weeks working on.

Matt: 2:28

Yeah, I should have added to the homework to reach out to me, because it’s like, hey, you know what we’re going to. One I’m probably going to try to be a good example, but also I’m going to try to make it easy for you and if you tell me that you’re actually doing this, that you’re out here taking the steps, I’m going to boost you, if you’re cool.

Courtney: 2:49

It’s the extra credit.

Matt: 2:51

Yeah, you know it’s like. So if you’re out here and you’re doing this stuff and you’re following along and this stuff makes sense to you and you’re trying it out, hit us up. I definitely find me on threads. If that’s where you’re doing this and I would love to you know, say, hey, this is someone who’s doing it, check it out, good example, follow them Not only follow them, support them, meet them, and then all you got to do is, yeah, hey, I’m this person, this is what I do, and then you make friends. That’s, that’s. That’s the whole. You know your eight followers up, eight real followers up on average, yeah, okay.

Courtney: 3:34

So that’s like, basically, your extra credit for every single one of these episodes from here on out is if you head us up and let us know that you’re doing it, then you get boosted.

Matt: 3:41

Yeah, it’s gonna be exciting Seriously, and I’m not even worried about getting mobbed by like 100 people who are like, hey, I’m doing this Good. You should be, and that’s what I want too, because you know it helps. It helps my projects that you care, and if you, you get into stuff and you like my project, that’s a win and we help each other because it’s like, hey, cool, hey, have you seen jumpfire fly? And I’m gonna be like, hey, have you seen this thing on DMs Guild or this person’s podcast or this person’s Kickstarter? I like doing that stuff. So that’s a dopamine hit I need when I log into these things. Yeah, yeah, oh man, I’m an addict. I can’t help it.

Courtney: 4:29

Well, I believe we left on. On page four, you said Is this page four?

Matt: 4:35

Yes, yes, we’re somewhere at 3000 words at this point. So, yeah, yeah, if so, if you’ve done all of that stuff, hopefully, maybe it might be a little too soon, but you should have some people in your community. You have regular faces, people who like you, people who might recommend you to other people to follow. Your engagement is now, is now engaged. You have a community that’s actually starting to blossom and, yeah, let’s get into some of the things of what that means and what you can do with it. So, essentially and it’s if you want to see it in real time, if you’re actually keeping up with these you can go check out my accounts on threads. Over the years, people were talking to me on Twitter and they would ask me hey, matt, if you had to start over, what would you do? You’re seeing it in real time. I’ve been starting over. So, yeah, I’m testing out these methods. I’m doing them again. These are the things that worked last time. I know they work everywhere and I’m out. I’ve been on threads for three days, four days. Now I’m at almost 400 followers. I seem to be doubling every day so far. So we’ll see how it goes. I think, yeah, we’ll see how it goes. It’s the summer, no one wants to be on their phone, so here’s what we’re doing.

Courtney: 5:58

Yeah, it’s like summer, no one wants to be on their phone. And it’s also like, okay, gotta go interact on five different places right now and hope that one of them becomes the winner.

Matt: 6:07

Yeah, it’s real difficult. It’s real difficult, yeah, yeah. I guess so many people on Blue Sky. They’re just like I’m not going on a thread, it’s not happening, like you’re not talking to anyone on Blue Sky. Yeah, I know I’m holding it down. Okay, I get it, you’re not. You’re not wrong. You’re not wrong If I were to predict and this is just me being cynical is that threads is gonna be the next big thing until Blue Sky gets its act together. If they can get the timing right and it happens to coincides with when meta turns on monetization, and if they do it in a brutal fashion, which I think they’ll do, because they want to anchor as in to say like, hey, this is it really really bad? Okay, now it’s just not as bad, but it was what they intended, you know. So it’s like here’s, here’s ads every two threads, but really they wanted it every four, so they go, we’re gonna tone it down for you. We’re gonna tone it down.

Courtney: 7:05

Like I don’t even think you’re wrong. That’s what I’m saying about it.

Matt: 7:11

So when that happens and everyone switches over to Blue Sky, if Blue Sky is poised to receive that and they figure out a way of onboarding and making everything actually work, then Blue Sky could be the ultimate one. So everyone who’s over there right now holding it down, respect it’s tough. There isn’t a lot of people over there and it’s harder to get people in. So but in the end I think you might be right, for now we’re stuck on threads and you should be too.

Courtney: 7:42

I’ll be honest, I didn’t actually join threads until about two days ago when I saw you posting about why you were on threads and it was just like ugh. But I don’t wanna support Meta, okay, fine.

Matt: 7:51

I know, I know the same way, the exact same way. I was stubborn about it too. It’s when it’s the right play.

Courtney: 7:59

So I just want Hive to actually take off. I really liked Hive.

Matt: 8:04

I invested in Hive. I wanna see it take off too. So, oh, yeah, yeah, I mean, it gave me an option. It’s like, hey, do you wanna be a backer? A supporter. And yeah, it’s a social media platform. How bad could it be? So, yeah, we’ll see how it happens. We’ll see if anything happens. I don’t use it I couldn’t die of. He’s been here a couple of weeks and haven’t logged in in a while.

Courtney: 8:30

Hey, entrepreneurs, I love introducing you to new creators every episode, but I could really use your support. I would love to invite you to join our Patreon page, where you’ll gain access to behind the scenes content. Add your questions to upcoming interviews and you could even receive a shout out on our site in an upcoming episode. To learn more, go to lightheartadventurescom. Slash RPG. And now back to the show. But anyways, regardless of what platform you’re hanging out on and what actually wins, yeah, what are some good ways to actually foster the community that you have spent, however long building?

Matt: 9:11

Yes. So if you haven’t gotten full feel for what this creature is, that is your community, ideally, it’s a good idea to start making your community feel heard and appreciated Now. These are people lending you their energy, their attention, and we are in an attention economy, so pay them back by recognizing them as real people. You’re a real person. Show it and let them know that you see that they are as well. Talk to them, make friends, thank them, thank them personally. Hey, I really like what you said here. I thank you for adding this, Thank you for this idea. Mean it, Don’t just say these things, don’t spam it on every comment, don’t say the same thing to everybody. And as you do this, eventually your rapport will continue to level up. You’ll get more and more friends. People will care about you and again, this is a TTRPG chances are you’re going to get into a game, in which case, good, that’s what you want. If you can do that, if it’s part of your brand, awesome If you have the bandwidth to play games with people. It’s the number one networking of making real connections with people. I am most. Almost all my games are private because that’s what I like to do. I like playing with people with no pressure, so it’s like, yeah, yeah, we can do whatever you want. It’s a lot of fun. That’s me. So another thing you can do Q&A sessions, amas, live chats. If part of your brand is that you’re an expert at something, that you have experience with, anything, share it. You’re teaching people. This is part of those three points of to inspire, educate or entertain. If you are educating, this is your bread and butter, so you want to ask questions, help people and this sort of thing. Over time, if you make it a regular thing, will start to get people drawn to you, and it’s a great way to build a relationship with those who support you. They feel heard, they know that they can rely on you to give them good information and they know that if they run into problems, they can hit you up. That’s the ideal social resource that a lot of people crave. So if you can do any of that, you’re in great shape. Additionally, regularly seek feedback and suggestions. If you don’t know exactly what to post, it can help to just ask people hey, what would you like to see? This is the things I’m about. What do you want to hear about these kind of things? I make maps, I make dice. This is my game. Do you want to know anything about my world? Do you want to know anything about my process? Well, if you have your five topics, but if you see that they’re not necessarily ticking or you are running out of ideas, start asking people hey, what do you think of this? Getting these feedback, getting these suggestions, will fuel your ideas, keep you motivated as well, and when you take other people’s suggestions, they’re going to feel heard. Doing this kind of thing will keep people coming back and you’re going to keep making friends. Awesome, and if people are helping you, help them back. If you see that they’re doing anything like that, you can also say hey, so is there anything to do for you? It doesn’t necessarily have to be this quid pro quo stuff, but you know you’re friends, keep it real.

Courtney: 12:36

Honestly, I think that that is really good advice and just kind of an interesting way to think about it. It’s always interesting too, I think, when I see people do like oh and ask me anything, and you know it’s like, oh, that could be risky or it could be silent, depending on the time of day that you ask it, or sometimes there’s like really goofy questions that are just fun.

Matt: 12:58

Yeah, and you can do this in any kind of form too. You don’t necessarily have to do it on social media. You can be like, hey, you know, this is just email me these questions. You can take it at your pace and then you can answer them as you go throughout the week. That sort of thing, and finding your style to all of this is going to be key. So, yeah, now that you have this community, you know how to speak to them. There’s a piece we’re missing that’s going to really amplify all of this, and this is something you have to do. And if you’re making your community, you’re going to notice pretty quickly you’re not the only one doing this. Here is where you start reaching out to other influences. Now, I know I just I said in the last one that it’s a good idea to start reaching out to 50 people. That wasn’t part of the notes that I wrote and I got ahead of myself. So this is the part where. I say reach out to people. So again, you know this can help bring new members into your community. Provide value to existing members, because now you’re branching out, you’re getting other experts in. Do you have other people with other brands and other spheres of influence? And when you start to blend, the two people are going to see that you’re also providing value from these other resources, and it’s fantastic. So make sure you have something valuable to offer yourself so you’re not just, you know, cocktail writing like, hey, mention me. That’s not what you want to do. You want to make sure that when you get in front of other people’s audiences, that you hit it as hard as you can and be like, hey, this is something I have for you, this is something you’re going to find entertaining. This is going to inspire you. You’re going to learn something If you do that. You’re going to hook as many people as possible and you’re going to be letting that other influencer provide value via you to their own platform, in which case they’re going to be grateful to you. It demonstrates that you know they can provide to their space and now you’re starting to Cross up. That’s fantastic and that’s really how a lot of these spaces kind of work. It’s a lot, of, a lot of people who are experts and stuff start to cross pollinate and when you start blending communities and I know I got to say communities again, as in people who follow you and actually engage with you, versus these other groups of people that actually engage and follow with them, so they assume, like, say, maybe one out of 10 people that follow you hopefully care, and If you have 30 of them and they have 30, then chances are you know these are high quality followers, high quality engagement people that you want in your community. People can be in numerous communities. You follow a lot of people to yourself, so the more high quality people you get, people that support, people who buy things, people who love to share things, people who have their own platforms that are made for sharing things. You want to find them or, better yet, let them find you, and you can do that by reaching out to other influencers, making friends with these people, not bothering them, not spamming them. Collaborate with the other TTFG influencers and you know again hey, do you want to run a game? What is it that you do? Do you want a podcast? Maybe they do interviews like this. Again, the more content you can make. If it all lines up, you’re in good shape.

Courtney: 16:42

I feel like I can definitely speak to that from like the podcast or lens on both when I reach out to people and when I have people reach out to me and, like you know, when I reach out to people it’s a like hey, I have this podcast and I give like a good summary of like this is what I talk about. This is the angle that I go for. These are the types of questions we would go over and as just like this is another way of like a different group of people that you can get in front of and also try to point out like oh well, my show talks a lot about business stuff and we can really dig into that, which is different than what a lot of the other interview shows are. So it’s just kind of showing what makes your thing unique and how you can help them. I think is very important. Yeah, the like flip side is that when people reach out to me wanting to be on the show, you know it’s kind of the same thing. Like I want to know like what about your product is unique? Like what is it that you think would be an interesting thing to talk about? Because you know as much as I would love to let every game designer ever come talk to me. Like there’s a lot of people doing game design and so if you can point out, like what it is like that’s different about the book that you’re writing or the game or the supplement, you know, that’ll really help you know whomever it is that you’re reaching out to, like get a good understanding of what it is that you offer and what they can offer you. Yeah.

Matt: 18:07

Yeah, and that in itself is actually something we should make. Another episode market research and defining your product and setting it apart from the others. Because too many times people will be like, hey, I got this show, it’s just a D&D game, that’s all we do. It’s like okay, so what’s interesting about it? And they can’t find anyone to watch it. They don’t know how to even describe it because, again, it’s just like four people who met in a tavern and they’re happened to just doing it and then, but they’re running the same thing that everyone else runs. It’s like, okay, we’re gonna have to figure this out, but I’m afraid to tell you your problems are foundational. So, yeah, that’s not the word, I’m adding that to the.

Courtney: 18:54

I’m adding it to the sheets because you’re right, like market research and also just like how to pitch yourself.

Matt: 19:01

Yeah, pitches would be a good one too. That’d be a short one. We could even add it to that one.

Courtney: 19:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah.