Grimoire of the Internet: Social Media for Bioware
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Contents of the
Grimoire
Social Media Concepts- Page 3
Giveaways/Gimmicks- 4
Facebook- Page 6
Twitter- Page 8
Bioware Blog- Page 14
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Social Media Concepts •
Social media is a two way street- in order to receive you need to give.
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You’re not a deity. While a little teasing is ok, don’t taunt or lie to your community. They can revolt, and it won’t be pretty.
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If there isn’t a picture, it didn’t happen.
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Social media enhances personal relationships, it doesn’t replace them. You still need to win over fans in other ways.
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You can’t sleep your way to the top- everything in social media is earned. Check your entitlement at the door.
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Don’t be “that guy,” i.e. don’t just push official news. Vary your content, break down some walls, and put a face to company.
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You will fail- not everything you do will go over well. Cut your losses, try to figure out why you failed, and move on.
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The Community doesn’t go on vacation- If you are going on vacation either pre-schedule updates or have someone cover for you. Exceptions occur for Christmas and New Years Eve.
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Social Media isn’t about PR, it’s about engagement. Leave the press releases at home.
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You’re not a 50 dollar bill-not everyone will like you. Some people will be very vocal about your shortcomings. Accept that you can’t please everyone and move on.
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Don’t ignore negative feedback and hope it goes away. If you mess up, own up to your mistakes. Then give free swag away and beg for forgiveness.
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Your mother taught you well- when in doubt rely on your instincts and prior experiences.
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Giveaways/Gimmicks Everyone loves free stuff. Everyone. In traditional contests or giveaways, users submit their contact information in exchange for the opportunity to receive a prize. Companies can then take that contact information and continually push messages or offers to the customer. Social networking allows a company to take a more symbiotic approach towards contests or giveaway. If a person is required to interact with a social network (joining a network, tagging, retweeting, etc), they will be creating stronger ties to the brand in a comfortable setting. This allows the company to continue reinforce brand messages in a more respectful approach. Not only will fans continue to receive brand updates, but their interactions with the social networks are publically broadcasted (“Jane is a fan of Dragon Age�). In addition, people are able to provide feedback on the contest/giveaways more easily and frequently.
The Random Fan Contest Users become fans on various social networking networks (facebook, forums, twitter, etc). Bioware then gives out free swag (tshirts, promo items, signed things, demo games) to random fans. It is beneficial to the user to join more networks, therefore increasing the brand messaging and brand reinforcement capabilities of Bioware.
The Incentive Contest The community is told that once fans/followers numbers in various social networks reach at a particular level, Bioware will release particular information. This should be done after the information has the PR go ahead, but before it is discussed with any news outlets. Bioware staff must exercise caution when choosing what information to release. Err on the side of awesomeness (release DLC news, not a blog post). An incentive contest will galvanize the community to meet the set numbers, to get the information they crave. This is a great content to hold early on in the marketing process.
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The Picture Contest Users are encouraged to submit fan photos centered on a particular game/gimmick or for Bioware in general. For example, users could be encouraged to submit a photo dressed as a character from a Bioware game (“Bio-ween”) or submit a photo of a Bioware poster in various locations (“Bio Where”). Bioware staff can judge the contest, and users can win awesome prizes.
The Interview-Planned Users submit questions in advance through twitter (use a specific hashtag, so the questions are easier to find) and facebook. A select cluster of questions, on a variety of topics, are answered over twitter, a youtube video, or via a facebook note.
The Interview-Live A live interview over twitter is announced one week prior to the date. During the scheduled time users can submit questions over twitter using a specific hashtag. One Bioware staffer reads through these questions and submits them to two other staffers who will answer the questions live. A transcript of the live interview should be pasted on other social networks.
The Timed Release Bioware releases small pieces of information over the course of a day or week. The community then chatters about what the big reveal could be. Note: if you have fans that tend to be angry, this isn’t the gimmick for you.
*Note: all contests should be cleared by Community, Marketing, PR, and Legal.
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Facebook 300 million fans can’t be wrong Notes Notes allow you to provide longer updates to your fans, through written entries. You are able to post photos, tag people in notes, and users can leave comments on the note. Notes are a good place to copy longer notes posted on the Bioware website or centralize large pieces of information.
Statuses Statuses are used to provide short updates. Often fans only check facebook statuses of a fan page. Note that facebook statuses are more a tad bit more formal than twitter, and do not need to be update as frequently. When posting a link in a status to not embed the link in the status bar, otherwise it will show up as a wall post.
Pictures With Facebook Photos, you can upload an unlimited number of albums to your Facebook profile. You can reorder photos, rotate them, and tag your friends in them. Any photo on a Bioware website (screen shots, wallpaper, etc) should be uploaded to facebook. Photos also should be used to highlight events, fan pictures, etc.
Music Player Music Player lets fans listen to your tracks directly from your Page. This can be used to reinforce brand messaging, and promote music featured in game trailers and the game itself. Tracks should only be posted if you have the legal authority to do so. 6
Video Facebook Video provides a high-quality video platform for pages. With Video, you can upload video files, utilize full-screen playback, tag friends in videos, and embedd video. Trailers posted on Youtube/given to press should be uploaded to Facebook through Video. Videos should be HD whenever possible.
Events Facebook events are a space to publically advertise events Bioware is hosting/participating in. When creating an event, you should invite community members you are friends with, and Bioware staff that are attending the event. The event should be advertised on Facebook and Twitter at least a week before said event is said to occur. Events can be made for physical events (i.e a panel) or important gaming dates (i.e. release date)
Insights Facebook insights are tools that allow you to track metrics for individual fan pages. This includes the number of fans you have, how many people are interacting with your fan page, the demographics of your fans, and the quality of the content you are posting. Insights are generally updated on a two to seven day delay. As with all social networking metrics, Insights should be taken with a grain of salt.
Discussions The discussions feature of Facebook allows fans to engage in discussions about your product on the fan page. This is largely irrelevant for videogame fan pages, as such discussions often occur on forums. If an
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active discussion should occur, it should be monitored for fan reactions, incorrect information, and bullying/harassment.
Reviews With reviews, fans can leave honest opinions about Bioware games and the company itself. Generally fans choose to voice their review of videogames in other channels (blogs, Gamestop comments, etc).
FBML FBML is a facebook application that lets you create custom tabs for your Facebook fan page. This is especially useful for posting pre order information directly onto your page. FBML pages are created using HTML or FBML (Facebook Markup Language).
Updates Updates allow you send messages to your fans over facebook. Fans must elect to look at the updates of your updates, so reach is limited. Updates should be used to send important pieces of information directly to your community. Limit your updates, and never send more than 5 Updates a week. You can target your updates (males/females, age, etc), although generally this is not needed for the fan page.
Wall The facebook wall is a collective stream of status updates, notes, picture/video uploads and fan comments.
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Twitter All updates, all the time. Community The Twitter community is generally older (25+) than the Facebook community. While there are many active twitter users, the majority of twitter accounts are used infrequently.
Content There are a variety of options for providing content for twitter accounts: •
Polling the community
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Giving a behind the scenes look at making games
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Linking to news articles/blog posts
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Showcasing fan art
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Updating the community on events
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Breaking news
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Providing pictures from events
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Getting to know your community
Attribution Tweets should be attributed to their author. When first starting out Twitter, a Bioware staffer should introduce themselves to the community on every twitter channel. Nicknames are allowed, but should remain consistent. If you start of tweeting as “Captain Dan”, then “Captain Dan” you shall remain.
Replying Replying to followers is extremely important, and should be done as much as possible. Acknowledging a community member’s presence reinforces brand identity as a close knit community and makes the 9
aforementioned member feel special. Replying to questions is imperative, even if you need to respond with a “I don’t have an update for you right now” message.
Retweets Retweeting occurs when you repost something from another person’s tweets. Retweeting is an acceptable practice for gaming accounts, including other game accounts, blogs, and community members.
Hostility/Spam Occasionally a follower will spam you with @replies or messages. People can also become hostile or agitated with you. Keep in mind that followers never see spam messages, just like you never see their spam messages. If you cannot ignore the spam then use an application (see below) to organize what you’re seeing when you tweet. When dealing with a hostile Twitter-er try politely engaging them. If this does not work then ignore their messages. Never unfollow someone due to hostility or spam, as this can create a backlash for Bioware. People, especially the average Twitter-er, notice when you unfollow them.
Lingo •
Twitter (n): a micro-blogging service
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Tweet (v): individual updates
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Twitter-er (n): person who uses Twitter
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Hashtag (n): a “#” followed by a noun that allows people to track tweets from millions of people based on a subject. o
#DC are tweets related to Washington DC, and #Lost are tweets related to the TV show.
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DMs (n): Direct Messages, private e-mails that you send from one person to another
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RT (v): Retweet, to repost something from another person’s tweets
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Followers The basic rule of twitter is that if I follow you, then you have to follow me (social networking pressure!).To gain followers one must: 1. Register the account with Twitter Directories 2. Reply to people 3. Follow people who mention your brand 4. Be a relevant twitter account (actually tweet)
Hashtags Hashtags should used when tweeting about an event (#GenCon) or trying to get your tweet to reach a broad audience. Important announcements should be made with the #vidoegames hashtag. Many popular titles will also have their own hashtag (#Mass Effect, #SuperMario, etc). Hashtags can also be used for a comic effect. -Example: Play Mass Effect 2 @ #GenCon all day Friday! -Example: Announcing the DLC for #MassEffect –Evil Chris #videogames -Example: I can’t add today. #Nehafail
Pictures People love pictures, especially pictures taken at events or silly pictures. Twit Pic (see below) allows you to post photos to twitter.
Aplications Mobile Tweeting There are a variety of ways you can tweet from your phone. Blackberry users should download TwitterBerry, while iPhone users can download a twitter app from the App store.
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Seesmic Desktop Seesmic Desk top is an application that lets you merge multiple twitter accounts and control what you see (@replies, direct messages, etc).
Su.pr A URL shortner that gives you statistics on the URL. This includes how many people clicked on your link, when they clicked on it, and whether or not the link was retweeted.
Tr.im A URL shortner that gives you statistics on the URL. This includes how many people clicked on your link, what country they are located in, and what forms of technology they are using.
Tweet Beep Is a mobile service that alerts you of brand mentions on Twitter. Grow followers by choosing to follow the users Tweetbeep notifies you of.
Tweet Deck For people who only tweet on one account tweet deck lets you organize what you want to see based on columns
Tweet Later Tweet Later is a service that lets you schedule tweets ahead of time. This is helpful if you know you will be busy and will not have the time to tweet.
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Tweet Mic TweetMic is a simple iPhone app that allows you to make high-quality audio recordings or "Tweetcasts" and publish them directly to Twitter. There is no limit to how much you can record and you don't need to sign up for any additional service to start using TweetMic.
Twit Pic To upload photos go to www.twitpic.com and sign in with the appropriate account credentials. To post photos to the Dragon Age account, e-mail the photo to dragonage.5135@twitpic.com. To post photos to the Mass Effect 2 account, e-mail the photo to masseffect2.3780@twitpic.com. To post photos to the BioFeed account, e-mail the photo to biofeed.9577@twitpic.com. Post the caption in the subject line. Most phones with a camera/Internet access have the ability to e-mail pictures.
Twt Poll Twt Poll allows you to create polls that can you can send out over twitter and easily keep track of the results.
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Bioware Blog Personalizing the Company Purpose The purpose of the Bioware blog is to give fans a behind the scenes look at Bioware, provide insight into how a game is made, and draw attention to particular features or pieces of information. It is not a RSS feed or a place to repost press releases. Blogs are opinionated and friendly, and the Bioware blog should be reflective of that. The following blogging rules are consistent with EA’s blogging style guide, as well as industry norms and standards.
Blogs The word “Blog” is a noun. Capitalize it when referring to the Bioware blog. Blogging is a verb and doesn’t need to be capitalized. -Example: Neha reads various politics blogs. -Example: Man, the Bioware Blog is off the chain! -Example: In his spare time Jay enjoys reading and blogging.
Capitalization Proper nouns are capitalized. Avoid phrases or sentences in all capitalizations. -Example: Captain Adama is amazing. -Example: PHRASES LIKE THIS ARE VERY ANNOYING.
Game Names Game names are always in Italics. Abbreviations or nicknames for the games should be based on what the majority of the gaming community, or team making the game, finds acceptable. -Example: Dragon Age: Origins will be released in October.
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The Internet The word “Internet” should be capitalized. Why? Because it’s a proper noun.
Linking If referencing a piece of information available on the Internet link to it. If continuing a series while blogging link back to the original, or most recent, blog post. -Example: I like going to Comic Con because there are people with crazy costumes. -Example: Last time we talked about the first day of Comic Con.
Media Placement All main pictures and videos need to be placed before the jump.
Numbers Numbers less than 20, and higher than 100, do not need to be written in words. Compound numbers should be connected with a hyphen. -Example: The Dev team ate 18 cookies today. -Example: Dragon Age: Origins has over fifty-five hours of game play. -Example: We drive over 125 miles to attend the Con.
Page Jumps Page jumps should occur after the first 2 paragraphs. Your pre jump story should consist of an introduction paragraph and a transition paragraph. Your transition paragraph should conclude with “story after the jump” like phrase. If inserting an image or video before the jump, choose only one piece of media. If you have several pictures include them after jump. 15
Personalization When blogging, make the article your own. Use “I”, insert tidbits about yourself and feel free to be funny. -Example: I enjoy going to Comic Con because I collected comic books as a kid. Once a nerd, always a nerd!
Pictures Pictures are great and make the blog appear vibrant and interesting. Pictures need to be 655 pixels wide and respectively tall. However pictures should be at least 450 pixels tall. In general try to use pictures owned by Bioware, or Bioware employees. Attribute pictures when necessary.
Picture Breaks Blog posts should never be blobs of text. Insert a picture every three paragraphs of text to break up the post. It doesn’t matter if the picture has been posted before. Style trumps new photos.
Press Releases The BIoware Blog should not be used to promote Bioware/EA press releases. Press releases belong elsewhere.
Quotation marks and punctuation Periods and commas are inside, colons and semi-colons are outside. Question marks and exclamation points depend if they apply to the quote or the entire sentence. -Example: “Why are you doing this?” -Example: Why do you think he said “I’m lost”?
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Style The Bioware Blog should create and maintain a clean blog style. Game specific blogs can be maintained within the main title website (brutallegend.com/blog). Color schemes should be reflective of Bioware’s products and brand messaging.
Titles Every word of a title should be capitalized. Titles should be creative. -Example: (bad) My Gaming Adventure Part Three Of Five -Example: (good) My Gaming Adventure- 15 Redbulls and Counting…
Videogame The majority of the Community, Press, and Blogs consider videogame to be one word. This contradicts the rules of English grammar. Take your lead from the Community, and write videogame as one word. -Example: Bioware makes great videogames.
Youtube Embedding Youtube videos need to be resized to 655 x 397. Youtube videos need to Use the below video code, replacing “PASTEYOURVIDEOCODEHERE” with your video code (what appears after the youtube.com/v/ URL) to force the video to play in HD, and not have to bother with replacing the numbers in the embed. <object width="655" height="397"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PASTEYOURVIDEOCODEHERE&ap=%2526fmt%3D22 &hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PASTEYOURVIDEOCODEHERE&ap=%2526fmt
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%3D22&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="655" height="397"></embed></object>
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