I've been meaning to do a blog about this for some time now, and recent events (our first ever forums have launched!) have returned it to the forefront of my confused animal brain. I am speaking, of course, about the recent canoodling between XSEED and that shape-shifting tart, Social Media.
With the recent spate (well, recent for XSEED anyway) of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, companies are finding new and frightening ways to slide their products into even the barest moments of your life. 140 characters and 4.4 seconds is all you need for a tweet. A Facebook action can be limited (but no less potent) to a single click of the “Like” button, and getting traction on Digg requires nothing more than a perfect storm of boredom and fast internet connections. We, too, hope to take advantage of your procrastinating ways by signing up for these communication sites, but which is best, and will they last?
Here at the XSEED office I’m pondering these things as we slowly but surely make headway into building a real community. I say “slowly” because every employee is usually inundated with actual ‘game’ work, and my shamefully Luddite heart rebels each time I have to learn the workings of some new service. Thus far, XSEED's glacier-like pace into the new world has produced a blog (hello!), several Facebook pages, a Twitter account, forums, and a brief moment of spasmodic seizures when it was suggested that we make a MySpace page before the fall of that mighty, image-flashing giant. It's hard to say what effect such media has had on our sales, but I do feel a kind of intangible sense of community starting to take form from the primordial ooze and, if twitter is any indication, it just keeps growing.
But... my hopelessly cynical outlook also cheerfully informs me that the conception, birth and death of a tweet can all occur within the time it takes you to refresh the page. A Facebook post may be buried instantly under the ever-present nuisance of 'Lil Green Patch requests, and forums may fail to catch fire and simply peter out in an embarrassing way. The only certain thing about these communication devices is that, much like the lettuce and tomato on a certain sandwich serve as an eloquent vehicle to propel the bacon into the mouth, XSEED needs these kinds of media to present our games in a way that reaches as many hungry gamers as we can. As we are not known for big-time marketing endeavors (due to our extremely limited resources), this little extra reach is essential.
So, if we may have a little back and forth on this topic (I shall duly post this in the forums and on twitter as well), what say you?
Is it (blog, Facebook, twitter, forums, etc) working? Which serves you best? Do you feel within hand-holding distance of XSEED now? Do you consider yourself a member of our community yet? Would you wear a “Pikkards: Nature’s Candy” t-shirt if one were made? Most importantly...
If we build it, will you come?
-Jess (Senior Editor, Community Manager, Bacon Enthusiast)
XSEED BLOG: http://xseedgames.blogspot.com/
XSEED Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/XSEEDGames
XSEED Twitter: http://twitter.com/xseedgames
XSEED Forums: http://xseedgames.com/forums/
