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Blending Community and Social Media: Insights with Fiene Ziegler of InnoGames
31 Plays2 days ago
Episode Overview:
In this episode, Greg Posner interviews Fiene Ziegler, Senior Community Management Specialist at InnoGames. Fiene shares her journey into gaming, insights on merging community management with social media, the importance of data-driven strategies, and her vision for the future of player engagement. Her experience sheds light on how to effectively manage online communities in a dynamic industry and adapt to new platforms to reach a wider audience.
Topics: Community Management, Social Media Strategy, Gaming Industry Trends, Player Engagement
Key Takeaways:
- Journey to Gaming and Community Management
Fiene shares her unique journey from studying law to entering the gaming industry as a community manager. Her initial involvement was volunteer-based, leading her to a full-time role at InnoGames, where she manages community engagement for titles like Forge of Empires. Her background adds depth to her role, as she balances passion for gaming with the objectivity needed for community management. - Importance of Game Knowledge and Player Perspective
Fiene emphasizes the value of knowing the game inside and out, even as a manager. By actively playing Forge of Empires, she stays in touch with the player experience, offering insights to developers and community managers. Her expertise positions her as a resource within InnoGames for game-related decisions, showing how deep product knowledge can enhance community relations and drive engagement. - Social Media and Community Strategy
Fiene discusses the blending of community management with social media strategy, a trend she’s championed at InnoGames. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are essential for player engagement, though InnoGames finds certain platforms, like Facebook, more effective for its demographic. Fiene advocates for tailored content that resonates with current players while reaching new audiences organically. - Leveraging Data and KPIs in Community Engagement
With a data-driven approach, Fiene and her team monitor KPIs like engagement, reach, and active player response to measure campaign effectiveness. She uses tools like Power BI to track data, helping her strategize content and engage players more effectively. Her focus is to balance entertaining existing players while reaching out to potential players through innovative, data-backed campaigns. - Future Goals and Constant Learning
Fiene talks about her career aspirations, expressing an interest in furthering her skills in social media and marketing. With a passion for learning and self-improvement, she highlights the significance of acquiring diverse skills—like using Premiere Pro and Canva—to stay current in a fast-evolving industry. Her commitment to growth serves as an inspiration for others in community management and social media roles.
Episode Summary:
In this episode, Fiene Ziegler provides a comprehensive look at what it means to manage and grow a gaming community. She offers practical insights into blending community engagement with social media strategies, leveraging data for decision-making, and building credibility through in-depth game knowledge. For gaming professionals and community managers alike, her journey and strategies are both inspiring and actionable, showcasing the impact of a well-rounded approach to community engagement.
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Transcript
Introduction and Fina's Background
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, Greg from the Player Engaged podcast here, just to let you know what you're about to listen to. Today we're talking to Fina Ziegler from Eno Games. She's a senior community management specialist, and what we're going to be talking about is the evolution of community management and how it's beginning to become integrated with social media. How do you balance the emotional attachment of gaming as well as professionalism when you're working in the industry?
00:00:23
Speaker
and the challenges of organizing community management and content creation. It's an action-packed episode. Fina is awesome and great to hear. I hope you enjoy the episode.
Career Aspirations and Shift to Gaming
00:00:40
Speaker
Welcome to the Player Engaged podcast. Greg here. Today, we have a really fun episode. We're talking to Fina Siegler from Eno Games. She runs the community as well as a customer service side at a community management specialist at at Eno. I'm excited to kind of hear more about her role, hear how she does her day-to-day work and and just learn everything in general. So, Fina, thank you so much for joining us today. Is there anything you want to say about yourself? Yeah. Hello, everyone. It's great to be here.
00:01:08
Speaker
And yeah, excited to also share a bit of my story about how I did actually come into gaming because it's now nearly 10 years that I started in this direction of my career.
00:01:24
Speaker
And yeah, i'm very happy to be here. um Yeah, and let's start with that because you have one of those and it's funny, I see the same backgrounds often coming into back into gaming and yours is one of them, which is mind boggling. But can you tell us kind of when you were in university, when you were in school, when you were kind of starting for what you want to be? What were you going to school for? And how did you end up here?
00:01:46
Speaker
So my dream as a kid for a long, long time was actually to be a lawyer, to become a lawyer, because I was always a stickler for rules. And even as a child, I already manifested. I want to make a lot of money and lawyers do make a lot of money. So that was kind of like my go to.
00:02:07
Speaker
um But then things changed because of university admissions in Germany at that time. It wasn't that easy actually to get into law school at that time. So I switched to cultural science actually. And that was a study where I had a lot of time, free time. I know not every university course offers this. So I had a lot of time gaming, 12 hours a day, stuff like this.
00:02:35
Speaker
And this is basically how I started coming into the gaming industry because I also volunteered, um, in my free time during university. And, uh, yeah, when my studies actually finished, I was offered a job as community manager for the game that I was supporting at the time.
First MMO Experience and Career Breakthrough
00:02:55
Speaker
So was there a specific game that you played that kind of clicked and you're like, Ooh, this is something I can see myself doing.
00:03:03
Speaker
um It was actually the very first m MMO I played. Spoiler alert, I'm old. So that was, oh god, a long time ago. I think and it was around 2009, 2008 around where I started playing this Asian MMO RPG.
00:03:26
Speaker
And ah yeah, I was very into it at this time too poor to actually play World of Warcraft and stuff. So I needed to go for the free to play games. And ah yeah, World of Warcraft was a time stock, right? You needed to have a lot of free time to ah really ah divest into World of Warcraft. That's a whole nother world.
00:03:49
Speaker
But also they had the subscription model at that time. And I was a poor university student. I couldn't actually afford paying this amount of money every month and buying the expansions and stuff like this. So free to play play and just grind myself through it was the way to go. Well, that's why you have to have those aspirations being a lawyer so you can make enough money to pay the subscription to play World of War II. That's how you feed that addiction.
00:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, thankfully I have adult money now that offers me, but I don't have the time anymore. That's the problem with life, right? But I love how, you know, you're a stickler for rules and you grow up and you have the two most important things down that you want. You want to follow the rules and you want to make a ton of money. You sound like the perfect kid.
00:04:34
Speaker
um Then you find yourself as a community manager and you still can help create those rules or hold people responsible for those rules.
Responsibilities and Expanding Role
00:04:43
Speaker
Before we kind of dive into that, can you talk more about kind of what was your role as a community manager? How did you kind of, it may have been a while ago, but what was your day like?
00:04:54
Speaker
um So at the first company that I worked for before switching to ender games, I was ah the community mentor for the Asian MMORPG that I mentioned. And there I basically supported the German community, had a team of volunteers as well. We did a lot of in-game events, um mostly during the weekend, bigger events that we did for our community, giving raise a bit of social media, not too much.
00:05:23
Speaker
Um, but, uh, yeah, also a lot of moderation on the forum farms were big at that time. So, um, when we ran in game talking to players directly, we were, um, mostly in the forum. And, uh, yes, and development was a very slow on the game. It was a Korean game. Um, and you didn't get that much development time for it at some point.
00:05:50
Speaker
So I also was responsible at game design at some point. So before I left, I actually designed I think an Easter event um that then got into development. So I basically got up checked in with my team. We spent mostly in TeamSpeak.
00:06:10
Speaker
Check with my colleagues. Hey, what can we do? um What kind of cool events? What options do we have? Tested a lot of features. Whenever we got a new update, we were the sole QA for it. um So I always needed to check translations. And sometimes we only had Korean documentation for the features.
00:06:30
Speaker
So testing a feature that goes out 48 hours later, we only have Korean documentation for. That's fun. And yeah, um it were long days at some point because also when we had server maintenance, it didn't go that well often. So it got, I think the longest day was we started at nine with server maintenance and I left the office at 1 AM to catch the last train.
00:07:00
Speaker
and needed to start at 8 a.m. again. When you look back at days like that, right? And I was in a different vertical, right? You have those long days that stink, but like, did you get with that much exposure to the company, right? Like, did it open your eyes into how the gaming process was made and like, change your view of stuff? Definitely, because at some point,
00:07:29
Speaker
It was just too much at that time. So for me, I decided to then actually look for
Transition to InnoGames and Work-Life Balance
00:07:35
Speaker
other jobs because um being responsible for a title that you also burned for as a gamer, that you have passion for, but that is slowly dying on development side.
00:07:47
Speaker
Um, that really hurt and we couldn't be honest with players about it. So this really hurts. So this was for me, the time to decide to move to a different company, which was then at the point, um, inner games. And I haven't really played inner games games before that. And I'm actually grateful for that because I don't play the games now, um, that I'm responsible for, but I do not have this emotional attachment to them anymore. Like I did in my previous company.
00:08:17
Speaker
So this is, I think, for me, a healthier relationship to be to be responsible for projects that I do not burn for. Because that yeah can really go into your mental state if things don't go well, if updates are released that you, as a player, i do not support. But as a community manager, you're the speaker of the company, so you really need to um speak this language and it's then hard if you do not really agree with it. So thankfully also at Inno Games we do not really have it um to this degree so it was really a step up for me at that point.
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's really cool to hear. I mean, anyone that's played any mobile game in the past 10 years has probably seen an ad for Forge of Empires. I feel like it was one of the first major games. You just kind of saw ads everywhere to kind of compete against it. And I think that's fantastic because you're you're building awareness, you're building visibility. And I love your aspect where.
00:09:21
Speaker
I'm sure you love the company. You love the company, but you don't want to necessarily fall in love with the game again. Cause it it's, you want to have a separation between work and enjoyment, right? The last thing you want to do is finish your job to go home and start playing Forge of Empires on your phone again. Cause you just got away from the company for a few minutes. All right. ah And I love how you can create that separation. Yeah, it helps build you a healthy distance to the product that you're managing because yeah, from experience, I know if, if You do not have the separation, it really drains you. Yeah, you'll burn out sooner, even though you're just playing the game that adds onto it, but ah it's constant and yeah, you will burn out. But do you find that that same separation kind of is a challenge when you're working in the community or the forums or you know enough about it to kind of talk to it and what's going on? um I actually play, like I mentioned, Forge of Empires very, very actively because this is just also the
00:10:20
Speaker
Um, requirement I have set for myself that if I'm responsible for our product, I need to know it inside out. If I, on a personal level, like it or not, that doesn't matter. Um, I need to know what the game is about. So I have actually now kind of like, um, the position within the company that I'm an expert on the game. ah So also game design, QA product. They also come to me, ask me about forge things and stuff. Um.
00:10:49
Speaker
especially when it comes to certain game features, because I'm also a competitive player, um which is then very hard in MMOs. So I also play Forge of Empires competitively in one of the bigger guilds of my um market. So yeah, I do play it actively, but it's still better ah um to have the mental state in that.
00:11:19
Speaker
I'm not too attached to it, even though I like the game on a normal level. But if I wouldn't work for it anymore, I wouldn't play it anymore, most likely. So your new role or the current role is senior community management specialist. yeah what What is that mean and what is your day-to-day like? So we yeah, in gaming, everyone has fancy job titles that no one knows what they're about.
00:11:46
Speaker
um So Community Management Specialist is a title that we established at InnoGames to differentiate us a bit from our external community managers. So we do also have a team of externals on Forge. It's roughly 40 external community managers that we basically manage as specialists.
00:12:08
Speaker
um There are freelancers that support our different language versions because for Forge we have 26 language versions. So we have at least, depending on market size, one external community manager. um Since they are not direct employees, they need someone to coordinate everything between them.
00:12:28
Speaker
and the development team. And this is basically our job. We coordinate the teams, we update them, we give them the schedules, we set up the whole communication strategy for upcoming features and give the general direction of where we are heading from communication perspective. So my day-to-day is basically in the morning when I come in, I check in with them, like if they have any kind of questions for us,
00:12:54
Speaker
um If there are any urgent issues, bug issues or so on that um appeared that we need to take care of. We have gyro for reporting that they can also do, but sometimes you just have some issues that you need to kind of like put a bit more highlight on. So this is when we get in touch with product and push those things to them and ask them for hot fixes and stuff like this, because it's major. Besides this, I have a colleague that I'm working with the project.
00:13:24
Speaker
Um, so both of us, we kind of like separate, um, our work between the projects that are upcoming, for example, new events, new features, updates to existing features. And then we basically prepare, um, ourselves, the whole communication strategy for it. And, um, including social media, um customer service guidelines, um, knowledge base, discord, whatever.
00:13:51
Speaker
And this is then what we first prepare for beta release because we have a beta server where you can test those features beforehand. And then we update it for live releases and make sure we have a good communication strategy with hold some campaign before actually everything kicks off. And it goes kind of smoothly, hopefully.
00:14:11
Speaker
I feel like organization communication are one of my weakest skills and I've tried Notepad, I tried OneNote, I tried Slack, I tried Teams, right? And all these different ways to communicate with different people and it's just like too much information coming in and then I get lazy and I don't want to type in anyway. How do you, I mean, you're dealing with potentially up to 40 external community managers, right? what's What's the normal channel you communicate with these teams on? How do you yourself, like what's your note keeping tool of choice?
00:14:41
Speaker
Um, so internal communication, we also use Slack for the externals. We have, um, a tool called Metamost, which is kind of like an outsourcer similar to Slack. So it's a similar um chat tool that we just use for the externals. Um, and we have, uh, we also have the whole Atlassian suit, so Confluence, Jira, and so on. So, um, I.
00:15:11
Speaker
Basically when I start a project, I set up an Epic in Jira with all the subtasks that I need to do, set the deadlines, check the schedule until when stuff ah needs to be kicked off, when it needs to be ready and so on. And this is then basically my task list that I work with. And when other issues come in between, I still kind of like check it. I also tried to tick off all the boxes way in advance before I actually need it. So I still have kind of like a buffer for urgent tasks that come in between without me needing to do crunch time, you course emanate with other tasks. Of course, I also like to procrastinate some tactics, but usually I try to do most of the stuff ahead.
00:15:56
Speaker
i mean After a certain time, you just know the drill, how certain communication works. So you you just apply one template, exchange the text and assets, and we use it, right? Especially also with chat GPT um or general AI automation and so on. It's way easier nowadays to just create a lot of communication in an easier way.
00:16:23
Speaker
And also have um a weekly meeting with my colleague that I'm working with. And then we do basically a process check. Hey, how are we with this project? What is upcoming? Who takes care of what? And we're also in daily contact with each other and syncing on and juggling tasks. Because now I'm also responsible for the whole social media content creation.
00:16:48
Speaker
um So this is now a new task. and So today I said there are all day um creating the Halloween event campaign, which is also lots of fun.
00:17:02
Speaker
I have lots of questions on that and I'm going to come back to it in a minute. But I love the fact that you talked about that you use kind of JIRA as a source of truth, like creating your epics in there. I am one of those guys that they tell me to go update JIRA and I don't. So I'm the one that breaks JIRA at the end because i I'm not process oriented like that. So I give you tons of credit. It's a fantastic tool with great organization skills. I'm just lazy and I can't do that.
TikTok Addiction and Gaming Content
00:17:26
Speaker
but I mean, I love the fact that I don't often find people in the CS role that are going in doing JIRA updates, because mostly the engineering team works at a JIRA, the product management team works at a JIRA. So I love that, like, you're all united in that single platform. um When you do, where was gonna go with this I guess when you deal with your external community managers, I think they're volunteers. Is that right?
00:17:50
Speaker
No, there are freelancers. there so um the The community managers are freelancers ah that we hire, um and these then have also voluntary moderators that they hire for their specific tasks, for example, for moderation or discord moderation and stuff like this. But we are not directly managing these.
00:18:15
Speaker
So you mentioned you have your special tool that that deals with your freelancers, but eic yeah as someone that works in community, right, you started your original job in forums. um Now we've expanded to probably still forums a little bit, but Discord, Reddit, but where do you where where do you see community yourself as as being the the primary place to be?
00:18:38
Speaker
um Yeah, for me personally, it's more on the social media side. It depends a bit on on games, of course. um But I think and during the course of the last year, I got really addicted to TikTok, I must say.
00:18:53
Speaker
um At first I had trouble getting into it, but now I'm kind of like addicted to it and doom scrolling um sometimes. And especially when Baldur's Gate 3 came out, I was ah basically in the whole bubble, Baldur's Gate bubble, especially the Asterion bubble, ah because at that time I couldn't play the game because I was in Sweden ah working from abroad and I forgot my gaming laptop.
00:19:20
Speaker
So I couldn't play it and it was already out and I bought it, but I forgot my laptop. um So i was the only thing I could do was basically get information about the game from TikTok. That was the easiest source because the studio updated a lot there, but there were also so many people creating videos about the game. And this is when I really clicked it for me, I'm like,
00:19:47
Speaker
Wow, gaming is going viral on a platform like TikTok. That is really cool to see. And I saw a lot of girls that said, hey, I don't know what this is about, but this looks cool. I'm going to play the game. And I think this is great to see that a platform like TikTok where you wouldn't originally imagine it,
00:20:09
Speaker
can be a potential platform for organic growth. And especially in a time of difficult marketing on Facebook or Instagram, um this really struck me to see like how, yeah, it spiraled and reached so many people that have nothing to do with gaming, but that got interested in it, especially women that are still kind of like seen as, oh yeah, you just play Sims.
00:20:39
Speaker
um So that is something that I feel is a platform that has great potential. I also see now more and more gaming companies embracing TikTok. Of course, not every game is kind of like fit for it. um Forge, for example, is not necessarily the TikTok native, but I think for certain titles, it's definitely a cool platform to reach people outside of gaming to attract to your game.
00:21:08
Speaker
And it's something that you should definitely explore more. So, um, I have questions on this, but usually about halfway through the podcast, I like to do a fireball around where I'm going to throw some random questions at you. Good to go. Yeah. So you've gone through a full circle of problems, right? You were young and you had no money and you couldn't afford games. You grew up and you had money and you didn't have time for games. And then bulldoers gate three came out and you forgot your laptop with that. All that being said, what game are you playing now?
00:21:39
Speaker
Uh, I'm replaying dragon edge inquisition because next week, uh, whale guard comes out and, um, I'm not sure if you can see it, but I'm a great bioware fan. I like the mass effect. Yeah, exactly. What you're traveling, you've been on holiday for a couple of weeks. So maybe you're, you're not at your normal spot, but what did you have for breakfast?
00:22:05
Speaker
Uh, today, uh, just button with over my Tina, just the breakfast bun was over my Tina. So because they have kind of like, uh, those, uh, the scream liked similar to Nutella, but way better because it has a crunch in it. And my, um, friend brought it from Switzerland for me. So that was fantastic. Um, what is your dream holiday?
00:22:32
Speaker
My dream holiday is basically what I did last year. I was on a road trip for three weeks um from Hamburg to the Nordkapp in Norway. And I traveled solo with my dog and just camped wherever I landed at the end of the day. And it was a great feeling of freedom. And now I'm really hooked on road trips.
00:22:58
Speaker
That is awesome. there and That sounds like a fun, fun experience. um What is the last book you read? The last book, that's Iron Flame.
00:23:13
Speaker
Not sure if you're in the book talk bubble. I do not, but I will have to check it out. I've been trying to get back into reading, so that's why I always ask the question. um well yeah to get started I think it's more a book for the ladies, but it's great. It's Swiss dragons. So i definitely read it. Last question I have is what is the last movie you watched? The last movie, um, the Lord of the Rings series, like the, the holes, all six movies from hobbit, even the hobbits, huh? I love the hobbits more actually.
00:23:51
Speaker
Really? I haven't watched the Hobbits. I didn't hear great things about them. I've seen all the Lords of the Rings. I couldn't commit any more time to it. I know that opinions go in different directions about the Hobbit movies, but I enjoy all of them greatly. And yeah, it's a comfort movie that I watch at least once a year.
00:24:12
Speaker
All right, let's talk about content creation because that's a ah struggle I face on a daily basis. um It's fascinating. It's not fascinating. I think TikTok is a fantastic channel for gaming, right? I think you can, depending on the type of game you have here, right? Forge, I can see what you're talking about. That maybe it's not the most exciting. How does your content creation journey or day begin? Like, do you start with the end in mind? How how does that process work?
00:24:43
Speaker
um I can say that it's not a fully fledged process yet, because I'm still kind of like exploring it still. um I got into social media a lot after I came back from my stream of sabbatical last year, where I really could disconnect and come back with fresh ideas. And then also being the whole Baldur's Gate bubble, I really was blooming with ideas and stuff.
00:25:10
Speaker
Um, but, um, yeah, I needed to learn a lot first. So I'm also still doing a lot of trainings on social media and stuff. And, uh, for now, what I have established for myself is that I do campaigns based on ah features or events we will have in the game. So I basically check out how our release schedule is. And, um, then I built, um, campaigns around this.
00:25:40
Speaker
So for example, currently v I'm working on the Halloween campaigns for the event. And this is basically looking at the um event itself, what is new, what is interesting, what may be also from beta we see. um what kind of like where struggle points maybe for players where we could give more guidance also via social media, but also do fun content. um So it's basically really taking a lot of information together and check what makes the most sense for our players to see.
00:26:14
Speaker
We also analyze the data from previous campaigns, check what worked well, what didn't work so well. Also look at competitors naturally, what are they doing, what is working for them. um Not necessarily only competitors, but all kinds of, yeah, channels. Like I'm browsing also privately a lot of social media, always remind myself, how can I use this for my daily work? So.
00:26:44
Speaker
I'm a workaholic at heart. So I'm always kind of like checking, oh, is this something that we can use? is Would this work with our community, with our channels? And then trying out stuff, see how it works, reiterate on it, and yeah, finding the right balance. We're currently in the middle of planning our strategy for the next year.
00:27:08
Speaker
um So it's really just also looking at a lot of data. It's less content creation than actually preparing what kind of content you want to do. Because once you have the schedule, creating the actual content is easier. But I think creating the schedule is the most tiresome thing, because you really need to think you have only limited space, right? And a limited formats. So you really need to decide what is that you want to communicate, what would bring the most engagement, the most reach with your channel. Because um with social media, our first goal is to entertain our existing community. But we also want, of course, go a bit beyond and try to still organically spread a bit awareness of our game and might maybe raise interest for users that are not part of our playerhood yet.
00:28:05
Speaker
So there are always things in mind where we need to think about, hey, how could we also attract players of an organic perspective here? And it's basically then balancing the between entertaining your existing players and trying to reach new ones and trying to find content that fits and looks good. That's fascinating. I love how you said you're a workaholic and I feel like that's the lawyer and you still and just kind of.
00:28:32
Speaker
um You mentioned a couple of times the k the the metrics you're measuring, and I'm curious, come what are those KPIs? What are those common metrics that that you take a look at? um I already mentioned it, I think. so The most common ones for us is ah reach and engagement. ah so How many players engaged with the content? ah How many did we reach? Then also checking how many of those that we reached were followers, which are not followers.
00:29:02
Speaker
Um, also with it's different KPIs on every platform. Also Mita just recently changed their KPIs again. So we now need to overhaul our whole reporting because nothing works anymore. Um, it's always fun. And then it's also different a bit. They call it differently between the different platforms because on YouTube, different KPIs are relevant than for Mita. TikTok again has different KPIs.
00:29:31
Speaker
So it's actually looking, um, what are those KPIs and which are relevant for us, but it really bottles down to reach and engagement. These are the most important ones for us because we want players to interact and consume our content. Do you use a tool to help measure some of this stuff? I know I just asked cause I used to work for a company that measured reach and engagement. So I'm curious, how do you do that?
00:29:54
Speaker
um We use Agora ports in general, um but we are are um currently also ah working on getting all of the data into Power BI so that we can also create dashboards ourselves, especially what we want to do for Forge right now. We set up all those fancy strategies, but then you define the KPIs for the goals that you want to reach.
00:30:20
Speaker
um But then it's tiresome to actually follow up on it and see it. So we now want to actually create BI reports where we can easily see how much on track we are with our strategy, how much of the goals that we wanted to achieve do we have already ah achieved without pulling the data somewhere, putting it into a format and doing the same thing over and over again. So we want to have automated reports. We're not quite there yet. Still work in progress.
00:30:50
Speaker
um But this will make things so much easier. I also love that you talked about creating the content calendar first. I think i think that's insightful. I think I need to take a look at myself and decide how how that makes. I just appreciate that in a little nugget like that because You don't really know until you know, right? You just kind of got to jump into the pool and just start figuring this stuff out. And it's fascinating to hear how different people take an approach to it because I think there's no one wrong or right way to do it. It's just what is working for you. And also kind of back me up. It's finding out what is the right platform for you, right? Is it TikTok? Is it Facebook? Who's playing the game? What are the age? What are the demographics, right? You're not going to find
00:31:29
Speaker
the older generations on TikTok. So you're not going to want to advertise that you probably go want to stick to Facebook. So I think that too is kind of like a juggling scene with, Hey, what, what is my audience and how do I reach them the best? Exactly. For us, we are a game that is not super attractive on TikTok. Unfortunately, we still post there because if we have real content, we can just mirror it on TikTok. That's no effort.
00:31:53
Speaker
on our side. um We are definitely looking more into YouTube because we have a nice YouTube channel, but we have seen that we want to look into better ways to utilize it. ah So there is a lot of things that we are investigating currently for our YouTube channel to make it more properly popular.
00:32:14
Speaker
um and ah yeah Facebook is our biggest channel still but we do not and we still post the regular content there but we also put focus more on Instagram so I would say currently it's more Instagram and YouTube that are the main focus for us while still posting and supporting Facebook When we did our pre-call, you made reference that you see the merging of community management and social media. and I love that observation because you know I think the name of the game today across the industry is retaining your players. and You either retain your players by having a great community and you send out cool content. When they see cool content, they're going to want to come back to the game.
Community Management and Social Media Merger
00:32:59
Speaker
and do what you're creating. So I think it's a really insightful way to look at kind of how the roles are evolving and they're kind of turning into this similar role. And are you, I know you talked about it, but are you feeling that internally, you know, that you're kind of like helping lead that and kind of helping um push that? Because I think more studios are gonna start doing stuff like this. ah Actually, I did already do it though not intentionally.
00:33:27
Speaker
So beginning of the year, I offered to help out our social media team, because I wanted to gain more expertise on social media and they were understaffed. And I wanted to do way more from my game. And I saw um that I needed to push it more actively from my side to see the results that I wanted to see there. So I involved myself. um And this has been working well so far that it's actually not temporary anymore at this point, because I'm getting more and more involved in all these social tasks, like now also with the content calendar and stuff. And um yeah, this is now something that most likely will be pushed also more for the other teams as well. Not sure how happy they are about it. um ah But I definitely see that on community management side,
00:34:20
Speaker
um Social media and community management shouldn't be separated. I already said this 10 years ago when I was at my old shop. Because for me, community management should be everywhere where the community is.
00:34:34
Speaker
And we reached so many players via social media. And we also now saw that the more we actually tailored our social media campaigns to really go also from a community management perspective, the more positive results we actually see. And I think this is proof that ah social media and community management doesn't need to be separated at all.
00:35:02
Speaker
do you I'm just more curious. so Do you have any reporting that shows, hey, when we released something on social media, that was great. We saw our daily active user spike or something like that. Have you been able to see any trends like that? We have those trends, but we cannot fully attribute it to social media.
00:35:23
Speaker
um Because we usually have this, that we also send out newsletter campaigns, right? So when a new feature or new event starts, then we also send out news um newsletter campaigns and stuff. And we also see it really from activity levels that players are most active when a new feature or event starts.
00:35:45
Speaker
um We might have an influence to it, but we cannot prove that this is really the case and that all the traffic really comes from it. We actually saw a positive impact though when we advertise our beta server. So when something new hits our beta market.
00:36:03
Speaker
because this is usually something that is not so widely known to our community, that we have this market and that they can test new stuff there. So when we actually started advertising this on social media, we saw quite an increase compared to before we announced this on activity levels on beta. So it has definitely its influence, but it's very hard to prove um correlation cause and so on um the trainees uh because uh yeah it's not like they're directly going into the game from our platform or social media platform they have the game on their mobile app and they just relock in there we don't know let's take the credit anyway people are always on social media says hey this other video it's ours um
00:36:56
Speaker
If you can go back to university with how your role has evolved and adapted over over the course of the last 10-ish years, what would you want to study more in-depth or get a better understanding of?
Exploring Economics and Future Roles
00:37:09
Speaker
um I'm actually studying again and never done i'm act and studying economics. um And I think this is something that I would have also liked to explore right from the beginning more to go more into either marketing or economics. um Because with how life played out right now, um it would have made more sense than cultural studies that I just studied because plan A didn't work out. ah You are where you are. That's all that matters, right? Doesn't matter how you got from A to B as long as you got there.
00:37:50
Speaker
Exactly. What are your career aspirations? I know that's a big question, right? You kind of take a look at your your in kind of social media creation, community management. kind of What would be that next logical step for you?
00:38:06
Speaker
um That's hard for me to say because ah if you would have asked me last year, it would have been progressing in my team lead career because until last year I was the team lead for customer service. um And then we had restructuring at the company and I switched roles.
00:38:28
Speaker
So right now I would definitely like to go more into the social media management, maybe marketing role, but I also still like the attachment to community management. So I actually do not really know right now. um I'm currently doing what is the most fun for me.
00:38:53
Speaker
which is basically being more involved into social media and growing more into it. And then I would see what develops out of it. If there is maybe something a different role or a career level that is more attractive to me. But currently I'm still in the orientation phase, I would say. Back again.
00:39:16
Speaker
There's some joy in just being able to talk to players or end users and see the excitement that they have. And I remember that was my hardest part of getting our customer services. like I like genuinely talking to these people. like They're interesting people. like You form these relationships with these people. Forge has been around for so long, you probably have some really, really like players that you know. right like you You recognize these names, and I think there's just such a cool connection there. And I think the player base feels that too. right They feel like, hey, like They hear me, they know me, right? If I give feedback, I know they're listening, right? Like I think there's just a real, it's a, I remember customer service as being a thankless job at the end of the day, right? You do all this work, but you know, when players come back to the game and they keep doing what they're doing, it's like, all right, like I did something right. And it's good at the end of the day.
00:40:01
Speaker
Yeah, unfortunately, I'm not too close to the players currently because as part of the coordinator role more that we have, we are a little bit more detached from them. If time allows it, I'm lurking around Discord and also answering there and there i also have made myself a name. But due to the busy busy schedules of um Forge currently,
00:40:27
Speaker
We have a lot of stuff that is coming. um I just don't have currently the time to regularly chat with them on Discord, which is a pity because this is really fun and just directly engage with them a again. So I totally agree with this. With the content creation side of the job, are you learning any tools like Premiere or CapCut or any of those editing tools?
00:40:49
Speaker
um ah Yes, Premiere Pro definitely is a learning curve. Also, um I work with Audition because I'm also doing voiceovers for some of the videos.
00:41:04
Speaker
um So I'm now able to basically record my own video, edit it, and then put it into the video, which is kind of nice. And and I also use Canva basically for social media content creation. Because for me, that's easier than doing Photoshop or anything, because it has such convenient features. um But for video content, definitely Premiere Pro.
00:41:33
Speaker
Yeah, I feel the pain of learning Premiere Pro. It is a tool I never thought I'd have to learn in my entire life. And now I spend my day. YouTube is helpful. ah It's a YouTube channel. It's like Premiere Pro tips in one minute. It's like fantastic. One minute. Easy. I usually look not for kind of like general tutorials. It's more like, I need to blur this. How do I do it? How to do keyframes? That was my day yesterday. I was Googling keyframes for like an hour. I'm just like, wow, I could do all this stuff. And then that's like a whole other world of like, Oh God, what am I going to do here?
00:42:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's going down the rabbit hole. Yeah, the dangerous rabbit hole. um But I love it. It's great stuff. You know, if you're not spending your time learning new stuff, or doing new stuff, or pushing yourself, you're just gonna get kind of bored, right? And I think it's awesome to be able to kind of learn these new tools. And maybe you don't want to become an expert in them. But if you know what you're talking about, you know how to kind of how to use it, I think it makes you more powerful. That's something like, it kind of goes back to when you were at your original gaming company, right? Like you, you weren't a developer or engineer, but you kind of took part in what they were doing, right? You kind of have this idea of what the conversation is and just being able to be there. Like it's a massive, it's a jack of all trades, master of none. Sorry, that was just a random tangent. Exactly. Something like this.
00:42:51
Speaker
ah Dina, thank you so much. I think that's all the questions I had for you today. I think this is such a cool conversation. I love how how It all comes back to your, you want to be a lawyer, kind of a lot of things that you do. ah Maybe it doesn't feel like it, but your structure, you're kind of following the rules. and and And I love that. I love how you saw the connection between community and social media. I think it's awesome what you're doing and I appreciate you coming out today. um Before we do end the call today, I was curious, is there anything you want to talk about or share? um First of all, thanks for the opportunity. It was actually my first podcast.
00:43:27
Speaker
So I'm very thrilled to be learning. Exactly. I have learned something new. So that was great because um yeah, for me, it's it's really, it's all about learning for me. I have the feeling I'm constantly learning and I'm always trying to expand my knowledge, not just work related, but all kinds of knowledge because I'm just very curious. Sometimes I have a thought in my dreams and I'm next day the first thing I do is open Google and check it out. um Otherwise, I think I'm not really. ah So it's it's a great opportunity. And ah yeah, it's I'm always happy to get in touch with more people also from the business um and also getting to know what they're doing, how their approaches are. So would be happy to also connect more about this and also learning from others.
00:44:25
Speaker
Yeah, we appreciate it. And on our Player Engage a blog, we'll have information about FINA. We'll have information about you know games and all that. um And again, FINA, thank you so much for your time today. I hope you enjoyed the last of your few days in Sweden and safe travels back to Germany when it's time to end. Again, just thank you. Thank you as well.