Moleskine Monday – Weekend Thoughts

Welcome to the first Moleskine Monday! In a weekly post on – you guessed it – Mondays, I’ll run down some of the inane thoughts I jotted down in my trusty Moleskine notebook throughout the weekend. Might be that these will turn into posts at some point, or might be that they’ll live on in their own little way in these weekly features and my notebooks alone.

Levels of community – I play video games. Quite a few of them, actually. I’m what you would call a “core” or even “hardcore” video gamer, in that I play a lot of different games, talk about them with my friends, participate in online forums and communities, and even pay attention to industry news (hey, I’m into business, too!).

What I realized is that I’m not the only market for the games I play. It’s a strange realization – I thought about all the different communities that I’m a part of, and a lot of the other community members think the same way that I do. But this is, in fact, the nature of a community! Likeminded people sharing a common passion or interest. The trick is removing yourself from the trees to look at the forest.

There are a bunch of different types of video game players – those who play casually, once in a while with friends or even just by themselves on platforms like Facebook; mid-core gamers, who like the latest and greatest AAA title, but aren’t involved quite so heavily in the industry or niche games; the hardcore like myself, who take their interest in games to another level; and even the pro gamer who plays for cash. There are more, I’m sure, but you get the picture.

Each type of gamer has a different level of interest in a game and the community that surronds it. The trick, then, is to create a community with content that attracts the right group, or groups. As a community manager, even though you may be very committed to your brand, product, feature, whatever, you are the hardcore  gamer version of a brand advocate (maybe even the pro gamer version, since you’re getting paid for your specialization). But not every customer or community member is on the same level as you, and there are many levels of fans – keep that in mind when conversing with them and creating content to appeal to a wide range of people.

Take away all the names and social media is just three activities – listening, connecting and publishing – A great reminder from Chris Brogan to focus on building relationships. The tools are new, but the activities are the same.

Don’t get too high on your own supply – Twitter, Facebook, Quora, Foursquare, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc., etc., etc. We use them for our work, but we also visit them for our own personal use. When you’re at work, ensure that your attention is on your work accounts and tasks. If you have your personal Twitter account open, it can be tempting to peek in there a little bit too often throughout the day. We have a social media policy at VIA Rail where we state that social media use is encouraged, just not on company time, if it’s not for company business. I try and adhere to this rule, too.

If you personally follow people who put out interesting content related to your work, then follow them on your work account and keep that feed open instead. If you do pop into your personal accounts for a looksy, favourite things for later using the network or your trusty ‘ol browser bookmarks. Or, keep a plain text document open throughout the day where you can copy&paste URLs or interesting info to review later (I use my Moleskine, of course). For a lot of us, our knowledge and expertise in social was built off of our own personal interest in this once-emerging-now-flourishing communications channel. Just make sure to separate business and personal now that it’s part of your work, too.