Publicisation of circus games over twitter

[Martin]

Seeing as there is a bit of a push to get a wider range of things onto the Smogon Twitter, I think it’s maybe worth bringing up a way of publicising more of the stuff that goes on in Circus. I think it’d be a great way to advertise the section and of maybe attracting a few more people to try out thr forum.

A few things that I think could be worth posting about:

• New NOC/OC/big signups opening (if not all of them maybe every second or third one?)
• Official mafia signups opening/results
• Medium/large scale other games (things like RP games, survivor etc.)

I’m just spitballing with these, but I think it is definitely a good opportunity to maybe attract people to the section.

 

[Asek]

i think itd be cool if hosts did detailed post games in the form of 'game report' eseque articles that could be posted to the social media pages / the smog successor (i dont know if anyone reads the smog anymore). could pique interest for those that dont usually follow the games.

also next official when!

 

[Ampharos]

This has been discussed in the past, and I think the consensus was that games other than officials aren't "important" enough to get announced via the Smogon Twitter.

Certainly I'm not against detailed postgames but I don't think it's ever going to be a requirement just because it's actually really time consuming and sometimes the game wasn't exciting/interesting enough to really write a good one over.

 

[vonFiedler]

Is there a reason Circus can't have its own twitter?

 

[Yeti]

Yeah the prior discussion ended with "only officials and bigger games hosted by ppl with badges or a lot of experience should go on Twitter" but I don't think anyone has bothered, or hosted such a game, for quite a while.

 

[Ampharos]

Is there a reason Circus can't have its own twitter?

I imagine we could; I'm not sure if there would be some sort of process for becoming an "official" Smogon media outlet or not.

I'm also concerned about the market appeal of a Twitter account that only tweets about incredibly specialized forum games. We barely have a playerbase as it is, and I frankly doubt a Twitter account's going to do anything to attract fresh blood.

 

[Ampharos]

Actually, let me revise my above statement. Circus has plenty of playerbase. It's mafia that's hurting for people. Which is a weird thought.

 

[Da Letter El]

I'm not seeing what extra exposure our own twitter account would bring. It feels like it would just be an echo chamber to people that are already interested in Circus games to begin with to the small subsection of users of Circus that actually use twitter.

Admittedly I hardly use twitter so I may be wrong on this.

 

[Da Letter El]

i think itd be cool if hosts did detailed post games in the form of 'game report' eseque articles that could be posted to the social media pages / the smog successor (i dont know if anyone reads the smog anymore). could pique interest for those that dont usually follow the games.

also next official when!

We've had a few articles in the Smog before. I'd be open to doing some writing and I'm sure a few others of us would as well. I know the twitter discussion mostly settled just on announcing official games, but I'm open to contributing to any Smog successor and think that'd be a solid idea.

Also from what I gather on next official, role PMs are almost entirely done. I think we're just waiting for Christmas break so more people can participate, but I'll need to talk to Blazade about that.

 

[Martin]

This has been discussed in the past, and I think the consensus was that games other than officials aren't "important" enough to get announced via the Smogon Twitter.

Can someone explain to me why this is the case? I could get it if it’s about not posting every single new NOC on Twitter, but I don’t see why we aren’t considering even the less common med/large scale things like RP games when the social media team has actively said they’re willing to post this on twitter:

- art. Smogon artists, if you've done Pokemon-related art that wasn't for an article but still want to share it, we will post it and link your Tumblr/DeviantArt etc. or if you're still proud of some art you did for The Smog in 2010 we can do a throwback to that too. similarly, CAP sprites and 3D models are great

(i.e. literally advertising randos’ art)

As well as literal filler posts:

- interesting mechanics ("did you know Arceus changes type with Z Crystals, not just Plates??" / "did you know Nature Power isn't affected by Sucker Punch??"). our social media audience is honestly not that knowledgeable so this stuff is nice for filler. these you can probably just drop in the social media Discord since they're not really "happenings"

- idk if you had an irl SmoCon and want to share your group photo??? you wearing your Smogon shirt at Niagara Falls or something?

Given this, I honestly don’t see why only officials are considered “important” enough for this. It’s honestly such an arbitrary measurement that doesn’t really seem to be rooted in any kind of context, and it feels very evident that the social media team is very much going against the notion that only (((super important))) things should be put onto twitter.

I'm not seeing what extra exposure our own twitter account would bring. It feels like it would just be an echo chamber to people that are already interested in Circus games to begin with to the small subsection of users of Circus that actually use twitter.

I disagree with this. Twitter has a large follower base, and the majority of the people who actually follow it and read every new tweet are people who don’t read the forums much and concequently don’t even know Circus exists. Having this type of exposure from me+Pilo’s article brought a surge of new people onto Discord, even if it was for a short time, which shows that this type of exposure does work, and having a more regular exposure that says “hey, don’t forget we exist!!!” is never going to be a negative thing—we should be able to attract a decent audience, especially if we advertise a range of things that go on in circus (the reason why I cited RP games and Survivor in the OP). I genuinely don’t see what the downside could be when the absolute worst case scenario is that we dont attract anyone (i.e. not losing players) and the best is that we do attract people. Pokemon players are nerds, nerds like nerd games, and if they see that they can play nerd games without needing to either remember an extra password or to go outside they will be drawn in by it.

 

[Da Letter El]

I disagree with this. Twitter has a large follower base, and the majority of the people who actually follow it and read every new tweet are people who don’t read the forums much and concequently don’t even know Circus exists. Having this type of exposure from me+Pilo’s article brought a surge of new people onto Discord, even if it was for a short time, which shows that this type of exposure does work, and having a more regular exposure that says “hey, don’t forget we exist!!!” is never going to be a negative thing—we should be able to attract a decent audience, especially if we advertise a range of things that go on in circus (the reason why I cited RP games and Survivor in the OP). I genuinely don’t see what the downside could be when the absolute worst case scenario is that we dont attract anyone (i.e. not losing players) and the best is that we do attract people. Pokemon players are nerds, nerds like nerd games, and if they see that they can play nerd games without needing to either remember an extra password or to go outside they will be drawn in by it.

You misread me. My point is not in response to trying to trying to utilize the Smogon twitter. My point was in making our own unrelated twitter account as von had suggested. I'm happy to try to extend our reach out to twitter staff for a few things beyond just official games. Here's a quick list of things beyond official games I think I might be able to push for:

• Mafia games that are very new player friendly -- good for twitter because newer people might come and they find an additional reason to stick around the Smogon community
• Games that are particularly exciting for one reason or another -- good for twitter to show off a well designed or interesting concept. Something like advertising a live final for Genius Game over discord could qualify if the game designs are visible and interesting enough (no pressure unclesam)
• Once or twice advertise popular categories of "other" games - something like once put out a feeler for letting people know about Walruses, let people who like tabletop games know that Smogon has a subcommunity for that, etc. -- can function as a sort of "did you know" about Smogon. Lots of people like music, etc.

Note that I don't have any direct control over any of this but I think at least some game concepts might be advertisable beyond officials. I don't believe the vast majority of games on a stand alone basis are -- we are a pretty niche area of the site and dominating the twitter with every mafia game announcement seems a bit ridiculous. Still, we can probably do more than we have as of late.

 

[JALMONT]

the playerbase is currently not an issue DLE's game has plenty of subs and same goes for the NOC - the more pressing issue that should be addressed is that a game's signups was allowed to go on for a month with multiple other games in the game listing and no one did anything about this

frankly i doubt twitter will help one way or another but if someone cares enough to want to do it then i say go for it. i'm not really sure the people who are most likely to play mafia on a pokemon forum are in the same group of people who use twitter a lot but i don't really know.

 

[Da Letter El]

the playerbase is currently not an issue DLE's game has plenty of subs and same goes for the NOC - the more pressing issue that should be addressed is that a game's signups was allowed to go on for a month with multiple other games in the game listing and no one did anything about this

frankly i doubt twitter will help one way or another but if someone cares enough to want to do it then i say go for it. i'm not really sure the people who are most likely to play mafia on a pokemon forum are in the same group of people who use twitter a lot but i don't really know.

Three issues happened there:

1. We as mods all slacked on updating the queue. We're setting up a system so that this won't be an issue going forward.

2. The only completed or near-completed OC mafia games were almost as large as acid's game and couldn't be reasonably expected to fill up if the FFA only got 18 sign-ups. Replacing with one of the other games in queue was likely not to have solved the problem.

3. We didn't do a good enough job on calling for smaller OCs or making one ourselves until well after it became reasonable to expect acid's game wouldn't fill up. We've got a pretty diverse and full queue now, so this won't be an issue again for the near term.