Using social media for your roleplaying game

Social media is a massive thing at the moment, and it seems like everyone is using either Facebook or Twitter. TV programmes, radio stations, companies, products, and even your local gym will want you to either follow them on Twitter, or ‘like’ their page on Facebook. Here you will get a best kicksta review to generate a traffic to your social media platform.

You might hate social media, but you’ve got to admit it’s damn useful! Using Twitter or Facebook is a way that you can easily talk to people, and that’s great, but the most obvious value to your roleplaying game is that it makes it easier for people to find and talk to YOU!

Recruiting new members to your roleplaying game is difficult, and you want to make sure you’re doing everything you can to help people to join. Think about how someone will find out about your roleplaying game. If you’re using a forum website, or OngoingWorlds, think about how someone will find you. Many people believe that if you create a website, you’ll automatically be seen by hundreds of visitors – but this is like building a shop in the middle of the desert – who will go there, unless they know it exists?

Social Media is a great way that people can find out about your roleplaying game. More than 800 million people use Facebook, and 100 million people use Twitter, making these great places to find new members.

SEE ALSO: Advertising an RPG

I asked some roleplayers how they use social media, and how it’s benefited them.

Leila from the swashbuckling pirate roleplaying game Before the Mast has an active Twitter and Facebook page which has gotten them a lot of popularity.

[Social Media] has definitely improved the exposure of “Before the Mast” and, if not many members, at least we got many fans! (I mean people who like reading the threads or the “Monthly Histories and Chronicles of the West Indies”, which are a monthly summary of the progress of the story.)

Unfortunately for my member base, some people are into reading, but not into writing (or not in English). At the same time, having fans who read our stories mean that we are doing something good and interesting, though. And isn’t any writer’s dream to have as many readers as possible?

Elena Vasilescu from Before the Mast RPG

It’s all very well having a presence on Facebook and Twitter, as this gives your p0rospective members another place to find your game, but both of these social networks rely on you having fresh new content to post. You might want to post each of your new roleplaying posts here (I’ve written an article for how to automatically post an update to Facebook from OngoingWorlds here, or you could do something different like Josh from USS Providence explains:

I know that several players do keep tabs of our updates via Twitter and Facebook. In the past, we have used them to post “quotes of the week”, sharing funny or profound character dialogue from each sim. We’ll be using it this fall to give teasers and sneak previews of upcoming story lines for our members to whet their appetites on.

Overall, having the Providence on social media has proved beneficial. It gives another way for players to stay involved with the game and to communicate with the GMs.

Josh Hrach, USS Providence

Also remember that social media doesn’t just have to be limited to Facebook and Twitter, there are many different social networks, including forums. If your game has a specific audience (like fans of a certain TV show), why not make use of forums where these fans gather?

Facebook, Twitter, TrekSpace, and StarTrek.com forums are just a few of the social media websites where we advertise SB118.  We have recruited several new members from these outlets, and many of those were through direct contact with Star Trek fans who saw our posts about SB118.

Miles Unum, Starbase 118

If you’ve got your own tips or perhaps stories of successfully finding games, or recruiting members through social networks, let us know in the comments below, and let us know how you go about it!