Measuring Q & A Patricipation

What is a Q&A?

A Q&A (question and answer) session is an activity in which the first party will answer the questions of the second party, In this case, the first party would be the company/business, whilst the second party would be the consumer base. Q&As provide the perfect opportunity for the company to receive much-needed feedback.

Strengths

  • Cost efficient: Producing an online Q&A is a simple as posting a question, depending on the platform the company chooses to use the cost can change.
  • Quick Results: It’s quick and easy to collect results online. Meaning that result can be collected and reviewed in as little as 24 hours, with no need to rely on external third party businesses.
  • User Anonymity: Respondents feel more at ease when they aren’t forced to disclose their opinion under their real identities. which can help to produce more accurate results and feedback.
  • Scalability: An online survey can allow you to reach a far wider audience in relation to the relative cost of producing it.

Weaknesses

  • Dishonesty: Respondents may not be 100 percent truthful with their answers. This can happen for a variety of reasons, including social desirability bias and attempting to protect privacy.
  • Lack of personalization: Material that is un-personalized can often turn away some recipients as they feel the Q&A is not inclusive enough.
  • Accessibility issues: If the platform that the material is posted on is not accessible to as many of the customers as possible, then it becomes difficult to collect a wide range of feedback and responses.

 

Measuring Participation

Google Analytics

Through google analytics, it is possible to measure the traffic that your website receives. Showing not only the number of visitors but also the social media sights that these visitors are coming from, this information can then be used to establish the best platform on which to host your Q&A

(Jon Hayden 2018)

Google analytics also features google tag manager, a tool that would be extremely useful in conjunction with Q&A hosted on social media platforms where hashtags are relevant such as Twitter. Knowing whether or not a hashtag associated with you Q&A is popular or not will give some idea of the traffic that you would be likely to receive and encourages further development.

Retweets

Having your Q&A retweeted will encourage participation from your audience. In reference to encouraging participation in an online community Hrastinski, S stated that “the larger the volume of messages posted and the closer members feel to each other, the more successful the online community becomes” (2011). This same idea can also be applied to your Q&A, As more people retweet like minded other will feel inclined to give their own opinion, which will increase the amount of feedback that has been generated.

Rating System

Probably the simplest form of measurement tool available, however, it still should not be overlooked. When a post is made on a social media platform they will usually allow the consumer to leave a like or dislike on the post.

Related image

On Twitter, the number of retweets and likes are shown clearly underneath the post. It is important to keep track of this number as they are representative of the audience’s reaction to the content that you are releasing. In some cases, It may be representative of the wider audience as some consumers may not have the time to leave a comment and will instead leave a like or dislike in order to share their viewpoint.

 

Tips for increasing participation in a Twitter Q&A

Wide Hat Media recommend;

  • Pick a winning hashtag: The right hashtag would be key to drawing in those potential customers who might not be aware of the Q&A, using concise and informative hashtags gives a clear representation of what the post is trying to convey.
  • Promote yourself shamelessly: Ensure that you tell your audience about your Q&A. any promotion material should include information about the time, date as well as what will be covered. Try to include hashtags where possible.
  • Consistent event times: If the event is recurring try to establish a set date and time at which the event will be held, for example, the Q&A may be held weekly at 8pm on Twitter.
  • Tweet at an optimal time Chooses a time at which the majority of your consumer base will be able to participate in the Q&A.

For more tips on running a Q&A on Twitter (http://www.whitehatmedia.com/blog/how-run-awesome-twitter-qa)

Conclusion

The more reactions the business receives the more useful feedback they’ll have available to make the changes that consumers require. Therefore it is important to continuously track the shift in traffic and make changes to ensure that your Q&A sessions remain relevant to your audience 

References 

Hrastinski, S., Sjöström, S., Eriksson Lundström, J., Larsson, A.O., Ozan, H., Institutionen för informatik och media, Humanistisk-samhällsvetenskapliga vetenskapsområdet, Uppsala universitet & Samhällsvetenskapliga fakulteten 2011, “Encouraging participation in an intra-organizational online idea community: A case study of a Swedish municipality”, First Monday, vol. 16, no. 10.

Left Right Labs. (2018). How to run a successful Facebook Q&A session. [online] Available at: https://leftrightlabs.com/how-to-run-a-successful-facebook-qa-session/ [Accessed 26 Feb. 2018].

Merlo, O. (2018). Why Customer Participation Matters.

Whitehatmedia.com. (2018). How to Run an Awesome Twitter Q&A. [online] Available at: http://www.whitehatmedia.com/blog/how-run-awesome-twitter-qa [Accessed 26 Feb. 2018].

YouTube. (2018). Shari Harley, MA, CSP -Why is Feedback Important?-. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kob1men59HM [Accessed 26 Feb. 2018].

Producing an Interactive Q&A

What is a Q&A?

A Q&A (question and answer) session is an activity in which the first party will answer the questions of the second party, In this case, the first party would be the company/business, whilst the second party would be the consumer base. Q&As provide the perfect opportunity for the company to receive much-needed feedback.

Why Is Feedback important? 

Feedback can be key when communicating with an audience. Simply stating the companies plan for the future with no regard for how the consumer base might respond can prove detrimental to that plan. In addition to this collecting feedback gives the company the opportunity to address customer concerns and calm distressed customers.

Shannon and Weaver’s (1951) theory of communication demonstrates the flow of information from the company to the audience, travelling from sender to message to channel and finally to the receiver. once the message has reached its destination it is the responsibility of the company to seek feedback in order to improve the delivery of future messages. 

Shari Harley on the importance of feedback

(Harley, S. 2018)

Strengths

  • Cost efficient: Producing an online Q&A is a simple as posting a question, depending on the platform the company chooses to use the cost can change.
  • Quick Results: It’s quick and easy to collect results online. Meaning that result can be collected and reviewed in as little as 24 hours, with no need to rely on external third party businesses.
  • User Anonymity: Respondents feel more at ease when they aren’t forced to disclose their opinion under their real identities. which can help to produce more accurate results and feedback.
  • Scalability: An online survey can allow you to reach a far wider audience in relation to the relative cost of producing it.

Weaknesses

  • Dishonesty: Respondents may not be 100 percent truthful with their answers. This can happen for a variety of reasons, including social desirability bias and attempting to protect privacy.
  • Lack of personalization: Material that is unpersonalized can often turn away some recipients as they feel the Q&A is not inclusive enough.
  • Accessibility issues: If the platform that the material is posted on is not accessible to as many of the customers as possible, then it becomes difficult to collect a wide range of feedback and responses.

Choosing a Channel 

When creating a Q&A it is important to choose a platform that would be accessible to the majority of the consumer base. One social media platform that provides a solid groundwork for hosting a Q&A session would be Twitter. Twitter allows users to ‘tweet’ out messages to their followers that they can comment on and respond to the idea being to open discussion between the business and customer.

Twitter gives its users the tools to help promote themselves to wider audiences,

Wide Hat Media recommend;

  • Pick a winning hashtag: The right hashtag would be key to drawing in those potential customers who might not be aware of the Q&A, using concise and informative hashtags gives a clear representation of what the post is trying to convey.
  • Promote yourself shamelessly: Ensure that you tell your audience about your Q&A. any promotion material should include information about the time, date as well as what will be covered. Try to include hashtags where possible.
  • Consistent event times: If the event is recurring try to establish a set date and time at which the event will be held, for example, the Q&A may be held weekly at 8pm on Twitter.
  • Tweet at an optimal time Chooses a time at which the majority of your consumer base will be able to participate in the Q&A.

For more tips on running a Q&A on Twitter (http://www.whitehatmedia.com/blog/how-run-awesome-twitter-qa)

Follow Up 

A successful Q&A session doesn’t end at the point that the question is asked. In order to hold a successful Q&A, you try to follow and inform your audience of the results of the Q&A and the feedback that has been taken on board, and the changes that will be because of this activity.

Left Right Labs released an article on the best way to follow up on a Q&A and the Incentives that can help promote recipient responses.

https://leftrightlabs.com/how-to-run-a-successful-facebook-qa-session/

Conclusion

Online Q&As are a low cost, high potential activity. Ideally, businesses will use them to improve customer interactions in the long run, by ensuring consistent posts alongside incentives that help to drive interactions. the more reactions the business receives the more useful feedback they’ll have available to make the changes that consumers require.

References 

Burks, A., Shannon, C. and Weaver, W. (1951). The Mathematical Theory of Communication. The Philosophical Review, 60(3), p.398.

Left Right Labs. (2018). How to run a successful Facebook Q&A session. [online] Available at: https://leftrightlabs.com/how-to-run-a-successful-facebook-qa-session/ [Accessed 26 Feb. 2018].

Merlo, O. (2018). Why Customer Participation Matters.

Whitehatmedia.com. (2018). How to Run an Awesome Twitter Q&A. [online] Available at: http://www.whitehatmedia.com/blog/how-run-awesome-twitter-qa [Accessed 26 Feb. 2018].

YouTube. (2018). Shari Harley, MA, CSP -Why is Feedback Important?-. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kob1men59HM [Accessed 26 Feb. 2018].

The Risks and Rewards of Online Partnerships in the Games Industry in Regard to Cross-Promotion

This blog post will look at the fundamentals of online partnerships, highlighting both their risks and their potential benefits to cross-promotion within the games industry.

So just what is an Online Partnership? 

According to growth strategist Ryan Caliguri, these partnerships are about finding people or businesses who have influence over a market you wish to target, and working with them to introduce your business to their network. (Caliguiri, 2012).

Referencing this diagram of Chaffey’s Six channels…

(Smart Insights, 2018)

we can see that online partnerships are formed of 5 main subcategories, these are;

  • Affiliate Marketing: An agreement in which a business will pay a third party website a commission for generating sales and website traffic through referrals (Levens, 2011)
  • Sponsorship: Business will pay the full cost a sponsorship deal with influencers in order to increase their recognition (Levens, 2011)
  • Co-Branding: Co-branding is a deal between two or more different brands, encompassing several different types of branding partnerships, such as sponsorships (Levens, 2011)
  • Link-Building: link building is the process of exchanging links with other Web sites to increase your own site’s backlinks and quality backlinks. (Enge, Spencer and Stricchiola, n.d.)
  • Widget Marketing: ‘Marketing with widgets gives you an opportunity to spread the word from your site and social presences to other sites as widgets can be embedded in others’ sites and services’.(Smart Insights, 2018)

What is Cross Promotion?

Cross-promotion is a form of promotion where a business will aim to target the customer base of related products through joint promotion (Belch and Belch, 2015).

Through cross-promotion businesses are able to reach consumer bases across different mediums. the extent to which this is successful however can depend on both how the rigidity of the industry as well as how these cross-promotion activities are applied.

How it all fits together…

Cross-promotion has always been part of the gaming industry. for example, consider your favourite game and I could guarantee there’s a tie-in game or movie to go alongside that. the games industry will often sell of toy and movie rights to other companies in order to generate revenue as well as recognition, just look at what Disney and EA are doing with Starwars. Disney and Starwars deal

(The Hollywood Reporter, 2018)

 

Advantages of using cross-promotion in the gaming industry. 

Although yes multimillion-dollar deals such as the one between EA and Disney can be very lucrative there are forms of cross-promotion that appeal to both the large and small companies alike within the industry.

Sponsorship deals can also be very lucrative when you have the right influencers on board many game company sponsor content creators on Youtube and Twitch. The content creators are able to reach the demographics that these games companies cant, so in return for paying them and offering other gifts, these content creators will influence their demographic to check out the company. To give you an example of how well this can work Youtuber Ali A recently hit 10 million subscribers, an avid gamer Ali A has had a number of sponsors of the year both internal and external of the gaming industry, companies will often give him products for free to give away to his subscribers.

(Ali A, Youtube,  2018)

This does two things, firstly companies are able to great their products out there in front of a large audience but more importantly it’s in the hands of a person they can trust making them more willing to accept that product. In addition to this, it builds goodwill with both the audience and the influencer creating the potential for future promotional deals with that influencer.

We can see examples of both widgets and Link building most often by simply visiting these companies websites. Here you’ll often find social media handles embedded on the site, easily accessible to any potential consumers. the same would be true for the companies social media page where they will likely have plugins for the main and subsidiary websites.

Reputation takes time to build and seconds to break.

Your own companies reputation is one of the highest stakes that the business must be willing to pay when entering a partnership with a third party. If your partner doesn’t hold themselves to the degree that you do risk being dragged through the mud along with them when things go wrong, having the potential to hurt your businesses profits, growth, and reputation with your audience. This is something that EA and Disney have been troubled with lately.

(YongYea, YouTube, 2018)

Youtuber YongYea extensively covered EA’s recent turmoil with their fan base about Starwars battlefront 2’s controversial loot box system. and with it being so close the release of a new major Starwars film Disney decided the couldn’t take the risk of having the negative press that EA was generating, making them pull the loot box system from the game indefinitely damaging their monetisation efforts.

Conclusion

To conclude cross-promotion and partnerships in the game industry are likely to continue due being both cost-efficient and in some case highly lucrative. The key thing here is to find a company that works well with yours and hold their standards to the same degree or better than your own. You want to be working effectively with your partner not cleaning up after them.

References 

  • Belch, G. and Belch, M. (2015). Advertising and promotion. [Singapore]: McGraw-Hill Education.
  • Caliguiri, R. (2012). Partnership marketing: a faster way to open new doors. The Globe and Mail.
  • Enge, E., Spencer, S. and Stricchiola, J. (n.d.). The Art of SEO.
  • Levens, M. (2011). Marketing defined, explained, applied + mymarketinglab. [Place of publication not identified]: Prentice Hall.
  • Smart Insights. (2018). Digital marketing channels | Smart Insights. [online] Available at: https://www.smartinsights.com/reach/attachment/digital-marketing-channels/ [Accessed 7 Jan. 2018].
  • Smart Insights. (2018). Widget marketing | Smart Insights. [online] Available at: https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-platforms/widget-marketing/ [Accessed 7 Jan. 2018].
  • The Hollywood Reporter. (2018). EA/Disney ‘Star Wars’ Deal to Last 10 Years, Expand Past Movies. [online] Available at: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/ea-disney-star-wars-deal-658636 [Accessed 7 Jan. 2018].
  • YouTube. (2018). Ali-A. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/user/Matroix [Accessed 7 Jan. 2018].
  • YouTube. (2018). Disney is Not Happy with EA’s Handling of Star Wars Battlefront 2. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mus7u9K0PjY [Accessed 7 Jan. 2018].

Does the games industry handle its social media marketing effectively?

The Games Industry is today is worth $108 Billion. With so much money flowing into the industry, one would imagine that the companies within this industry have an outstanding reputation with their customers. However, this is not always the case. Although social media makes up an enormous part of the industries marketing not everyone gets it right. This blog will look at the three main concepts in Social Media Marketing

  • How well companies manage their social presence.
  • The company’s ability to respond to customer feedback.
  • How active their audience is in relation to their social media activities.

Managing Social Presence – Good vs Evil

For this segment, we’re going to highlight two companies within the industry and analyse how they handle their social presence, up first EA

A powerhouse of the industry ranking 11th overall, EA has a substantial social footprint having over 74 million searches in October of 2017 (SimilarWeb, 2017). The company operates many different online entry points including; YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. Which equate to almost 6% of all their social media traffic. The one good thing that can be said about EA is they handle their presence very well.

Like a lot of companies in the market, EA works alongside social media idols to reach other markets just look at Fifa YouTubers. In doing this EA creates other platforms from which to promote themselves and their products, reaching new audiences through these YouTubers.

Secondly, we have Bungie.

Slightly smaller than EA but still a market pioneer in their own right Bungie rank 38th in the industry.

In the October period, Bungie received around 30 million searches on their website, (SimilarWeb, 2017) similarly to EA Bungie maintain many different online entry points in the shape of Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. The main difference here is that Bungie has higher overall social traffic at 7.06% with the main entry point being Reddit rather than EA’s YouTube.

Audience Activity – Purity and Toxicity  

Entry points are important as they say a lot about how the industry connects with its audience. 

As state before EA’s social traffic mainly comes for YouTube, so I went on to YouTube Typed EA in the Search bar and found that of the first 10 videos to come 7 have an adverse effect on EA’s Brand Image.

 

[Source Youtube.com, 2017]

The issue with this is that YouTube videos offer little opportunity to get ahead of the negative comments and address them. They essentially act as a one way street for information, if they’re positively promoting the brand image then perfect, but when the message is negative that is the only information that the audience will receive and this affects the brand negatively.

Recently EA has been having a tough time with the release of their new game and has had a large amount of backlash from the community, and in EA’s defense they took a smart approach and chose to post their reply to the backlash on Reddit. As a platform, Reddit is far more suited to deal with negativity as there’s more open discussion between audience and company. However, EA’s issue here is that they simply didn’t listen to their audience.

[Source Reddit, 2017]

The reply above was EA’s response to backlash concerning microtransactions in the newly released Starwars Battlefront 2. However, rather than addressing the concerns of the audience EA released a response that many people in the community took as an excuse or justification of why their concerns were not being addressed and naturally caused a further backlash in the form of a loss of stock, predicting is setting the loss at $3.1 billion.

[Source, The Know]

Now for Bungie.

Bungie has always had an ok relationship with their audience, largely because of the way that they use their online entry points, Reddit in particular. Bungie has a much larger audience focus than their EA counterparts, going further to control the narrative of their brand image.

[Source Pretty Good Gaming]

This week fans of Destiny 2 (a Bungie title) were furious with a scandal that arose from the game. So what did Bungie do? They put their hands up and apologized for doing so the company posted a detailed lengthy blog on their website detailing the issues and how the planned on fixing them. This level of transparency and honesty in the face of negativity is how you protect your brand image and keep the audience on side.

Conclusion

The games industry requires efficient social media management the examples I have given show that even the industry leaders can get this wrong. Simply putting out content isn’t enough companies need to manage how that content is received by their audience as well. In the future companies should ensure they follow guidelines such as the 10 laws of social media.

[source Entrepreneur]

 

References

reddit. (2017). /r/StarWarsBattlefront. [online] Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/ [Accessed 1 Dec. 2017].

SimilarWeb. (2017). bungie.net Traffic Statistics. [online] Available at: https://www.similarweb.com/website/bungie.net#overview [Accessed 1 Dec. 2017].

SimilarWeb. (2017). ea.com Traffic Statistics. [online] Available at: https://www.similarweb.com/website/ea.com#overview [Accessed 1 Dec. 2017].

YouTube. (2017). 10 Laws of Social Media Marketing. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–s2sfm9JkI [Accessed 1 Dec. 2017].

Youtube.com. (2017). EA – YouTube. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=EA [Accessed 1 Dec. 2017].