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Meet TheCR Network Scholars | Mohamed Mohammed

February 26, 2021 By Jim Storer

As part of our continuing efforts to increase the impact of our community resources, we are excited to introduce you to the 2021 Scholarship Cohort. Each month in 2021 we’ll interview a cohort scholar and learn why community is important to them.

Why do you believe in Community/Community Management?

Community is, as Rob Bernshteyn has expressed, the future of business. It represents the ideal of both the efficient and responsible operation of business.

My favorite example of this is the use of community platforms/ forums to figure out how best to deliver value to the user of a product or service.

Community, when taken seriously (and funded as such), can be what separates a transactional relationship from one that continually adds value to users’ lives.

What area of Community do you want to learn most about?

I am interested in learning about the business side of community management.

Are you currently working in Community?

Yes! I work as a Community Manager in charge of the forum communities for publishing brands such as PC Gamer, Tom’s Guide, and Space.com.

Thanks, Mohamed! Watch this space for updates from Mohamed and our other 2021 Scholarship Cohort.

You can learn more about our 2021 Scholarship Cohort here.

Driving Community Participation and Engagement With Gamification

April 27, 2018 By Jim Storer

Electronic Arts Inc., a leading global interactive entertainment software company, delivers games, content and online services for Internet-connected consoles, personal computers, mobile phones and tablets to hundreds of millions of players worldwide.

With an online gaming network that is home to dedicated global players, EA sought to drive down support costs while also providing enhanced interactive rewards.

Learn how EA built a gamification-based support hub and a two-tiered super-user program that increased traffic, converted lurkers and deflected contacts from Live Support channels.

Download the Electronic Arts case study.

community case study
Download the Case Study

10 Best Practices for Gaming in Your Community

October 11, 2016 By Jim Storer

By Amy Turner, The Community Roundtable

Screen Shot 2016-07-08 at 8.58.39 AM Incorporating gaming elements into communities not only adds value, but also enhances a member’s experience and gives them an enjoyable moment that would not have otherwise existed. Definitely, a key community must-have for staying ahead of the competition.

TheCR Network spoke with Latitude, a research and consulting firm with deep expertise in media and technology, to discuss the many benefits of introducing game theory in communities.

First things first. What is a game? According to Latitude’s The Future of Gaming Study: “A game is play with some goal, and some rules or parameters affecting how the player can achieve that goal. Play means the player gets pleasure from the whole moment-to-moment process, not just when she achieves the goal. If it’s a long, hard, tedious and boring slog that needs to be finished so you can get some reward, it’s called ‘work.’”

10 Best Practices For Incorporating Gaming Into Community:

  1. Follow a Framework that Employs Certain Game Elements. Examples include:
    1. Appointment dynamic (win by showing up at a specified time)
    2. Level up for reputation’s sake (leader boards)
    3. Track progress (shows how well the participant is doing against a goal)Screen Shot 2016-07-08 at 8.58.35 AM 
    4. Cooperate to compete (people provide an invaluable service to the brand in the form of a 
game)
  1.          Tie Extrinsic Motivators to Something Meaningful: Extrinsic motivators such as badges, 
points, leader boards or even money are on the periphery of the gaming experience. However, they hinge on being rooted in something deeper, like intrinsic motivation (such as a sense of community or doing something socially beneficial). 

  2.            Understand the Game Elements and Features that are Working and Why: Games that are really social and/or built on existing communities (such as Facebook’s Farmville) work well. Another way is by extending the game into the offline world, incorporating the idea of online and offline social challenges with things that are shared and local for the participant. 

  3.   Realize the Importance of Environment, Economics and a Social Sense as Motivators. 
Brands that incorporate these elements within their gaming theory will have an advantage over their competitors if they can tap into as many of these motivational sweet spots as possible.
  4.   Combine Personalization of a Goal with Socialization: Games that help people reach their aspirations are elements of gaming that will offer success for companies that incorporate them. However, keep in mind that if you want to offer rewards to a community, then they should have real value. Scarcity should not be manufactured. 

  5.   Consider Game Mechanics for Peer-to-Peer Trust-Building with Real-WorldScreen Shot 2016-07-08 at 8.58.29 AM Relevance: This includes game-like mechanisms such as share ratios and rating systems, which provide the infrastructure for individuals to prove and make transparent their trustworthiness over time (such as reputation scores in eBay). 

  6.   Be Organic: Follow your community member’s lead, see what they value and build game elements around the tradeoffs/negotiations/exchanges they may naturally be initiating with each other. Be mindful of not creating inherent motivation schemes that go against the natural rewards that exist within the community
  7.   Remember that for Ads, Context Matters: Advertising can work in a variety of ways within games (sponsorships, placements, interactive ads, etc.), but the key is that they must relate (and ideally add value) to the experience game players intend to have in the first place. 

  8.   Ensure that your Game Elements Add Value: The key thought is not to create game elements that add work. Have fun while creating a positive overall experience for the players. 

  9. Understand the Possibilities that Exist for Mobile: There are countless opportunities for mobile to integrate games into traditionally offline experiences. Furthermore, it can create real value when integrating with offline spaces.

How do you incorporate gaming in your community?

 

Calling all online gaming community managers – step up and shine!

February 17, 2015 By Ted McEnroe

By Ted McEnroe, The Community Roundtable

Titanfall at Gamescom 2013 (9591148650)" by Sergey Galyonkin from Kyiv, Ukraine - Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Titanfall at Gamescom 2013 (9591148650)” by Sergey Galyonkin from Kyiv, Ukraine – Titanfall robot at Gamescom 2013. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

There’s often a “we vs they” attitude between different groups of community managers. In particular, those of you in the gaming and consumer media space figured out the power of communities by the time many of the rest of us were just realizing the power of this social media thing. But we all have something to offer the larger discussion of what community can mean for different organizations and industries.

We’re trying to capture that. 2015 marks the 6th year that The Community Roundtable has conducted research for The State of Community Management. Each year, the responses have grown in number and broadened in scope. But gaming and media communities have never been particularly well represented.

We hope 2015 is the year to change that. The 20-minute survey seeks to root out the powerful ways that communities are shaping business, and gaming communities are at the forefront of much of that. How do you stack up? Take the survey and you will receive a score relative to TheCR’s Community Maturity Model, and you’ll contribute to the most comprehensive annual survey of community management professionals there is today.

This research helps shape the agenda and conversation for TheCR and much of the rest of the community sector. We’re hoping this year that research will recognize the true impact of online gaming and media communities, and raise opportunities for gaming and media communities and community professionals in the overall community discussion.

We all have a sense that gaming communities have a lot to teach other communities, and we know from our past research the growth and possibilities that other community-minded organizations can offer their peers. Community management is the future of management – and what we learn today can drive the discussion in the coming months and years.

Take the survey – you do not have to be a member or client of TheCR – it’s just a click away at https://the.cr/socm15survey – and tell some colleagues. We’ll release the research findings this spring.

—
Want to play a role shaping the future of community? Take a moment now and set aside 20 minutes on your calendar for the State of Community Management 2015 survey! Go straight to the survey at https://the.cr/socm15survey

Jeff Rubenstein on Working with Product-Knowledgable Communities

December 20, 2010 By Jim Storer

The Community Roundtable has partnered with Voce Communications to produce a new podcast series, “Conversations with Community Managers.” In this series, TheCR’s Jim Storer joins forces with Voce’s Doug Haslam to speak with people from a variety of industries about their efforts with community and social media management. Our podcast series, Conversations with Community Managers (a co-production with The Community Roundtable), continues with episode #17, featuring Jeff Rubenstein, Social Media Manager for Sony Playstation. Highlights include:
  • Working with a community that is not only passionate, but extremely knowledgeable about the company, its products and its industry
  • Idea generation from the community– how PlayStation Share works
  • The seasonality (or lack of it) for communities based on retail products
  • The merging of personal and professional personae online, and the challenges that presents to the Sony PlayStation team
https://media.blubrry.com/608862/thecr-podcasts.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/CwCM_jeffrubenstein.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

MUSIC CREDIT: “Bleuacide” by graphiqsgroove

About Conversations with Community Managers*
To better reflect the diverse conversations our podcast covers we’ve changed the name of our long-running series to Community Conversations.
Community Conversations highlights short conversations with some of the smartest minds in the online community and social business space, exploring what they’re working on, why they do what they do, and what advice they have for you.
These episodes are a great way to begin to understand the nuances of community strategy and management.
Each episode is short (usually less than 30 minutes) and focuses on one community management professional.

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