RolePlayGateway: WeBlog!

We just shuffled our main page a little, moving our introduction closer to the top of the page, and adding a beautiful anime-lady. We adjusted our introduction (but it might need a bit of tweaking, so please, comment!), and added a large section about what role playing games are. We also shifted the “News” section down, but it’s still there.

Do you think people who are coming here already know what RPGs are? Was it a good idea to add the section? Do you like the anime girl? Please, give us your feedback!

Oh, yes. Suggestions are welcome too.

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Did you know that we have a feature that lets you share any topic with any of your friends?

We all know how addictive RPGateway is. Don’t be alone in your addiction - there is strength in numbers! Share things with your friends and get them addicted, too.

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As the admin of the site, one of the primary roles that I play is to drive people to the site and ensure that they have their needs taken care of so that they can become permanent members.  There are a few ways to do this, and while some are costly, others are actually ridiculously easy, and you can help on a daily basis. If you remember a post on our blog a few months back, you’ll recognize that we placed a fairly heavy emphasis on links.

In today’s web, links are what correlate to value and importance, and the search engines calculate where RolePlayGateway is placed according to how many links we get, and from what websites. (A link from a website about role playing games will make us turn up in the results for searches about role playing games, while a link from a real estate site does exactly the opposite - it makes them think we’re about real estate.)

Ultimately, you can make my job MUCH easier by actively seeking out links from anywhere you can get them.  If you’re a member on another forum, link to us in your sig, even if it’s just a little text link!  You can get all fancy with signature graphics if you like (please share your RolePlayGateway graphics with us!), but any link is great.

I’ve found a great article that I think covers a few of the more advanced points of becoming a highly effective link builder, if you’re interested in taking on a more pointed task, as opposed to just linking to us casually. I’m also free to answer any questions and lend any assistance that I can, so just shoot me an email, IM, PM, or even phone me and I’d love to work with you.

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Yep, so that’s basically it. Write a post on your blog about RolePlayGateway and include a link to us, and you’ll be entered into our contest to win a copy of BioShock on your choice of platform. Trackback or comment with a link to your story to enter.

We’ll be picking the winner September 14th, so get on it!

Oh, and you can get a demo copy of BioShock for the PC over on the forums. Enjoy.

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While marketing RolePlay Gateway, one of the things we considered was the “virality” of our approach. Viral marketing is any marketing technique that induces Web sites or users to pass on a marketing message to other sites or users, creating a potentially exponential growth in the message’s visibility and effect. We’re going to guide you on the road to a truly viral campaign.

A successful viral push can be launched simply by following three simple rules.

1. Don’t spend everything you have on a single campaign.
2. Don’t rely entirely on one vehicle of viral marketing.
3. Be different from everyone else; stand out.

While we’re not nearly viral enough, part of our success so far has been the evangelism of our passionate users. And there you have it, one of the most important keys to successful viral marketing:

Passion:
Users who are passionate about your service, your community, or your site. They will propagate, they will evangelize, and ultimately will generate more passionate users who will do the same thing for you. Dawn Anfuso calls these members Boomers - and it is important to not ignore them.

Make it easy for your users to share. Make it hard for them NOT to share. Add a feature on your site that encourages them to send an email to their friends about the service. Add blocks where they can copy and paste code straight to their social profiles on sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo. Jeanne Jennings wrote an amazing article on Optimizing the “E-mail This” Marketing Opportunity, and I’d recommend you read it and implement the things you learn from it.

Widgetize:
On that note, we arrive on one of our most powerful vehicles for viral marketing: Widgets. The list of sites that you can infect with widgets are endless. From iGoogle to individual sites, widgets encourage users to put your tool on their page. Be sure to incorporate other techniques here: Include encouragement to share it. Make it easy to post elsewhere and share.

One of the items that RolePlay Gateway could utilize to great success is the concept of game trailers. Many of the games on RPGateway are text-based, and have no real graphics. However, most of these games have amazing storylines, storylines which could be utilized to hitch audiences, or at least entertain them. Flash-based videos, or trailers, with pivotal content, captivating video and audio, and viral marketing elements such as “Email this!” or “Share This”, would be an amazing leap forward. Take a look at how YouTube’s video player works. Such trailers could even be uploaded to social networking sites, like YouTube and Google Video, and shared to millions of users with a touch of viral marketing magic.

Juice It Up:
Include your URL everywhere you go. Facebook, MySpace. Everywhere. This generates user authority, even if the site you are on has nothing at all to do with your target market. Cross sections are a beautiful thing, and even if you don’t get a drop of link juice in comments, market saturation is a very important, yet delicate, part of viral marketing.

Maintain a presence on every social networking site you can sustain. Extend your campaign to all of them. Create social groups for each of these sites, and publicize them. The more targets you hit, just like investing, the less committed you are to that particular market. Your assets are distributed, and while the workload may be unfathomably difficult (keeping up with so many social networking sites sucks… that’s why we have ProfileLinker), the potential for success is incredible.

Reward:
Another option is to provide tangible rewards for marketing. This can be in the form of prizes, such as in a contest, or to individual users. Incentives are very powerful, and drive many users to promote where they’d be otherwise apathetic. Things can be very simple, such as giving them tokens or credits, to very expensive, such as providing real cash per referral. This is probably the most effective, albeit expensive, method of encouraging users to infect others.

Don’t Stop.
Don’t set these actions in motion and then hope they work. Get involved. Comment on profiles. Reply to messages. Enhance your viral effect. Make it tangible. If users can see that there is a real person there, they will be a lot more enthusiastic and encouraged to participate, and your viral marketing campaign will be more successful.

Other Resources!!!
Web Marketing Today has an amazing list of resource articles that are sure to help you build your campaign.

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One of the questions we get asked most often as administrators is “How can I help?” Unfortunately, this is a very broad and open-ended question. It’s really great that people actually want to volunteer time and energy to support RolePlay Gateway in its endeavors! The tough part is determining exactly what it is they can do to help.

Good news! There are a few items which we’ve determined are extraordinarily beneficial to our community, and they’re things that everyone can do. Without further ado, we present the RolePlay Gateway List of Things You Can Do to Help Them Become the Most Awesome Community Ever list:

Use Other Websites.
Yep, you heard us correctly. Use other websites and forums! We’re not selfish, we don’t want to keep you all to ourselves. How does this help? Easy! By participating in other places, you get the chance to see and believe the reasons why RPGateway is so great. You’ll have the opportunity to invite your good friends who don’t know about us yet.

Link To Us.
Google (and other search engines, but they don’t matter) likes to see when people link to us. In fact, we like to see people linking to us. Add a link in your sig, not only will it tell other people that you enjoy RolePlay Gateway, it will tell Google that you like RolePlay Gateway. Not only that, but it’s classy.

See? Isn’t that just absolutely gorgeous? xD
Thanks to Cat for her wonderful graphic skills.

And we’ll be absolutely ecstatic if you link to other parts of our site, like individual RPGs, or interesting topics, throughout your posts.

Don’t Be A Walking Billboard.
Well, if you want, you can. Just be aware that this will make people discount you - you’re going to be labeled like one of those people dressed in the Lady Liberty costumes on the side of the road during tax season…

Really, just participate. Don’t spam. Make friends. Enjoy life. Eat Cookies. Erm…

Kou, where are my cookies?

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