NUA Lecture - Hollie Bennett, Social Media & Community Manager

Hollie Bennett currently works at Playstation UK as a Community Manager. She co-runs the Playstation Access Youtube account as well as the social media sites for Playstation UK.

• She started out as a Community Manager for Destructoid, visiting conventions and working with the site.
• Then was employed as a Consumer & Community PR Executive at Namco Bandai, before coming to work at Playstation UK.

Hollie explained that there are two types of PR for a games company:

• In-House - For the magazines and the gamers
• Agency - For the public masses and the casual gamers

However, PR is more for the press, whereas her role as Community Manager is for the public.

• Creating coverage via press releases, events and previews.
• Managing assets such as pictures, trailers as well as when, where and how to release them.
• Being creative is a big plus.

A Community Manager needs to be 3 things:

• A leader
• A participant
• An advocate

There are also risks to being a Community Manager, however:

• Legal risks : Leaking content when you weren't supposed to.
• The Brand : The community has to look good, or else people won't be interested
• The Users : Inevitably, arguments & bullying will happen, and you have to keep the people in check.

But why should you build a good community?

• Acquisition of new fans.
• Retention of existing fans.
• Support, giving customers help when they need it.

Social media is great for expanding the community, however, there are things to keep in mind when having a company social media:

• Images increase interaction, so use them as much as possible!
• However, do not have more than 20% text in an image.
• Shrink URLs to keep things tidy.
• For Twitter, use hashtags to create conversations and bring people together.
• Also consider promoted tweets, trends and account names.
• Keep content regular and, in most cases, on-topic.

Harvard Reference : Bennett, H. (2015) NUA Lecture 22 January 2015