Starting Kickstarter Discussions

[WhatAboutBob]

You love Reaper Miniatures and you have decided to back their Bones Campaign - but now what? How can you help? Well, you need to tell people about it and sometimes, that can be a little bit awkward. You don't want to come across like a used car salesman, but you want to make sure you make the sale. So, lets take a minute to look at some good and bad ways of doing things.

 

Off Topic Discussion Forums

Here we will look at two different examples of posts in an off topic forum which are an example of a good and a bad post. The first was made on GOG.com:

 

http://www.gog.com/e...ter_offer/page1

 

The second was made on The Escapist:

 

http://www.escapistm...starter-project

 

GOG is primarily a video gaming site, The Escapist is a generic Nerd News site. Neither of them are specific to miniatures, RPGs or wargames - so they would be good representations of off topic discussion forums. Although it isn't the primary subject matter, there are likely to be any members who are interested in the offerings which Reaper is providing.

 

What is of note though, is the reaction and the engagement. On GOG, the initial post was a member in good standing. They had almost 100 posts before hand, so when they posted the link to the KS campaign - other members engaged them in their discussion. On the escapist however, the initial poster just registered in order to post the link. The forum moderation team would not be remiss for deleting the thread and banning the user as a spammer.

 

It is important to understand the difference between the two. One is helpful, the other - while it might end up bringing a few members to the KS campaign - can be harmful. You want to get the information in front of as many eyes as possible, but you don't want people to think Spam when they think Reaper.

[WhatAboutBob]

I posted this over on the KS comments already, but figured might as well put it here for good measure too:

 

The following [fairly] significant forums are negative for Reaper news as far as I noticed. All of them look to be friendly towards general miniature news - though I haven't had a chance to fully look at their posting policies (most have "News" sections which generally allow commercial related postings though).

 

http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/index.php

 

http://www.miniaturewargaming.com/index.php/forums

 

http://www.miniwargaming.com/forum/

 

http://forum.madforminiatures.com/

 

http://www.sdean-forum.co.uk/phpBB3/index.php

 

http://www.figures.com/forums/forum.php (Linked site to others like 1/6 Warriors and what not - good potential for outside attention)

 

And one for Reaper Peeps - specifically for Talin:

 

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/ - Lots of artists post work for projects they are currently on their, figure since we have new concept art - it might be worth posting to. Gets a lot of gamer geek traffic, as well as people who like to collect stuff.

 

Now, keep in mind - you don't want to be a Spam bot. Ideally, you don't want to make your first post be a commercial one. You may want to pass it up if you don't have an existing account. However, you might find that you like some of those forums and decide to join their discussions. That would be good too (expanding horizons and all that).

 

If you are or have in the past been an active member of those forums - go double check to make sure I didn't miss anything and if it hasn't been mentioned, bring up the Bones campaign.

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For the record, Heresy has a thread about the kickstarter already, posted by an established member. (Glad to see us on top of the '[fairly] significant forums' list though :P)

 

We also have a policy against people advertising for free on the boards (We had a rash of spam posts from Mantic and/or their fans recently plugging their kickstarter that had to be dealt with).

 

I can see Bob already covered this but just to rehash it from an admin's point of view:

Generally if an established member brings it up as a topic of conversation that's fine but we take a dim view of new people signing up just to plug something, however worthy. Most other forums will have a similar view/policy, I'm sure.

Keep that in mind when going to other places on the net to spread the word.

 

Getting the word out is great, more backers means more minis for my vampire level, but just make sure you're actually welcome to spread it and not just being a spammer ;-)