Last week I talked about the struggles of content creation. This week I’m talking about what I’ve been trying to do to make it easier for me.
The most complicated content creation I’m a part of is my podcast. I have discussions with usually 3 other people about various game design topics. The three people change from episode to episode. So I had to come up with a topic, or crowd source one, and schedule a recording time with 4 people, usually in different time zones.
To help ease the burden of scheduling I decided to try and get some contributors. They would record their own segments and then I would assemble them. So no more trying to get 4 people online at the same time.
My early attempts to get contributors didn’t garner a lot of interest. The few people that did start segments were people I already knew. I liked the new content and the variety of topics and voices the show gained.
But, I hadn’t managed to build a large enough group for the contributor episodes to fill a full hour. And if someone wasn’t able to get a segment in, the show was even shorter.
I gained a few more contributors since that initial search, but the episodes are still on the shorter side.
It turns out this contributor system is actually even more work than the round table episodes. The recording is easier, but I’m actually managing more people and have more editing to do. But the variety of topics and people is great. So I put out another call for contributors.
This time I got a lot of responses and it looks like many new voices will be joining the show over the next few months.
A few things were different from the last time I asked for contributors. First, the show has grown in popularity, so it has a bit more recognition and reach. Second, I’ve been networking a lot since that first search, so I have more recognition and reach. Finally, and most importantly, when I asked for contributors on twitter I didn’t just let the tweet fade into the aether. I tagged a few people who I thought would be a good fit for making a segment. It’s still an open call and anyone can submit an idea, but tagging people in a tweet turns it into a conversation and that builds traction. The tweet got a lot of likes and shares from the people I tagged and my followers. Then it started getting shares from people I didn’t know. And I got more people interested in submitting.
Twitter is a strange place, but it is my preferred social media hangout. And figuring out how to get traction on a tweet has been a big help.
If you’re interested in submitting a segment, DM me @BlueCubeBGs. If you want to listen, head over to www.theboardgameworkshop.com.