So, What's With All the Social Media Craziness?!
Author: Ne'Mireth Delvar
I was set up. This is how Dai M’Hael operates.
True story:
One day, my beloved husband Toral Gaidin discouraged me from applying for the Social Media Manager position. He said, “I explicitly told everyone in the admin meeting that you were far too busy to apply.” And you see, if he didn’t want me to apply for it, he could have just not said anything, right? But he’s DM, and it was clearly part of The Plan (DM). Because I’m so uniquely qualified (I do social media as my RL job), and I’ve not done anything for the site for years. I could SERVE. How could I possibly say no?
So, I applied. And amazingly, I got it. And I started to enthusiastically try out various things on Facebook. And some people LOVED it. Aaaand…. some people hated it.
Why? Why would you post recipes? Why are you staying away from TarValon.Net related posts? Why diversify content? Why are you changing the status quo?
Because.
TarValon.Net grew up.
Those of us who have been members since 2001 remember when we were all about being on a quest for love and passionate conversations about our Ajas and maybe even a little online drama. But since then, many of us have met our fantastic soulmates online, got married, graduated, entered into meaningful careers and… grew older. Sure, there are exceptions, and yes there are lots of newer and very active members who are an integral part of our community. But our older members, for the most part, stopped engaging on a meaningful level on the boards many years ago.
I see them on social media though. They’re talking about their kids, wondering what’s for dinner, facing another Monday at a demanding job, sharing their life's accomplishments. Being *gasp* social.
As the first Social Media Manager I’m trying to engage with these older members - and all our members - in ways that are meaningful to them. And it’s working. Our engagement (a social media term defined by the number of likes and interactions) is way up compared to previous years when we kept social content strictly TarValon.Net and Wheel of Time related.But more than anything else, we are consistent. And because we are consistent, and we get good engagement, and we get exposure. So, when there are fans out there who talk about the Wheel of Time online, TarValon.Net will come up as one of the suggested active sites. When those new people click through to our page, they can see that we are a community, a community that talks about some real things, and some fictional things, and that is very unique.
So, that’s what we are trying to do. And the entire community, starting with the Tar Valon Times and ending with the Librarian has been involved in helping our Social Media outreach be more successful.
Now, you may not like it. And if you don’t, you should tell us why. Send me an email and let me know what isn’t working for you.
But if you DO like what we’re doing, please take the time to thank our phenomenal team:
Enelya Sedai, who is the solid foundation of our Social Media team and diligently informs all of you of our going on at TarValon.Net. She fills the more traditional role of the Tower Voice (oh, by the way, she really needs help with this - you should apply!) and adapted to new my format without complaining once. She trained everyone on the team including her new “boss” (me) and the Social Media team simply could not function without her.
Mother, who finds the time in her impossible schedule to post a Question of the Week every week. She, too, had to adapt to changes. Her posts are a mixture of Wheel of Time and personal things, and she is the Social Media team’s SUPERHERO. Her posts are the most relevant and receive the most engagement on Facebook.
Our other phenomenal Social Media ninja warrior is Owena al'Saturni. She built our Pinterest page from the ground up. She gets crazy amounts of repins and brings new members to our site through this social channel. She is currently working on building up Instagram.
By building these social connections we hope to continue to grow our little intimate, wonderful community into a bigger, wonderful community.
We are hoping to add some new Social Media team members in May, so that we can continue to explore social media on Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook. Our Twitter engagement has not been impressive, so we are currently pondering if we should keep Twitter. We’ve started to blog (blog posts appear on the News page https://www.tarvalon.net/content.php) and also to connect with other Wheel of Time commuinities, both of which help us improve our SEO and get more visible online via Google searches.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for our team, please “lean back on your knife and let your tongue go free.”
Humbly,
Ne’Mireth Delvar Sedai, Social Media Manager
socialmedia@tarvalon.net
TarValon.Net's Social Media Sites:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tarvalon
- Tumblr: http://tarvalon-net.tumblr.com/
- Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/tarvalonnet/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tarvalonnet/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/@tarvalon
