Hello Viewers,
Let me first introduce myself, My name is Alison, I am the new site manager for Invision Community from November 2017 for up to 6 months. I am taking over the site on behalf of the site manager and owner Craig, as he is expecting his first child with his partner around that time. I will be using the standard IGC Admin to post all news, so there will be no changes to the current format. I shall also be using Invisions Twitter Account to post news too.
Facebook will only be used for posting giveaways, staff work and random news from the web and site. Going forward, Twitter will be a primary news outlet.
When I was asked to run the site, I threw myself at the opportunity, who would not, a well-established website with contacts all over the place, respect from them all, this is a chance for me to learn, gain contacts and see how things work. As I am in university and studying MSc Business & Management, doing this will give me a good inside scoop on how everything ticks, from site management, social, site growth and much more. I hope the experience I gain from doing this, will give me the edge when studying, which right now seems like there is a lot to learn, with a lot of play and student events #studentlife
I am not a social fan in any way, I do not own a Twitter or Facebook account and do not intend on getting one, I believe social media brings out the good in us, but also the ugly, it’s also an easy way to belittle and attack individuals, studios or sites without any thought for the individuals you are hurting, which I feel is wrong and something needs to be done to stop this from happening. If someone wishes to communicate with me then there is a thing called a telephone or face to face.
I have been training for the last few weeks, been posting the majority of the news, while Craig is decorating his home ready for the little one. I have also been playing, what I can only class and a shed load of games, damn never seen so many, he is swimming in AAA and Indie titles. Well, posting news is simple as we copy and paste all press releases, add images, videos, and all links. I found getting this perfect, took some time and some slight improvements here and there, but Craig is a great tutor. He showed me, how some press releases were done in the past when left in the hands of someone else with basic training, which for me seems like enough to get this just about perfect. SHOCKING, who ever did some of these, seems to simply not care, but that’s my opinion, not everyone is up to the task.
When I first started training I asked why did we simply copy and paste press releases, I was told, do some research, check other sites like us and tell me what you find. I simply found that the majority of sites create unique work based on press releases or little to nothing. Now creating unique content is great, and it can bolster your viewer base, but creating unique content, with little to nothing showing on site, make little to no sense to me, but I presume this is down to how each site is managed or what their end goal is.
The big sites have plenty of money and plenty of staff to create unique content all the time, the little sites, do not have the same benefits, though I feel if you are going to enter the world of gaming, technology, entertainment or movies through journalism there should be at least one full-time member of staff working on content to give the site a constant influx of visitors, otherwise all your work on creating the site, putting work on the site and all the contacts you have made is a waste of time, as your site is not going to grow at a pace that deems ‘fit for purpose’ (good enough to do the job it was designed to do).
So I found sites that did unique, or small amounts, but it was hard to find any sites that did what we do, so I asked again, and I got told, it is all about giving viewers all the information, not snippets, yes unique content would be great, but having a job or going to university, time is not on your side, and for a site to grow a constant stream of content is required, and with us posting news like we do, it’s proven that we have respect from many game studios around the globe and where it counts, site stats and Alexa Ranking.
What is Alexa, it tracks your viewer base, we have a code from Alexa on our site, like many others do, this allows a bot to watch and track every hit and view to the site and gives a true representation of how well the site is doing.
Our Social media is not all that great and it is not something I personally care about, but I have seen how to cheat insights on Facebook, it’s rather shocking that this is allowed and people do it, although it is what I expected, the ugly side of individuals, is shown in many ways.
Now, what is Craig be doing from November? he will be looking after his little one and his partner through the first months of birth, making sure his little one gets the best start in life and they are away from any stressful environments like work. As he is self-employed, paternity leave is available, so for the first few months, they will be both taking time off, then his partner will go back to teaching and Craig will be getting the paternity pay instead, from what I know it is not a lot, but it’s better than nothing. What I am most impressed by, is that Craig will be the full-time parent, it is rare to see the Dad take up that role, I do understand why, as he works from home with his jobs, so choosing to do this makes perfect sense. I wonder what sort of reaction he will get in mother and baby groups or even taking his little one swimming, or to the local park, from what I have seen its mostly mothers.
Craig will not be taken a full step back when it comes to running the site he will still be ordering all games and making sure staff are on the ball, getting what they want and handing in on time. Also, all site security, site updates and any major issues that develop, which is rare.
To the viewers, I hope I do not let you down, to the publishers, developers and PR team, keep the news flowing and as Craig always says: ” You send it, we Post it”.
