"Thoughts from a Community Manager on Niantic's situation (long read)"

#PokemonGO: Hello fellow travellers,Just wanted to add some (well, many) of my thoughts on Niantic's unenviable situation. I am not trying to defend them per se, but I feel that some points need to be made! I promise your downvotes won't hurt... much. I'm also not offering my thoughts on the recent app changes: this is not that kind of post.So an introduction: I have previously been involved with community management with a very large audience (not as large as Niantic's, mind you!) and am currently in the process of considering a similar role at a large videogame studio (to clarify, not Niantic). I can only empathise and definitely sympathise with whoever is currently involved (and will be, in the future) with that job at Niantic.Community Managers (CM, to make my typing life easier) do get a fair degree of freedom when it comes to engaging a community, but it is never carte blanche. Most of the time, when everything is going as well as it can go, a CM would have generally free rein to discuss, engage, inspire and even challenge. Every organisation has different ideals and mantras, but the idea is usually the same: you're supposed to feel like a friend who happens to work at that company! It is genuinely an incredibly rewarding job.It needs to be noted that the supreme majority of Community Managers will still be working with and for a company's communications and PR departments (often reporting to the heads or global heads of these). And when things go wrong, it is usual to get a company-wide gag order whilst senior management work on the official, safe-for-consumption communique that will eventually go out. It's partially to prevent any misunderstandings and mostly to make sure the CM doesn't end losing his/her head, sanity and job dealing with backlash, especially as they're the most visible point of contact with the actual players. A CM may have training to speak in and with the public, but not always necessarily the correct training for dealing with the press. After all, someone with skills in doublespeak (no offense to those in legal and PR) wouldn't have the right temperament for this kind of role. In this situation, any communication can be misconstrued by the media, et al.And even if you wanted to say something? Unlike other times, it would naturally need to be screened anyway which tends to hold up your messaging (and can often make it irrelevant and late, thereby making it better to not have been sent out at all). It's a really delicate balancing act. This is how things are escalated, and that was a terrible company culture pun.Jokes aside, what has likely exacerbated this situation is that Niantic probably didn't have a full-time Community Manager (who will ideally own part of the strategy for this type of situation and can advise senior management accordingly, even if they can't respond to the community immediately), but they were avidly looking for one all this time. In fact, the role popped up in a conversation with my mentor (a very experienced community manager) and she said I should certainly give it a go (long story short: I wasn't quite sure at the time about moving that far abroad and didn't apply – happy to see that it's potentially being filled though!).To put things in some perspective, Ingress was a relatively new game and as such, a CM could get into it and learn about its culture and meta with the players themselves; Pokémon is an existing franchise associated with childhoods and still creates millions of new fans worldwide. That is probably one of the tallest orders to serve, especially when nostalgia is involved.However, there are certainly far better ways Niantic could have dealt with this.It was patently obvious a few months ago that this was not just a morbidly popular app like Candy Crush but one of the largest cultural phenomena in recent years. We've also evolved from closed forums with edgy, dark colour schemes: fans are engaging everywhere from social media to real life. While I'm loathe to quote Kotaku, they did express it well: "In 2016, it is not enough to build and launch the most popular game of the year. You have to talk to people, earn their trust, develop a relationship". A good community needs leadership, nurturing and trust, and a good CM is rightfully compared to a loving gardener. Niantic should have made this a priority because whilst I'm sure they're terrified to be placed in this much limelight and scrutiny, the best way to deal with such things is through transparency, openness and generosity.Whilst some of the naysayers in the PG community may be accused of entitlement, the status quo suggests that Niantic can be counter-accused of irresponsibility. While PG itself is a freely offered app, it is not bereft of monetisation and players have collectively spent millions in their currency of choice on it. That means this is a product that could easily be subject to the regulations of purchased digital items (I'm being very loose here since I'm sure there are rules upon rules and permutations of permutations on this subject matter). It is not surprising that many are seeking refunds.Secondly, this is more of a subjective argument, but one simply does not create a cultural force of nature and walk away from it. Niantic themselves have professed a longer term plan for this product and I am in no doubt that it will change and revert, and revert and change several times over this period. This means that such a situation could easily be repeated, so having a proper communications plan (and a CM with love for grass-type Pokémon) is going to be mandatory.Having said that: there is definitely going to be a longer term plan and one hopes this will be but a small hurdle in what is genuinely one of the loveliest social experiences in a long while.So, to the fans (and I'm confident that the /r/TheSilphRoad redditors are of this mindset) I say:Be patient – this is a BMVP (barely minimal viable product) that will certainly improve with leaps and bounds over time.Support the new Community Manager and show him/her that even when things get toxic (as they will), there are people who empathise and genuinely care about this amazing experience.Challenge Niantic politely and intelligently on their decisions, but do respect them.Do what you can to help other players if you meet them (easiest people ever to spot – I love it).Keep sharing your ideas on all aspects of PG – from the UX to backend development, from game mechanics to social features – while they won't always admit it, people at Niantic will look to the community for inspiration.And since it's /r/TheSilphRoad – as a data-driven community in a world of opinion, I'd like to think and hope that feedback and suggestions captured here will be given more gravitas than the average forum.And as part of the job application that I never made, I'll advise Niantic to:Take a deep breath and bask in some serious glory – you've brought people together at a time when the world is in a very shitty place.Give their Community Manager a lot of TLC because they'll be coming in at a difficult time – and over time, perhaps have a CM per region to cover different timezones and languages because this is a game being played by the whole world.Be aware that the fanbase goes far beyond Ingress and comes with added nostalgia which is one of the most potent forces in the world, aside from the Care Bear Stare.Having a mid- to long-term communications plan that takes into account as many possibilities as... er, possible.Have a few disaster and risk management workshops / roleplays for the whole company because it's always a good thing – something like this will happen again.When making decisions that you know will affect millions of people with something they emotionally engage with, please be mindful and aware of such awesome power – if it's perceived positively then go crazy and celebrate success, and if it's perceived negatively then be open and explain things without resorting to jargon.And of course TL;DR Being a community manager is difficult because they always need to balance needs from the community (players) with that of the company (who you work for). Niantic need to take more responsibility but they also should be proud of what they've achieved. Players need to engage with Niantic the same great way they do with others they bump into in real life but shouldn't be afraid of offering constructive feedback and continuing to be the very best (like no one ever was).PS: There are likely to be typos above, so I apologise for those. I'll revisit this later with fresh eyes and see what I can clean up.[EDIT 1]: Fixed a few typos and clarified a few things (expanding a little more on Community Managers).[EDIT 2]: Couple more typos fixed. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2b09Wox