Connect With Us
February 23rd, 2010

Posted by Matt

This is a topic I have covered many times, both on this blog, and on the forums, but with so many new viewers coming in from The Escapist, I think it’s worth a retread:

The internet is an increasingly interconnected and social place for people with shared interests to gather, pass information around, and enjoy varied entertainment – facilitated largely by the social networking tools that have become mainstream in the last five years. With the growth of these platforms it’s become ever more important for content producers, like us, to make use of them. The more avenues of connection and consumption we offer, the more options you, as a viewer, have to access and share the content we put up. Bearing that in mind, the purpose of this post is to direct viewers, new and old, to the various tools we’re using to enhance your viewing experience.

Nearly every member of the core crew has a personal Twitter account, and we’re all very active on them. Most of us use these accounts simply for fun, but they’re a great way to get to know us, and to connect with us in near real-time. If you have a small question or message for a member of the crew – Twitter is unquestionably the single best way to contact any of us.

@Graham_LRR
@Matt_LRR
@Jer_LRR
@James_LRR
@Kathleen_LRR
@Tim_LRR
@Tally_LRR
@Ashley_LRR
@eximworks (Alex)

Additionally, there’s also an account for LoadingReadyRun itself. We use this account almost exclusively for updates, reminders and little news items that don’t warrant a blog post themselves. If you want to know the moment a video has gone online, or get an update to tell you to check the blog, this is the account you want to follow. If you aren’t on Twitter, we’ve mirrored this account in the side bar – so you can still see what we’re saying.

@LoadingReadyRun

If you’re a fan of our Child’s Play Fund Raiser ‘Desert Bus for Hope’, you also probably want to follow that account. It’s your first source of news and updates for anything Desert Bus.

@Desertbus

Very recently, James set up a LoadingReadyRun Fan Page on Facebook. If you’re a Facebook user, you’d probably be well served to become a fan. On this page we post photo albums, links, events, and a variety of other info. There’s loads of other fans there you can connect with, and Facebook is a great way to share LRR videos with your friends and family. If you want to meet some other people that like LRR as much as you do, this is a great place to start.

If you’re visiting from The Escapist, then you certainly know that each of our video posts there is accompanied by a discussion topic in the Featured Content Forum. What you may not know is that we also maintain our own message board system here on our own website. We have a very loyal and close-knit group of fans over here, with a lot of in-jokes and banter, which can come off as a bit intimidating, but fear not – they’re a good group of people, and newcomers are always welcome. Go introduce yourself, meet a few people, and join the party. If you’re a long-time LRR forumite, and you haven’t yet signed up for The Escapist Forums, I encourage you to do so. There are a lot of new viewers over there who have only just been introduced to LRR, and who could really use a helping hand to find and make their way through our old content, and into our community. You guys are our ambassadors to The Escapist, and it’s you who hold the most power to bring new viewers into the fold of LRR fandom.

Thanks, everyone. These are just a few of the ways you can get your fill of LRR every week. Hopefully you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoy making it – and hopefully, if you aren’t already, you’ll soon be an active participant in the LRR community!

Putting the ‘Social’ in ‘Social Media’
September 25th, 2009

Posted by Matt

Hey everyone!

Over the past few weeks, you may have noticed a shift in how LoadingReadyRun has been working towards getting our videos “out there” more. The first major step was our move to YouTube as our video host. More recently, we’ve been announcing our video updates to Twitter, and posting our videos on Digg. These social media tools offer huge opportunities to us insofar as exposure is concerned because of how easy they make it to tell people how you feel about our work.  That said, these tools rely on a degree of audience participation to really provide their greatest benefit.

We need your help.  If you follow us on Twitter, please remember to retweet our video updates.  Share our videos with your followers and encourage them to share with theirs.  Don’t be afraid to ask your followers to “Please RT!”.  Similarly, we’ll be putting together an official LoadingReadyRun FaceBook page soon, to which we’ll be posting our updates, as well as pictures and news – remember to let your friends lists know when a new video comes out!

 With regards to YouTube and Digg, we ask that you consider taking a moment (right now) and signing up for a user account on each. Aside from the fact that both are great sites that aggregate tons of awesome content every single day – they also allow you to help take control of what gets seen. On YouTube every rating, every channel subscription, every video comment and every view is accounted for, and the more there are, the more chance a video has of being seen. Even if you usually watch from the LRR homepage, rather than from our YouTube channel, we’d really appreciate it if you could subscribe to our channel, and rate our videos.  All it takes is a single click-through. If you have something that you might say in the forum discussion, feel free to drop it into the comment thread on YouTube as well!  Digging something takes even less effort, but it’s less democratic in its aggregation process – when we put a video up on Digg, we need a lot of people to digg it in a very short period of time or it will fall under the radar. 

 For the moment, we’re asking you to please take the initiative.  Please sign up for a Digg and YouTube account, and rate, comment, subscribe and Digg away.  Over the next several weeks, we’ll be working on adding tools like a Digg link and a share on Facebook link to the video pages to make it even less of a hassle. We’re also looking at adding a few other pieces of functionality to our homepage that enhance our ability to communicate directly with you, our viewers, and keep you up to date with the latest news, events and announcements.

 Social media provides us a ton of opportunity to grow, but without your help – without the ‘social’ part – we’re not using it to it’s full potential.  So Runners, fans, friends, followers, please help us out. A few clicks from each of you would go a very long way.

Cheers,

Matt