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So I've been giving this subject a little thought. How do we, the hobbyists, view GW in the context of their social media? Do they engage with us effectively? Is it merely a tool for them to sell more models and rulesets? With the potential for user-generated content is GW on the pulse or are they missing a trick? With a system designed around assembling and painting your own models and forging your own tales of insane heroism and dastardly betrayal GW has nothing to lose in pursuing this further.

I look at their instagram account and 2 things strike me immediately:
1) if you search games workshop your biggest hits are unofficial accounts
2) their warhammer community (the official GW insta) is primarily focused on selling rather than highlighting the community (at least at a swift looking-over)

So, given the hobby aspect of the game and the nature of user involvement in this type of medium, do we think GW could make their Facebook, their Instagram, their Twitter a lot better by actually using them to show the community of gamers and painters what that community is doing? As it is, it is quite clear that the fan-generated content online is the place where you hear the most about tactics, the application of new units, how to find games, where to find games, what the gaming community is like and where you find showcases of beautiful armies.

Going forward I would like to see GW keep it's Facebook updated FAR more regularly with content based on what hobbyists are doing. Let's see who's 'good', whats interesting, etc. Same goes for their Warhammer Community insta: make it truly community focused, it doesn't need to to be a lesser version of the WC website!

What does Dakka think? Do you care? Do you think you would benefit from a tighter so-media game from Gee Dubs? Would you like to feel more engaged with the company and also see the company actively act as a bridge between gamers and painters around the world? I feel there is so much missed potential here...

I do not say this to excuse GW and their social outreach but.

Its far far better than the dark times of the previous years. From Cease and Desists to blackouts of even basic releases and no interaction whatsoever with the base. GWs current offering makes them comparative media darlings.

GW still has a lot to learn but I am not sure they will be changing or adapting too readily. For GW the 'hobby' revolves around their website (selling) and stores (selling). They are on the right track but it takes time for GW to change anything.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
I do not say this to excuse GW and their social outreach but.

Its far far better than the dark times of the previous years. From Cease and Desists to blackouts of even basic releases and no interaction whatsoever with the base. GWs current offering makes them comparative media darlings.

GW still has a lot to learn but I am not sure they will be changing or adapting too readily. For GW the 'hobby' revolves around their website (selling) and stores (selling). They are on the right track but it takes time for GW to change anything.

You are correct and this is exactly the issue I have outlined. Their use of social media IS focused on selling, but a morer successful approach (and in the long term more profitable) would be to ease up on that I think.

On their instagram, I've definitely seen them repost and showcase the work of their fans before, especially when Kill Team was being released.

Do they engage with us effectively? Is it merely a tool for them to sell more models and rulesets?

well to be honest... yes and yes. Don't get me wrong I like the engagement but companies engage with the fans because it does help sales. sales increase when people feel there is a community to the product it strengthens brand loyalty etc. these are desirable from a sales POV but it's also, good for us as fans as that sense of community can be valuable for a fandom.

The less of any corporate entity on social media the better, ideally all of them should be banned, but that's not going to happen ever.

I enjoy it - it has some interesting and fun elements, they are quite responsive and it seems a good thing to me.

I've found their parody twitter accounts to be deeply amusing myself.

But honestly, with how established the 40k community is if they actively engaged it more they'd be disrupting things considerably. And from a corporate stand point they'd then have to actually try to manage community content rather than leaving it to the randos who signed up to do it free years ago.

GW is playing it very safe for the most part, and given the state of their forums when they closed them down I hardly blame them.

I'd certainly prefer it if they kept their attempts at "humour" confined to those parody accounts though - corporations are not your buddy, and when customers bring a concern or complaint to them responding with twitter-points #funneh "jokes" makes them seem - to anyone sane enough to grasp the previous not-your-buddy thing - like unconcerned arseholes. What's weird to me is all these companies still expect their employees to act like professionals in a face-to-face interaction with a customer, and they certainly demand it of employees interacting with their overlords within the company, so why should people online get stuck with lesser CS?

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
On their instagram, I've definitely seen them repost and showcase the work of their fans before, especially when Kill Team was being released.

I think that they should do this more often.

Should the community aspect be pushed further to the fore with their social media?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Morden wrote:
I enjoy it - it has some interesting and fun elements, they are quite responsive and it seems a good thing to me.

This is true - they are more responsive. I am thinking less in terms of how they have improved and how they can improve from here.

Overall point: should there be more fan-driven content pushed by their inst or f-book or whatever?

How do we, the hobbyists, view GW in the context of their social media?

I don't. Social media is marketing. Creepy false-face marketing, but nothing more than that, with the additional burden of requiring invasive platforms (for people who browse it)

So I've less interest in it than even traditional marketing.

I heard recently, on good authority, that GW's marketing and PR dept has outgrown their design studio.

Their design studio currently runs at over 200 people.

The implications of that are fairly obvious.

 Azreal13 wrote:
I heard recently, on good authority, that GW's marketing and PR dept has outgrown their design studio.

Their design studio currently runs at over 200 people.

The implications of that are fairly obvious.

Time for Christmas layoffs?

GW's Instagram account was originally set up as a way for the 'Eavy Metal team to interact with the community and included tutorials like the following...



For a brief period GW used Instagram as an additional way to share their YouTube painting tutorials. Unfortunately that meant the tutorials could only be one minute in length...



So after backlash from the community, the tutorials returned to normal and the Instagram became basically what it is today.

No problem with the community channel and think its the best part of modern Games Workshop.

Games Workshop, and Forge World, sadly do not give them enough to work with at times. For example, Adeptus Titanicus had two articles telling players how to effectively use Warlords and Warhounds which its pointless in a game with only 3 Titans in the whole range, and the last titan being released over a year beforehand. Then telling us how to how many boxes of Knights to buy for a household lance six months after we actually needed that info.

Then there was the Psychic Awakening where the channel spent weeks pumping us up for the new Banshee and Jain Zar models(and succeeding!)...only to then make them exclusive in a very expensive £140 boxset.

 Azreal13 wrote:
I heard recently, on good authority, that GW's marketing and PR dept has outgrown their design studio.

Their design studio currently runs at over 200 people.

The implications of that are fairly obvious.

Putting the cart before the horse as it were?

GW use of social media is now leaps and bounds better then it was during the dark times...

Then again I'm old school. I still remember back when the main GW site had forums. That's where i would go to get answers to questions about the game before they closed all that down.

At least they now acknowledge that the internet exists instead of shunning it. Everything GW has done in the last 5 years have been a vast improvement for both marketing and player engagement.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
GW use of social media is now leaps and bounds better then it was during the dark times...

Then again I'm old school. I still remember back when the main GW site had forums. That's where i would go to get answers to questions about the game before they closed all that down.

At least they now acknowledge that the internet exists instead of shunning it. Everything GW has done in the last 5 years have been a vast improvement for both marketing and player engagement.

GW's forums weren't called the 'Eye of Terror' for no reason.

I think they're better off staying away. PP is really active and the staff get bombarded with questions; stuff they say has come back to bite them. Can't deny that it isn't fun to see all the criticism they get though.

It's a start, but given it's a start a decade behind the rest of the world it comes off as somewhat disingenuous, simplistic and mostly just another advertising channel, but a lot of the internet looks like that to me these days, still I reverse most of my bile for 'paywalls' that will teach you to play 40k better,,,,

I don't really see it, because i left or never were on any of the places they go for social media. in general i don't bother with the stuff.

but it's always about selling a product. guess it doesn't help most of what they sell im not interested in these days.

What would people prefer to see from their social media presence?

Maybe they're looking to get better with a new Social & Digital Messaging Manager.