Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

While peoples attention was being diverted elsewhere, it looks like GW quietly closed down most of their social media channels for specialist games and Black Library social media as well, instead instructing people to follow the main Warhammer social media presence. Spikey Bits has screenshots, and memes:

https://spikeybits.com/2023/03/gw-abandoning-their-social-media-pages-again.html

This comes after the Forgeworld social media channels were closed or renamed to 'Horus Heresy'

What do you make of it - cost-cutting measure, an attempt to tighten 'message control' or dire portent for the future of side games?

Spikeybits is really hurting for clicks, huh?

No real different than having the Warhammer Community site all in one place instead of a Warhammer News, Blood Bowl News, Necromunda News, Horus Heresy News all as separate sites.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Spikeybits is really hurting for clicks, huh?

I don't know, i don't usually go there, i just saw the article when looking for an unrelated FAQ and posted about it.

it probably just makes it easier to keep up with what's going on

only one feed & message inbox to keep an eye on per social media site

easier to police the fake pages that keep cropping up too

so it could mean fewer people involved, but i don't think it will

People who are following the specialist game pages are following the main Warhammer ones anyway. This means less work for social media handlers for pages that generate less traffic than the main three.

 Gert wrote:
People who are following the specialist game pages are following the main Warhammer ones anyway.

I don't but hey ho. Another reason for me to ditch the Facebook now...

I would think that having multiple channels and people signing up for multiple games or game systems was a good thing.

If nothing else it means I'll see the same bit of news twice, plus reposts and links.

Ah well. Seems short signed but maybe social media interns are more expensive than I thought.

People get really irate about marketing messages and gettnig the same message more than once. So having multiple channels can backfire if people sign up but you're still running all the subgroup ads through the main site as well.
There's also laws now about removing people from your social media and email marketing so this could be part of it too. People opting out of lots of channels and cutting down to just a few.

Consolidation isn't a bad nor panicking move, its just GW consolidating their socials. This might simply make it a lot easier for them or mean that soicals that aren't as active get rolled in.

So instead of having a specialist game with very few posts spread out over a long period of time (looks very inactive and such); they have fewer socials that are active all the time.




It's likely simply restructuring their social media campaign and ensuring that what they keep active is used, popular, important and is giving them the clicks and attention. Heck just cutting down might mean that the single core account gets more clicks, more focus and thus ranks higher than spreading it all out and diluting their content and clicks.

Spikey Bits: “GW is closing Facebook pages, this can only be bad”
Also Spikey Bits: What was Games Workshop doing in Germany between 1939 to 1945?

Overread for exaltation. Indeed, these pages weren't really active since news about Blood Bowl and Necromunda weren't that many over the time.

Some people only playing these games are already overreacting to this by saying it means their games will be shut down and that's why we have an article about it on Spikeybitz : clickbait at its best to surf on these people's fears. On the related pages, a last post was made to inform their followers it was closed but they still answered to the comments there. And they insisted that there will still be news for their games in the future, it will just be posted on the main facebook page instead.

So there's nothing to be afraid of here, and there is no "dark sneaky scheme" at work either.

The memes are great, though. “Tom Kirby somehow returned.”

By and large it's nothing, but I'm quite surprised they're closing the Black Library one.

 The Phazer wrote:
By and large it's nothing, but I'm quite surprised they're closing the Black Library one.

They closed the Instagram account for Black Library, the Facebook Account seems to be alive and well. It may have something to do with their internal structure, maybe the person that does all the Instagram stuff got made redundant or reassigned. It may also be that Instagram is not very conductive to the content they're rolling out, who knows.

Tsagualsa wrote:

 The Phazer wrote:
By and large it's nothing, but I'm quite surprised they're closing the Black Library one.

They closed the Instagram account for Black Library, the Facebook Account seems to be alive and well. It may have something to do with their internal structure, maybe the person that does all the Instagram stuff got made redundant or reassigned. It may also be that Instagram is not very conductive to the content they're rolling out, who knows.

I guess that makes a bit more sense. Also Instagram is fundamentally probably about showing pictures for GW, so it's less of an issue for the BL.

Can BL fans, for instance, post excitedly about getting their latest book to amp up the hype? That is, does instagram charge a corporate fee for gw to be on there hawking?

I think its simply that Instagram, like a lot of social media today, relies HEAVILY on regular active posting of new content all the time to get your site to appear anywhere or rank.

BL just isn't a huge source of new photos or images. So it doesn't surprise me that it might not be meeting engagement targets and, whilst it might not cost a fortune to run, its still staff time and stuff that has t obe worked on.


So yeah I can see GW pulling that one very easily and focusing on their more image generating systems to be on instagram

GW realising what most regular gamers don’t when it comes to Facebook groups/pages - multi topic works best rather than overly specialised.

I'm not surprised they close the BL one. The person in charge of that page was really just hired to delete all the complaints every time there is a BL release and the webstore goes down.

As for the other pages, I find it a bit annoying at most. I don't follow their main page(s) only Necromunda & BL, and I'm not going to follow their warhammer page when I'm only really interested in being notified when a new necromunda release is coming. I got sick of their FOMO advertising and have no interest in being bombarded with daily reminders of what new 40k/HH release is coming.

To be honest its not big loss. The minute anything gets announced its reposted 10 times over all the fan pages anyway.

 TwilightSparkles wrote:
GW realising what most regular gamers don’t when it comes to Facebook groups/pages - multi topic works best rather than overly specialised.

Oh my god I super hate all the really specific niche Facebook groups and then they complain they didn’t know about the tournament you’re holding because they only follow the one for their specific town and why didn’t you advertise it there but you didn’t even know that group existed and you definitely don’t want to have to repost that ad for every single city in your state even if you did.

Yeah there's weird desire to split up discussions between multiple platforms and groups.

Generally ends up less discussion in both groups.

Consolidation of accounts is usually better.

You don't see Coca Cola with a separate twitter for Coke and another one for Coke Zero.

Less staff time needed, more chance the followers of minor pages might like the main games and vice versa? Saying that I bet most were already subscribed tot eh main one and the minor one.

drbored wrote:
Consolidation of accounts is usually better.

You don't see Coca Cola with a separate twitter for Coke and another one for Coke Zero.

But Coke isn't releasing FAQs for their products, or expansions.
Too many updates get lost in the main feeds to catch everything about a game you want to stay updated about.

 Skinnereal wrote:

drbored wrote:
Consolidation of accounts is usually better.

You don't see Coca Cola with a separate twitter for Coke and another one for Coke Zero.

But Coke isn't releasing FAQs for their products, or expansions.
Too many updates get lost in the main feeds to catch everything about a game you want to stay updated about.

Yes, but at the same time these accounts are not just informatoin but social media. Right now SM works best with lots of regular updates. Many small updates are what get you attention; big meaty important ones every so often just don't work.

So GW is bringing more under one account, rather than having SM accounts that are used too rarely to make them work.

In the end it also means that you get exposed to more cross promotional material. So you might end up picking up a new 40K army because now you're getting all your news through one resource - or at least fewer resources that are more generalist.

 Skinnereal wrote:

drbored wrote:
Consolidation of accounts is usually better.

You don't see Coca Cola with a separate twitter for Coke and another one for Coke Zero.

But Coke isn't releasing FAQs for their products, or expansions.
Too many updates get lost in the main feeds to catch everything about a game you want to stay updated about.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was one place for faq's and erratas. And downloadable contents.

One can hope eh?

I prefer update info for individual games to direct me to the central site, than a constant stream of unrelated updates causing attention to wain.

 Overread wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:

drbored wrote:
Consolidation of accounts is usually better.

You don't see Coca Cola with a separate twitter for Coke and another one for Coke Zero.

But Coke isn't releasing FAQs for their products, or expansions.
Too many updates get lost in the main feeds to catch everything about a game you want to stay updated about.

In the end it also means that you get exposed to more cross promotional material. So you might end up picking up a new 40K army because now you're getting all your news through one resource - or at least fewer resources that are more generalist.

They do cross-post already. 40k and AoS feeds both show big announcements for both. Necromunda's feed got big news updates about 40k.

tneva82 wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:

drbored wrote:
Consolidation of accounts is usually better.

You don't see Coca Cola with a separate twitter for Coke and another one for Coke Zero.

But Coke isn't releasing FAQs for their products, or expansions.
Too many updates get lost in the main feeds to catch everything about a game you want to stay updated about.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was one place for faq's and erratas. And downloadable contents.

One can hope eh?

Like some sort of central community, but for warhammer?

Yea. Sure would be convenient wouldn't it?

Yeah, it's all stored in one place.
But, who visits the WarCom site every day on the off-chance of an update? I use the FB posts to tell me when new content drops, and visit then.

WarCom already has the problem of too much info flowing through one place, on its main page.