Tuesday, February 22, 2022

From the Tibia Forum as content dissemination to Instagram

 

Since the beginning of time in Tibia, the forum of the game's websitewas the main source of information and news for it's content.

In the Tibia forums there were spaces where quests were announced by neutral players and dominant guilds; purchases and sales of rare items, but mainly all the information of the wars such as deaths, PVP actions and transcendental events of the day were actively discussed and commented in it. The equation of how to influence the handling of information towards recipients was quite simple in these times: the post that was on the first page would be the most likely to be seen and the most viral or "hot" information would be the one that had the most quantized inputs in “views”.

In 2016, the new phenomenon of social networks arrived in which a relationship began between the, initially few, members of the Tibian community of Instagram. It started slowly actually, what is now the biggest means of disseminating updates about the video game community, at the beginning you could see that the content of the pioneers was merely about updates of their experiences in Tibia like RPG, achievements, outfits , decorations and PVP content.

The PVP community was the last to migrate from the forum to instagram and its integration brought a new complexity to this environment that until now had remained neutral in terms of tibia wars and we will explain this dynamic in this article. The author of the book "Fame Junkies", Jake Halpern, conducted a study in 2007 where 653 American children in fifth to eighth grade were asked to choose between intelligence, beauty or fame. Girls chose fame in most cases, and boys chose fame almost as much as intelligence. With this it was concluded that the psychological aspect of people can be strongly related to this status of social recognition, "at the end of the day it is not only money that people pursue, they also want the roar of prestigious applause, awards and social recognition".

The aspiration to prestigious fame has not been an invention of post-modern culture. If we go back in history we can see great personalities such as Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great or even Napoleon, that sought to be known around the world for their dominance and conquests with great influence to immortalize them in history forever. On the other hand, we find a real point in fame when it is not managed properly, in which it has a limit, a high peak of maximum expression and recognition just before falling back into oblivion. Mastering this knowledge is what today can make an influential person in Tibia and it is assumed that whoever manages the strategies better can have greater control of the perception of one team or war than the other. In this understanding it is assumed that social networks can today be a factor that influences the development of a person in a community like Tibia, for whatever purposes. This is why it is important to know what is behind the influential psychology in Tibia. We have had the opportunity to see that the moment a person decides to stand out in the community, either by being the leader of a server, streamer, iconic in some content (decorations, PVP, achievements); it is necessary to know that each action of his in the social network will begin to form what I call the DNA of his characterization within the game and the community. We call it a 'character' because it may or may not coincide with the moral or real characteristics of his person in real life. At this point, the friendly audience can become critical because they are recipients of any information you provide and in return they offer their “accompaniment”, their follow. Having more followers means having a greater reach of influence in the community and in the game, managed strategically can lead your message to be a trend or even an absolute truth in the receivers... at least until an influencer with a better message structure arrives, in other words , the smartest answer wins... And what does the loser lose? We could ask ourselves, the loser loses credibility, morale and admiration in the followers of the community. Creating your character has a lot to do with public relations theory. Next, we list a questioning guide to explain the creation of the character:

    1. What will my character be? Why? What qualities do I want to pursue from the character I've chosen?

    2. What will I need to feed the community with on my posts / stories to bring my character to life?

    3. What should I not show because it would confuse people with the perception of my character?


Finally and to sum up, the social media as a tool for influencing on the community of Tibia may seem more relevant to some than to others, nevertheless there is no place to denny that it is becoming a PR strategy that, at the moment quite raw and poorly handled by some players aiming to be influential but with the constant developement of the human being while learning, we must have to look close for those that finally get the hang of how powerful can it really be for their purposes.

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