African-American Video Game Writers and Social Media: Evan Narcisse

Evan Narcisse’s bio describes him as a nerd-for-hire.  His work as a freelance writer has appeared in Crispy Gamer, the Washington Post, the Atlantic Monthly, and Essence.  Evan covers comic books, pop culture, and, of course, video games.  Here are the insights he shared with us about his use of social media as a video game writer.

We asked Evan to list the social media tools that he uses as a freelance writer.  He mentioned the two big ones, Facebook and Twitter, as well as a few other services.

“I’m on Facebook and Twitter, and have dabbled with things like Digg, StumbleUpon or Yahoo Buzz. I use the TweetDeck program because it services multiple accounts on both platforms,” he said.

David’s use of Digg, StumbleUpon, and Yahoo Buzz was not too surprising since they are great sites for gathering breaking news or finding interesting web sites.  They all can can be tailored to focus on a specific topic like video games.

We then asked David to list specific examples of how he uses social media to cover the video game industry.

“Social networking helps me figure out what people are interested in and how they react to certain topics and articles,” David explained. “I’ve used social networking to figure out if there are particular questions that people want answered by someone I’m going to interview or to see what people are curious to know more about when I do a preview or a review.  Twitter’s great when used to as a sort of instant focus test and I sometimes rely on it to reach out to a developer or a source that I don’t already know. I can also see if something I’ve produced gets around thanks to Digg or StumbleUpon.”

I have also found that social networking is a great “test bed” for determining if a topic is of interest to a general audience.  As David mentioned, writers can use social media sites to gather interesting questions for interviews and decide what characteristics gamers want covered in a video game preview or review.  This provides an opportunity for a writer to tailor an article the needs of its core audience before a word is even written.

Since Evan has his finger on the pulse of the video game industry, we asked him what he thinks about the industry’s use of social media.

He answered, “Because the core audience of video games tends to be fairly tech-savvy, the developers and publishers of video games tend to use things like Twitter for marketing, creating awareness and occasionally soliciting feedback. It’s free marketing, free publicity and a chance to engage the curious. If done correctly or sincerely, a connection across social networks can turn a skeptic into a believer.”

One of the key benefits of social media is the opportunity for large monolithic companies to make direct personal connections to the audience that is most eager to buy their products and services.  By listening and responding to this audience, companies can get what is essentially free market research.  However, as David cautioned, sincerity and authenticity are vital to forming strong ties with customers through social media.

We closed the interview by asking how David uses social media to connect with other minorities in his field.

“Twitter has done a little to help me find folks, but Facebook’s been more instrumental in terms of finding people and helping me stay in touch. Social networking can provide a safe channel to talk about the always-touchy topic of racial portrayals in games and it’s also useful when you want to broadcast such discussions.”

While Twitter and Facebook are both the dominant social media sites in North America, users often approach them differently.  Some, like David find Facebook to be a better tool for staying in touch with others.  Others, see Twitter as a better relationship building service due to the simplicity of the 140 character interface.  In either case, both sites serve as useful tools to help minorities find and interact with each other across multiple industries and interests.

About the Author
Anjuan Simmons is an emerging technology consultant and freelance technology consultant currently working as a Director at Adverlyze, an online marketing strategy company. Anjuan has previously worked for Accenture and Deloitte. He has an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Texas A&M University. He can be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/anjuan and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/anjuan.
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