Basic Social Media Strategy Can Be Used For Roleplay

Even if roleplay is cursory, to start off on the best of your ability, consider creating a social media strategy that works for you optimally. Hypefury has a few suggestions.

There is a key to create SMART goals that can be measured. One idea to consider in the SMART system is if you WANT to do it. If you do not want to do it, then don’t.

What is your target audience. It cannot be broad. It must be honed in and the only way to understand your audience is deciding your research.

While reach and engagement is very important in social media, for roleplay there is a watching factor that inherently occurs with each performance and the more in character you maintain. Out of character discussion, while simpler in concept have to be maintained. Roleplay if staged must be organized for effectiveness. Nevertheless, metrics are important for business related posts, no so much for hobbies. And yes, vanity metrics, such as likes and followers mean nothing overall.

Have engaging content. Posting several different concepts in life is confusing to your followers. Posting consistent content sets your expertise for the social media you want. Then content should be a balance between content text and images. A picture is worth 1000 words. Some pictures are utterly controversial, not because of nudity, but because someone, somewhere, disagrees about the content and they want to make their point known. Links that post images are the most useful. Without that image, the text goes unread. Videos and gifs work better.

Social media calendars are essential for specific campaigns for roleplayers. Discussing overall your expertise is a good thing, but directing dates and times of your posts to optimize the interaction with the audience is what you use your social media metrics for.

The issue with strict RP accounts is there is a time where there lots of interaction, then there is a long lull period. Lost of interaction period is when the new content is released. Use your calendar for estimating the concept of that. Use holidays. Prepare featured product releases. All podcasts and video releases. Think about how you are going to lead your audience and persuade them to your ideas of your expertise. Be prepared for hecklers because there is always a schism. Have a plan for that. The lull periods should be used for all your ideas being written somewhere on a blog, or site, etc. Your audience can be referred to your sites that go in depth. Then you can charge for more exclusive information.

Roleplay to the Star Wars Actors Guild 77 (SWAG77) means an outline and script written to perform on social media. Portrayal of a character is NOT roleplay to SWAG77. Portrayal is fun to do, but it does lead to wasted social media time. If all someone wants to do is distraction, shoot the breeze, piddle about, meaningless conversation, and/or trying to make friends you have never met, okay. Define what you want. But if you ever seen our roleplays, they are incredible. Lots of people wake up and watch. But it takes a lot of planning and practice.

How to Create a Social Media Strategy in 6 Easy Steps

FANS: HELP! I don’t know what the canon should be!

Once again, Star Wars fans have appears on the Star Wars Actor’s Guild 77 pages after all the “hate bash pages spewing misinformation” has had their fill ruining the fandom.

We said long ago on this blog that none of these “sites” read and study Star Wars like most RPers do — they just failed Star Wars. And powerful entities, influencers and decision-makers LISTENED to these fools, and ostracized us, mass reporting us to silence us.

We will repeat what we’ve said throughout our SWAG77, when you roleplay (RP) online you are responsible for knowing all your story attributes of your character and class. You need to know both canon AND LEGENDS (Star Wars Expanded Universe: SWEU).

Canon because it gives you direction of the kinds of stories Disney wants to tell.

And LEGENDS because they give you the thematic underlying deeper meanings why the Star Wars story works the way it works.

For example, the importance of HEIR TO THE EMPRE — THRAWN TRILOGY shows how THRAWN emotions while there are no emotions and the logic of the Chiss and the Chiss Ascendancy. But if a fan refuses to read it, then understanding why THRAWN NEVER MET SABINE WREN cannot be examined or understood in STAR WARS REBELS.

Sure, random speculations are one idea to do. But why is THRAWN suddenly wearing burgundy and who are these other burgundy wearing Chiss — one might be surprised exactly who — a fan who refuses to read fails to understand the interconnectedness of canon and Legends Star Wars stories.

We are seeing the same for The Mandalorian.

The sequels were created with obstinate to the fans. As such the last movie, TROS, in story confusion. But, that’s what happens when one fails to understand the underlying overall Star Wars story.

If TROS wanted to tell the story filmed in Star Wars context, the Legends story Splinter In The Mind’s Eye, could have been adapted for film. But, well we know what Abrams did or refused to do.

Reading books should always be encouraged.

#RP Performance Terminology and Common Abbreviations

RP Performance Terminology and Common Abbreviations – modified from ForceNet Jedi Council Forums

This list will be updated frequently

Star Wars Performance University (Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook) is where we talk about how to perform, to develop techniques, to write, to form plots, to develop story arcs, and actual performances, etc. The University is a trans-platform social media program. Anything that has to do with Star Wars and Improvised Performances will be posted on our sites.

 

Basic Social Media Terms for Oldbies

RL – Real Life

IRL – In Real Life

FB – Facebook

TT – Twitter less frequently used on FB or Twitter

Blr – Tumblr and used very infrequently

SW – Star Wars

 

STAR WARS SPECIFIC COMMON ABBREVIATIONS

Movies:

• TPM – Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

• AOTC – Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

• ROTS – Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

• ANH – Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

• ESB – Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back

• ROTJ – Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
• TFA – Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
• R1 – Star Wars: Rogue One Anthology
• TLJ – Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
• Solo – Solo, A Star Wars Story
• TROS – Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker

Television:

• TCW – Star Wars The Clone Wars
• SWR – Star Wars Rebels
• Resistance – Star Wars Resistance
• The Mandalorian – Star Wars The Mandalorian

RARELY discuss Ewoks or Droids, but… There are some of us geeks out there

 

Games:

• TFU I and II – Star Wars The Force Unleashed I and II
  • USE – Ultimate Sith Edition
  • DLC – Downloadable Content
• BF – Battlefront 1, 2, and 3
• KOTOR I and II – Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
• SWTOR – Star Wars The Old Republic
• Battlefront I and II
• FJ – Star Wars Fallen Jedi

A more exhaustive list of all the games is on Wookieepedia

 

Novels in the current lexicon being used:

• TCW – The Clone Wars
• Aftermath
• Bloodlines
• Rogue One Catalyst
• dTTT- Disney’s The Thrawn Trilogy
• dTA – Disney’s Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising

 Many more books now: support us http://bit.ly/SWStuffWAG77

Legends novels in the current lexicon that were used:

• TFUI or II – The Force Unleashed

• NJO – New Jedi Order

• FOTJ – Fate of the Jedi

• LOTJ – Legacy of the Jedi

PLEASE be respectful on the novels, artwork and pictures, because there are quite a few RL LFL approved Star Wars Authors, Artists, Filmmakers and Actors following various performers on FB and Twitter!

Do not be disrespectful to them and use profanity. That is just plain dumb! It’s almost like your job interview, they do a search on you.

 

STAR WARS TIMELINES:

ABY – After the Battle of Yavin in ANH. The standard zero-year; all dates in the SW universe are usually given in years relative to the Battle of Yavin. Also refers to the ABYverse, a group of games set in roughly 130ABY.

BBY – Before the Battle of Yavin in ANH. The standard zero-year; all dates in the SW universe are usually given in years relative to the Battle of Yavin.

(Disney a different timeline system that is confusing to most fans. Most fans use the above designations.)

 

PERFORMING (ROLEPLAYING):

At  SWAG 77 – the Star Wars Actors Guild 77, we prefer the term PERFORMER, because we follow canon, continuity and timeline Star Wars, closely. We take our cues from StarWars.com site and other sites for background of our performance characters, which are 99% canon character. All characters follow a storyline within their story arcs. We do this by a research scientific method. Moreover, Lucasfilm told us to follow canon, continuity and timeline, and we follow their rules, voluntarily.

We refrain the label as “roleplayers” (RPers) because it marginalizes us on social media.  We feel that PERFORMER is an accurate term for our workload. Another name for performer is MUN or mundane – the person who types and interacts with other accounts.

CS – Character Sheet. The character sheet is a form that you fill out before playing in the performance; it lists basic categories about your character: name, age, species, gender. Most managers will require a character sheet to start. We require it for canon characters because it will be the performer’s opinion of how to perform the character – also called the MUSE.

IC – In Character. It shows where you are writing the actual story of the character.

OOC – Out Of Character. Can be used as:

• OOC
• ooc
• /
• //
• ((…))
• {{…}}
• [[…]]

OOC is used as a representation of the MUN, as opposed to the muse, that needs to remark quickly on the feed. Typically done before your post.

Information posted on your OWN personal profile wall is out of character. SWAG77 refrains from self-inserts in our RP performances. We created characters.

In general, OOC should be used sparingly on social media even though fans do not read or care that your character is a roleplay performance character. How to manage the discrepancy is what SWAG77 rehearses.

 

Mainly for Facebook, but can be used for Twitter:

• Refrain from performing on a Facebook (personal Twitter) profile or creating a new fake profile because Facebook is notorious to deleting secondary accounts without any notice. (Not so much for Twitter, but they might be changing). All work as an RPer will be erased. 
• Perform on a Facebook Page or a set aside account on Twitter.
• Also, Facebook Statements of Rights and Responsibilities clearly states no fake profile accounts. Twitter’s TOS is ratcheting up that issue, too. It is a matter of how many text phone numbers you have.

Seriously, if you perform on your RL account, the performance interspersed to real life activities appear bizarre even in groups. What are you roleplaying for? If it for fun to self-insert and live out a fantasy? Or is it to perform like you are in a play that has meaningful entertainment for all those who watch – what SWAG77 does? Show fans your social media skills and pretend to be the character as portrayed. Because when you perform on your RL account, your brain is incapable to psychologically separate from what is real vs fake on social media. If your brain thinks it is real, then to you, it is real, even though it is not. It can make you mentally ill.

You can always ask if someone is IC or OOC.

Avoid posting anything on a performance account related to RL events or political positions, no matter how much you want. Reason is you will invariably get responses some may not like. Better to STAY IN CHARACTER and practice that than to make a lot of individuals, some of these individuals are emotionally unstable angry with your RL positions in life.

Careful what you post because you are responsible for the information. And there are no First Amendment Free Speech protections on Social Media — you have the right to say what you want, but if you defame someone, the other person can sue you. Moreover, employers always look at your social media. REALITY: You are what you post. The Internet Is Written In INK–NOT PENCIL! Your boss may ACTUALLY BE watching – which is ANOTHER reason why you do not perform with your RL account!

HOW TO PERFORM ADDING AN EMOTION OR ACTION:

*saying your favorite emotion or action* – wrapping your phrases with the use of the

• *…*
• -…-
• ~…~
• {…}
• […]

Are arbitrary “emotions” or “actions” you do on Social Media sites:

e.g.: *She yawns* I think I am tired…

It can be written into prose like this:

e.g. She yawns, “I think I am tired.”

 

CHAT:

Chat should be used for organizing the performance and discussing deep ideas for clarification. NOT for doing performances. 1) If you cannot perform in public, then you probably should not be doing it in private; 2) Performing in chat blurs the lines of RL vs Performance Life (PL) – people really connect to others by chat. Some people cannot separate the two and it is psychologically unhealthy. And 3) Chat is during performance helps you focus on the performance rather than being blind to the story arc.

IM – instant messaging

DM – direct message — more prevalent on Twitter

PM – private message — on older forms of Social Media

Services for chat is: DM on Twitter, and Facebook Messenger. SWAG77 isn’t at Discord Servers, yet. Have not had time. But, eventually.

 

STAR WARS PERFORMANCE SPECIFIC TERMS:

COMMUNICATIONS: HUGE DISCUSSION AND CAN CHANGE!!! Most are stated as an emotion or action during performance.

 

-com(m) – communications

-holo – have a Hologram communication

-holocom- – same as a hologram

comlink – Sometimes said, most times referring to Com

-villip – The organic equivalent of a communication device used ONLY by the Yuuzhan Vong

More to be added…