At Team AMD Gamer, we created a 15-minute movie featuring highlights of the
most popular gamers. We hosted the movie exclusively on our site. The most
popular players all linked to the movie. 17,000 people joined our online
community in 72 hours.
The next week we asked members for ideas about the next movie. Who should be
in it? What should it feature? We called upon amateur editors to submit clips. We developed monthly
awards for the top players (and the worst).
We asked popular community members to form a committee to decide who was good enough to be
accepted into the next film. Members returned often to see who might be in the
next movie. Clips that didn't make the cut became promotional material, we
released them as teasers (members only).
Nearly the entire second movie was open-sourced. It was much less work. The
second movie gained just under 41,000 downloads, and included two ads.
You can use a big tactic to get registrations. The real magic is to keep
these newcomers coming back without betraying them. Develop the tactic into it's
own community, it should bolt on to what you already have.
