Vendor Best Practices
Welcome aboard the BoLS Gamewire! If you are reading this, either you have been approved or are thinking about signing your company up and want to know more. This document will give you instructions, system-rules, and guidelines to help you improve your company syndicated press releases and maximize their marketing impact.
Let’s get started shall we!
Basic BoLS Gameswire Rules and Capabilities:
Daily Posting Limits:
There is a vendor cap of TWO POSTS PER DAY, the the GAMEWIRE will publish. If you are attempting to manually add a post and already have 4 posts in the system for the day in question, you will receive a prompt to alter the publication date to a valid day. If you are using an automated RSS Feed for submissions, the system will syndicate the first four posts it locates for a 24-hour period, and disregard the rest. This daily cap is in place as both an anti-spam measure and to ensure a healthy mix of content variety.
System Logins
When a vendor is approved, they will receive an email sent to the email address submitted to the GAMEWIRE vendor Sign-up page. The email will contain you username and password for logging into the system to manage your account. Please save this email with your login information, and note that your username may be slightly altered from what you submitted.
YOU ONLY NEED TO REGISTER ONCE, not each time you submit a post. If you have lost your login credentials, please ask for assistance by emailing us with subjectline: GAMEWIREHELP at [email protected].
Account Management
Once you have logged into the GAMEWIRE, you may manage your account information. Once within the system backend, press the “Users” tab on the left column to be taken to you vendor account settings. Here you can change things such as your email address, social media links, and contact information. You can also alter, or add an RSS Feed for your account, along with your automated RSS settings such as default content categories, and image processing settings. Once in the system, a valid RSS feed will automatically generate posts without you having to lift a finger, or manually login.
Be sure to press the “Update User” button at the bottom of the screen to save your changes.
Manual Posting
You may always login to the system and manually compose posts for your account. You can do this whether you have an RSS Feed enabled or not. Once within the system backend, press the “Posts” tab on the left column. This will take you a screen displaying all of your current vendor posts, and you may view or edit any of these.
To compose a new post, press the “Add New” button on the upper left of this window to be taken to the “Add New Post” screen. This is a fairly standard post editing screen that will allow you to easily add text and upload images for your post. There is a preview mode to see what the post will look like on the system. The “Featured Image” box on the lower right allows you to select which image from your post will appear on the Gamewire Frontpage as the post thumbnail (your company logo will be used if no Featured Image is selected). When you are ready to submit the post, select the desired date (or publish immediately) from the “Publish” settings on the upper right.
Automated RSS Posting
The automated RSS posting feature is designed for companies who are creating high quality germane product related content and publishing it via an RSS feed. This feature is designed as a time saver for marketing efforts, and will automatically syndicate your RSS content across the BoLS Network and our network of affiliated bloggers. It allows you to focus your time on making the best quality marketing material ONCE, and get it out to a large audience with no additional effort.
Please ensure you are publishing ONLY germane and high quality product information with images, backlinks, call to actions and other such “consumer focussed” features. BoLS Interactive retains the right to remove access to the automated RSS syndication feature from any account who is producing low quality or unrelated topic RSS content.
Logging Out
Always remember to logout via the top right pulldown menu when you are done working on the system.
GAMEWIRE Marketing Best Practices
These are a set of general guidelines to help improve the performance, reach, and conversions for your posts. They are here as suggestions only.
1) Pictures, pictures, pictures – An image is worth 1000 words. Posts with several relevant images will get much more attention than text only submissions. In general we suggest .jpg images no larger than 1400×700 pixels. Always set a specific image in your posts to be used as the frontpage thumbnail image for the article, which you set using the “Featured Image” box in the post editor.
2) Snappy Headlines – Many readers just skim article titles and only clickthrough on what catches their eye. The art of headlining is tricky, so experiment relentlessly.
3) Company Backlinks – Always give you readers several easy opportunities to click back to relevant parts of your website for more information. If you have an company store, be sure to give your customers a chance to convert into revenue in each post.
4) Video is Great – Many customers are especially drawn to video in this YouTube era. Embed videos using standard RSS media enclosures (ask your IT staff about this) to have them appear in your posts automatically.
5) Short and Sweet – Giant walls of text are an unfortunate turnoff to a great many internet readers. Its best to grab them with a great headline, get them the facts and follow up with a call to action. If you must throw in pages and pages of text, be sure to break it up a bit with photos or videos to break it up.
6) Calls to Action – These do work. Ask your readers for feedback, or to answer a question. Not only will you be generating some additional clickthroughs, but you will also probably drive a conversation on your topic in the user comments. People talking about your submissions is only a good thing.
7) Slow and Steady Wins the Race – A steady drip, drip, drip of news releases, hobby content, etc… usually performs better than press releases posted in intermittent spurts. A nice steady pace builds a relationship with your readers who will learn to make you a part of their wargaming news schedule. You can use the “Publish” box in the post editor to write several releases at one time, then spread them out for publishing over several days using the system scheduler.
Any Problems?
If you get stuck, or see something that seems odd, email us with subjectline: GAMEWIREHELP at [email protected]. Include your vendor company name, your contact information and the issue. We will get you assistance right away.