Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Here's a handy guide for growing user numbers and engagement in virtual worlds by veteran game designer Alexia Mandeville (High Fidelity, Facebook's Horizon, Niantic), who was last seen on New World Notes offering tips to Linden Lab on growing Second Life. Her specific focus here is the value of collective experiences which start on 2D platforms:

Intent to enter into a virtual world starts on flat surfaces. A phone, a messaging platform, a social media platform, a website. How do we get people to dip their toes into the virtual world from these surfaces? We can increase information sharing and acquire new users to join in by implementing some of the following tactics:

Create a rabbit hole. This is a piece of information that entices the player to explore and work with other people to find and spread information. For instance, imagine seeing an image for a new hat every Wednesday on social media with a virtual location (like a specific locale in a virtual world) tagged. It takes you to a hat shop within a virtual world, where an NPC is available only on Wednesday and Thursday at 1PM PST. In this case, you’re inviting people to become involved in a timed event that could lead to other information and narrative within the world.

Read it all here. Many of her tips are applicable not just to creators of virtual worlds, but to people who create content for these platforms (VRChat Second Life, IMVU, ROBLOX, etc.).  She also sent me additional advice for these creators in particular:

"I’d recommend figuring out where your audience lives and creating a catalyst for discourse around your content, starting on 2D platforms. People will be more willing to try something out if you’re asking for their advice and feedback on it, it has a rabbit hole associated with it (lots more information to unlock and explore), or offers some way to engage and share with their community."

As for particular 2D communities to consider: "Reddit has been a good place to start for me, at least I’m getting people to articles. That’s because when you’re in a subreddit, you have access to all those people automatically. Twitter is useful for worlds if you have followers. Facebook groups would be another good place, if you’re involved in the group associated with that platform. I had a decent time driving people into a world in Horizon when I had a deep link to it, to make it easy to access."

This all sounds right to me. In fact, I see many of the most successful virtual world brands already following variations of this advice. For instance, if you follow the Facebook group for Blueberry, one of Second Life's top brands, you'll immediately notice just how active and engaging that owner/lead creator Gizem McDuff is on that social network.