Spartcast #33 - A Rare Return to Podcasting

[Spartan 4,002]

I was requested by a few people (@eagle_3450 and @Steve) to make another podcast, and Eagle was also kind enough to give me some topics so I decided to record one! And you get timestamps to skip whatever is boring. Or to listen to it, since podcasts are good sleep material apparently.

 

Timestamps:

0:00-2:00 - Intro

2:00-7:30 - Hybrid Attributes and favorite ratios

7:30-14:00 - Thoughts on the VHLE and my experience so far

14:00-20:35- Moscow Future and general GM'ing thoughts

20:35-end - Thoughts on Recruitment and why I wouldn't join the team (not flaming them)

 

Also damn, I think my headset mic is actually pretty nice

Edited November 2, 2023 by Spartan

[N0HBDY 1,013]

21 minutes ago, Spartan said:

(not flaming them)

probably flamed them

[Triller 1,385]

I think the biggest issue you have with recruitment is that the league may have a fair amount of money to spend on recruitment but there are absolutely no instructions for onboarding to the positions and people will be dealing with actual money.  No proper documentation on who to reach out to, who has been reached out to in the past and how that was done.  That isn't a trivial thing and not a lot of new recruiters are going to be jumping at spending money or chatting up youtubers without having something proper in place to follow and if they are itching to spend, that is a bit sketchy.  You would think leadership would provide but like everyone else in the league, activity can be on and off.

 

Reaching out to anyone interested in NHL 24 seems to also be a recipe for bulk creations and almost no one staying when they realize it isn't simmed with the NHL games.  Now like you said, we don't need every single one to stick but if that is all you believe is needed to keep the league afloat then my suggestion is to make it an every 3 months deal.  Every 3 months, we pick a youtuber from our list to reach out to again and get them to just do what they did last time for the same amount or even less since it is just the same thing, no extra work.  Drop socials and just ping one person every 3 months to send out the email and get the youtuber to read the ad.

If more is expected to keep people rolling in and staying and contributing to the league then other avenues and types of content creators can be reached out to in an attempt to cultivate new members which would require a more active recruitment role but I think these decisions need to be made and set in place so no one is doing anything more than they need to, especially if it is deemed unnecessary.  If it is agreed that socials do nothing and the league doesn't need that presence then recruitment is told to drop it.  Recruitment works for the league so the league might need to make some requests to keep focus where they think it is needed.  That is how it works for every other position.  I am curious how much recruitment is brought up in BoG discussions as well.

 

Just my thoughts on it!  Glad to hear another podcast though!

[Spartan 4,002]

14 hours ago, Triller said:

I think the biggest issue you have with recruitment is that the league may have a fair amount of money to spend on recruitment but there are absolutely no instructions for onboarding to the positions and people will be dealing with actual money.  No proper documentation on who to reach out to, who has been reached out to in the past and how that was done.  That isn't a trivial thing and not a lot of new recruiters are going to be jumping at spending money or chatting up youtubers without having something proper in place to follow and if they are itching to spend, that is a bit sketchy.  You would think leadership would provide but like everyone else in the league, activity can be on and off.

Recruitment is one of those positions where I feel like historically, it's been a bit of a renegade group that does its own thing depending on who all is on the team. There have been some points in history where there's strong centralized leadership (Beaviss) but for recent history, there's been no clarity in leadership and just crowdsourced efforts. Which is great for collaboration purposes but as you note, difficult to have a well-organized and documented process. Part of why I hoped YouTube would kick up again is that @Moon does have experience in that area from his prior stint in recruitment, so I don't know if it's apt to say that the burden falls on the new recruiters. I know Moon and Brandon were part of prior efforts, with Brandon's experience in YouTube as a medium providing good advice. And in terms of purchasing, I don't have all access to the recruitment server, but even when Subject was trying some instagram advertising, I'm pretty sure I just saw a tag for the Blues in there with a request for permission and there was some discussion before it went live. So I don't think there's that much complexity behind getting funding approved when at least two Blues were responsive during the last effort.

 

14 hours ago, Triller said:

Reaching out to anyone interested in NHL 24 seems to also be a recipe for bulk creations and almost no one staying when they realize it isn't simmed with the NHL games.  Now like you said, we don't need every single one to stick but if that is all you believe is needed to keep the league afloat then my suggestion is to make it an every 3 months deal.  Every 3 months, we pick a youtuber from our list to reach out to again and get them to just do what they did last time for the same amount or even less since it is just the same thing, no extra work.  Drop socials and just ping one person every 3 months to send out the email and get the youtuber to read the ad.

I don't think it's "all" that's needed to keep the league afloat, maybe my wording was too specific for what I meant. Mubbles actually posted an interesting thread about where players over 400 TPE came from, and it showed YouTube as the #2 source for those players. So while there's always bulk creation and a small % that stick around, it's still an influx of bodies coming in which I think we sorely need. I don't mind your idea of it being an every 2-3 season effort, I know the SHL used to call them "Reddit seasons" when draft classes would get boosted by recruitment drives on Reddit before the crackdown. That'd be good for preventing league overloads. I don't know if you need to totally drop social media, but I'd probably advise some sort of analysis as to how the socials have grown over "X" period of time or since they started being focused on, and how the metrics have improved. From Mubbles' post, there's just 6 people who have joined from social media and crossed 400 TPE (inclusive of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok). And at the end of the day, this isn't the league stance, just my own. I'm not giving out any instructions here.

 

Mubbles' post for reference:

 

14 hours ago, Triller said:

If more is expected to keep people rolling in and staying and contributing to the league then other avenues and types of content creators can be reached out to in an attempt to cultivate new members which would require a more active recruitment role but I think these decisions need to be made and set in place so no one is doing anything more than they need to, especially if it is deemed unnecessary.  If it is agreed that socials do nothing and the league doesn't need that presence then recruitment is told to drop it.  Recruitment works for the league so the league might need to make some requests to keep focus where they think it is needed.  That is how it works for every other position.  I am curious how much recruitment is brought up in BoG discussions as well.

Hopefully this strong leadership can be provided by @Moon! I think he can do a good job, just needs to have that active voice internally that you're asking for. Recruitment also isn't brought up at all in the BoG, I don't think there have been any threads recently about it. But if you want some general advice, it'd be to evaluate the social media metrics I mentioned above about growth, interactions and members brought in and see if it's something worth investing all of Recruitment's time in. I don't mind it being Recruitment's weekly task if there's also the YouTube/Reddit drives also occurring every so often for some safer/more proven recruitment efforts. Because at the end of the day, the recruitment team should be measured by the number of people brought in. If that number isn't very high, then I think the approach or strategy should be re-evaluated and refocused to try something new.

 

Appreciate your reply, glad to have some chats about it . And love the work you guys do for social media, the graphics and efforts are really cool and much appreciated. Just wish more people saw those and credited them for joining the league.