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Why Pictus Village?
If you're reading this, you're either a fan of Pictus, stumbled on the site via a bizarre Google incident, or you're a bot who's about to spam the shite outta our site and force us to go medieval on your arses.
Anyway... We've used social media such as Facebook since our inception. For a long while it served us well; connecting us with our fans, helping us gain new fans and most of all, spreading the music and message of Pictus far and wide. Recently, we've looked at our data and realized that only about 1% of our over 7000 followers are seeing our posts on Facebook. And paying to boost posts or ads don't raise that figure enough to be a good return on investment. That's bollocks! We understand it's a free platform and that it's US who are the PRODUCT and not the CUSTOMER. It was great while it lasted. (Don't worry, we're not deleting our FB page!! It still has worth, it just won't be primary any longer.) Moving forward, we needed to find a way to connect with our fans that is consistent, focused and most of all, reflects the message of positivity, joy, inclusivity and personal strength Pictus is all about.
Welcome to The Village of Pictus!
This was the idea of Oengus, as he LOVES interacting with the fans and he understands they are the PRIMARY reason we are able to do what we love the most. That said, the concept of a "virtual medieval village" where the topics of conversation all revolve around things the typical Pictus fn would enjoy. The Village of Pictus concept is like this:
Imagine you're in a small medieval village. This village has many of the communities a typical village has: a town square, a pub, a library, a restaurant, etc. You walk around the village, pop into a community, join a discussion, start a discussion or just peruse the conversations. You become active in a few communities, engage in conversation, make new friends and the community ambassador will bestow badges for your contributions, all while keeping up with up to the minute Pictus information and news.
The primary things we hope to accomplish with this concept are:
- Create a "single point of contact" for all things Pictus.
- To ensure that ALL fans can be reached, seen and heard.
- Make Pictus Online the primary platform, and use all other platforms (social media, etc.) as support
- To have a community where fans, the band and others can relax, chat, learn and enjoy the company of other fans.
- To have a place away from the negativity, advertisements, politics and other trappings of the typical social media experience.
- Drive some traffic to our web store so we can keep the lights on.
Why Not Just Make a Fan Club & Then You Can Charge For it?
Good point. But charging for "exclusive access" to Pictus and our content seems like we're just separating our fans into the "have's and have nots." That's not what Pictus is all about. We're FAMILY. We are Clan Pictus. We are Tribe. Anything that serves to divide us, isn't worth our time.
So while yes, we could charge a yearly fee or whatever, make membership cards and throw tee shirts and cheap little marketing materials at you, and it would be cool and probably fun...but seems like that just divides us.
Ya wanna be in the Pictus Fan Club? Then simply enjoy the music, the shows, share it with your friends and family, spread the music, and the message far and wide, y'know...the stuff you all are already doing...and you're IN!
The Village of Pictus is Only What You Make of It.
This only works if you help to MAKE it work. This is about you, the fans, engaging with each other, making an effort to pop in and share, chat and talk about topics that interest you. Make sure you have notifications/emails turned on, this alerts you whenever Pictus posts a news update or there's activity that is relevant to you in The Village ( a post, a reply, etc.)
This has such potential to be a really, really cool thing. TAKE ME TO THE VILLAGE!
Slainte from Pictus! And as always...
FILL THE HORN!
LIGHT THE FIRE!