Overview

What is an AMA?

AMA stands for “Ask Me Anything” and is like a fun, free-form interview and Q&A session with questions asked by your fans and our community. Users will leave questions and can vote on other questions according to which they would like to see answered. The AMA guest then goes through and responds to any of the questions that they would like, and in any way that they prefer.

What is Reddit?

Reddit.com is one of the largest social networking/interest group sites on the internet. It is made up of thousands of communities that are created and moderated by volunteers, such as our team.

What is /r/NintendoSwitch?

/r/NintendoSwitch is a rapidly growing community of over 5,600,000 subscribers (as of February 2024) who all have an interest in Nintendo, the Nintendo Switch, the latest gaming news, game developers, the games they produce, and gaming in general.

Why /r/NintendoSwitch?

/r/NintendoSwitch is, to our knowledge, the largest Nintendo Switch community online across any platform.

We currently average over 3.5 million unique visitors and 21 million page views each month (based on a 6 month average). This translates to more traffic and reach than all other Nintendo communities on Reddit combined! (/r/Nintendo, /r/3DS, /r/WiiU, etc)

Before the AMA

Create an account

To make a post or comment on Reddit, you will need to have a Reddit account. If you already have one, feel free to skip this section and move on to verifying your account.

To create an account, you will need a desired username, a password, and an email address.

Reddit's account creation page

Usernames may contain upper and lowercase letters, numbers, as well as dashes and underscores.

You can use one account that's branded with your company name and share it amongst your staff, or you can have each member of the team make their own account following a common naming convention such as a prefix.

Examples of usernames include:

  • Nintendo
  • NintendoOfficial
  • Nintendo_America
  • Nintendo-Reggie
  • Nintendo-Iwata

Got all that? Great! Create your account(s).

You can create your account(s) at any time before the AMA and start exploring Reddit.

Verify your account(s)

Once you’ve created your account, it’s time to get your account(s) verified with the moderation team.

There are a few ways to do this:

  1. If you are already having a conversation with one of our AMA coordinators via an official company email account, just include your username(s) in that email chain.
  2. Send an email to ama@rNintendoSwitch.com from an official company email account stating that you are the owner of the following Reddit account(s).
  3. Send a DM on Twitter to @rNintendoSwitch from an official company Twitter account stating that you are the owner of the following Reddit account(s).

If you do not represent a company and are instead trying to become verified as an individual, send an email to ama@rNintendoSwitch.com or by using Reddit to message the moderators.

Schedule a time

Once your account(s) are verified, it’s now time to decide when you want to have your AMA.

The day of the week you choose isn’t critical, however, you want to make sure it’s a day where you and/or your team can be present and devote your full attention to the AMA for at least 2-3 hours. We typically suggest that your AMA be during a weekday when you and/or your team are in the office.

The majority of our users are located in North America and Europe, so try to pick a time that works well for the US Eastern, US Pacific, and GMT time zones for maximum impact. Every Time Zone is a handy website for deciding on a time that works well across multiple time zones. Typically our guests tend to aim for either a 10am ET or Noon ET start time, but please, don't think that you have to pick somewhere in that window. Select the time that you feel works best!

Important note: In certain rare situations, the moderation team will blackout dates where we will not allow AMAs. These are typically on days where there is a major first-party release, or if Nintendo schedules a Nintendo Direct, Nindies Showcase, E3 presentation, or similar. Nintendo is notoriously bad about giving very short notice for their Nintendo Directs, so it's possible you will have selected a day, and then Nintendo comes in at the last minute and schedules something. If Nintendo schedules a Nintendo direct for the day you have chosen, we will have to ask you to reschedule. It's a rare, but it has happened in the past. We need our sticky slot at the top of the subreddit and all of our moderation manpower to go towards covering those events and the new posts and comments that come with them.

User Flair

Next to many usernames on the subreddit you will see a small bit of artwork. These are called user flair, and they help users add a bit of personality and customization to their accounts. Regular users can pick from a set of predetermined icons.

User flair

However, since you’re a special verified user (or series of users), we want you to be able to stand out even more.

The type of verification (company or individual) will determine your special user flair.

  • A blue "Verified" checkmark Verified flair
  • A red "Developer" terminal icon Developer flair

The moderation team will determine which icon is the best fit and assign it to the list of username(s) you provide us.

This helps users easily identify your responses during the AMA as well as any time after the AMA if you decide to stick around in the community and talk with fans or try to provide technical assistance or support.

Note: This user flair will only appear on /r/NintendoSwitch and does not carry over to any other communities you may visit on Reddit.

Promote your AMA

At this point, your Reddit account has been created, you have been verified, we have established a date and time for the event, and your account(s) have been assigned a special user flair. Now it’s time to tell the world!

You can use whatever medium you’d like to promote your AMA such as email newsletter blast or Twitter announcement.

It’s a good idea to include:

  • The date and time of the AMA (make sure to include timezones!)
  • A link to /r/NintendoSwitch
  • An image or piece of artwork
  • Or a photograph of you and/or your team holding up a piece of paper saying hello to the community. Have fun with this! Include things that are important to you, your company, or the subject of the AMA. Reddit loves pets, insider details, peeks behind the scenes (props, costumes, inside the offices), and anything fun.

If you've decided to promote your event via Twitter announcement, make sure to tag our official subreddit account (@rNintendoSwitch) and we’ll also re-tweet it for you to help spread the word.

Draft your post

Posts on Reddit are formatted using a slightly modified version of Markdown. It's relatively easy, But it does have a few small quirks. (You need to use two line breaks for a new paragraph!) We recommend the website Markdown Live Preview so you can make sure the post comes out exactly like you want it to.

Your post should contain

  • Title
    • Roughly one sentence in length (300 characters or less)
    • Who you are
    • What you’re here to discuss
    • The phrase “AMA”, “Ask me anything!” or “Ask us anything!”
  • Body
    • An intro/bio for those who aren’t familiar with you
    • Links to any relevant content such as game trailers, social media accounts, etc…
    • A link to your announcement you made on Twitter (if applicable)
    • If you have multiple accounts answering questions, a list of who those people are (Reddit username, real name, job title, etc)

Here are some examples of post titles from past AMAs we’ve hosted:

  • Hi, I’m Mr. Koizumi, Producer of Super Mario Odyssey. AMA!
  • We are Yacht Club Games: Creators of Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment! Ask Us Anything!
  • I'm Julius from Image and Form Games here to talk about SteamWorld Dig 2. Ask me anything!
  • We are Lizardcube & DotEmu, developers of "Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap". Ask Us Anything!

You should write your title and body text a few days in advance of your AMA. This allows you to send the draft to any internal teams that may need to sign off on it. You can also send a draft of it to the moderation team if you're unsure about something. This lets us provide feedback on anything you may have overlooked such as a link to your cool project or something that might work better if it were reworded a little bit.

Some companies also like to offer a small token of appreciation or prize for the users who are participating in the AMA. This is totally optional, but if you do, some ideas from AMAs we've had in the past include:

  • A copy of the game for the user who asked your favorite question
  • A discount code they can use on your website (Example)

Starting the AMA

Making your post

Approximately 15 minutes before the scheduled/agreed start time of your AMA:

  • Visit the submit page or click the "Start Discussion" button in the sidebar of the subreddit
  • Copy and paste your draft that has been signed off on by any of your internal stakeholders into the "Title" and "Text" fields
  • Recommended: Uncheck the "send replies to my inbox" option to avoid receiving a notification for each and every comment someone makes An orange envelope showing multiple inbox notifications
  • Click "Submit"

After your post is made, a few things will happen:

  • You may receive a private message (PM) from our AutoModerator saying that your AMA is not verified. You can safely ignore this if you have been in contact with the mod team for the past few days getting this whole thing set up. This is more to catch any random companies or individuals who don't touch base with us first.
  • Your post may not show up publicly at first! Our AutoModerator will sometimes hold posts in a special queue for the moderation team to manually review and approve before they go live. Assuming you are starting your AMA on time, your post should go live in just a few minutes. If you do not see your post as live, message the moderators or send us a DM on Twitter (@rNintendoSwitch).
  • A member of the moderation team will add a flair to the post that says "AMA - Live" and give the post a green tint to help it stand out.
  • A member of the moderation team will sticky your post to the top of the subreddit.
  • Our Twitter account (@rNintendoSwitch) will send out a tweet saying that your AMA is live with a link to the post. Keep an eye out for this and consider retweeting it!
  • Your AMA will be linked in the #announcements section of our Discord chat.
  • It may take a few minutes for the first few questions to start coming in while people read your post body and look up who you are if they aren't familiar with you.

During the AMA

What to expect

Things to keep in mind when reading through users comments and questions:

  • Not every question will be about your project, it is an "ask me anything" after all.
  • Reddit users may ask you some silly questions. ("Is a hot dog a sandwich?")
  • Redditors want to see how you engage with people “in real life.” You can shed the PR shell a bit.
  • There are no hidden right or wrong answers, just have fun!
  • The people asking you questions are not professional interviewers, they’re fans.
  • Don’t try to market to the users. If the users feel like you’re here to “sell” to them, it won’t be an enjoyable experience for you or them.
  • Redditors want you to be authentic and yourself, have fun with it!

Answering questions

At the top of the page, beneath the post body, is a large text box that looks like the perfect place to type your answers, however, this is a trap!

The comment box that is shown beneath the post body

Beneath each question or comment is a blue “reply” link.

Click that link and type your response in the new text box that appears.

A comment with a reply box

If you have multiple people on your team participating in the AMA, feel free to have multiple people chime in with their answers!

Pro tip: You can change how the questions are being sorted to try and get some fresh questions. We typically recommend the "Top" and "New" sorts.

A dropdown where you can chance sort methods

If you need help

During the entire duration of your AMA, the moderation team will be watching things closely. Typically this will take the form of us cleaning up the comments section by removing content that breaks our community rules, removing comments from anyone who's just trying to beg for a free copy of your game, or approving genuine questions that may get caught in our spam filters.

If you need help for any reason or just have questions, please don’t hesitate to message the moderators via Reddit or send us a DM on Twitter (@rNintendoSwitch). We will be actively monitoring those inboxes during the entire event and will reply to you as quickly as possible.

Ending the AMA

Editing your post

It’s been a few hours and you’d like to wrap things up, that’s perfectly fine!

At the bottom of your post body you should see a series of links that looks something like this:

The list of links beneath the body of posts

Just click on “edit” and add a note to the bottom of your main post body.

This edit should include:

  • You stating that the event is now over and you’ll no longer be answering questions.
  • A general thank you to everyone who came out and participated.
  • A link or method of contact if they want to stay in touch or follow your project more closely (if you didn’t already include this in your original post.)

When you’re happy with your edits, just click “Save”.

When the moderation team sees that you've edited your post, we will update the flair on your post and change it from "AMA - Live" to "AMA - Ended" to help let our users know that you are no longer monitoring the post or answering questions.

If you fail to edit your post to let users know it has ended, the moderation team will use their best judgement and flag it as ended if we see that it's been a couple hours without any further responses from you or your team.

After the AMA

Stay a while

Just because your AMA has ended doesn’t mean you aren’t welcome in the community anymore. We encourage you to check back in on a regular basis, make new posts, or comment on existing posts.

Some good times to come by again would be:

  • When you release a new trailer
  • Your game or project launches
  • You release a major patch with lots of updates (Example, Example)
  • There is a known bug with your product that people are talking about
  • Your company announces an entirely new product

Redditors love seeing companies that are invested in the community, engage in discussions, and pop in from time to time.

(Just make sure it doesn't get into spam territory. We have some helpful guidelines for self-promotion and giveaways that you may find useful.)

Add us to your mailing list

We'd love to hear about the latest news from you! Feel free to add contact@rNintendoSwitch.com to your press distribution list.

Visit our Discord

As you may already know, we have a Discord chat. What you might not know, however, is that you can get verified as a developer over there as well!

To get verified in our Discord chat, just send an email to contact@rNintendoSwitch.com or send a Twitter DM to @rNintendoSwitch and let us know your Discord username(s).