These days, if it's not on the Internet, it doesn't exist. Well, if you're not social, it will be hard for people to know what you are up to, let alone knowing that you are making a game! You don't spend months or years developing something only to have no one come to the party. But this can be fixed, and it does require a bit of planning and time, so be prepared, but I promise you it will be worth it in the end.
If you're going for a job interview, you wouldn't go in there without having done a bit of research about your potential employer, the same goes for making a name for yourself. While it's good to get everyone's attention, ideally, you want to get noticed by the right people. One way to do this is to pay close attention to companies, products, and even individuals who are also in the same market as you; and observe who they interact with, what kind of social media tagging are they utilizing. For example, are they using a particular hashtag such as #Android, #game, #AppStore? Perhaps, there are particular groups that they are targeting, from local, international, big, and small companies, even particular key individuals within the area. The idea is not to mimic their interactions, but to observe them. As you begin to observe you will learn more about the market that you are targeting, the major players, and perhaps come across and opportunity to engage with them. Such opportunities can range from conferences, expos, perhaps a meet and greet for a particular launch. Just remember, time and place is everything.
From logos to banners, links and even mission statements, a social media audit will ensure that everything is up-to-date. Do this when you first set up your social media accounts and right before you make any big announcement (such as a game launch). Of course, it is important to maintain these regularly, but if you're going to do it, these are the times to check everything is in order, because you are likely to get a higher influx of traffic to your channels.
If you're documenting the process, ask those who are engaging with your content for their opinions. Create polls, post questions and ask for their responses. Keep them engaged and make sure that you interact with your audience on a regular basis. Even if you're just posting an update about a day in the office or something interesting that happened during the development of your game, it keeps users interested. While posting something is good, make sure that it still somehow ties back to the game or your development studio.
Sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and other crowdfunding platforms provide rewards for certain levels of commitment from their projects backers. Even if you choose not to engage with one of these platforms, you can adopt similar approaches to the development and eventual release of your game:
- Competitions: Running competitions is a great way to get people involved. If you don't have the funds to create products, offer discounts, early access or (free) full versions of your game. Another option is to create some exclusive artwork/wallpapers and if possible, get them printed and signed by your team.
- The power of the crowd: Competitions are a great way to get people interacting with your company and products. Therefore, when you want to get people involved, instead of asking them to write a comment in response to your question or competition, get them to like, share, and even tag friends to enter into the competition. Perhaps for each friend that they tag, it's an additional entry. In any case, it is a win-win situation because they (and even their friends) have the potential to win something, and you get some publicity.
- Feedback: Getting insight from those using your product, albeit during playtesting or after the game has launched is ensuring that your game is as good as it can be. Remember to keep in mind that when take the time to give you detailed feedback, it is time out of their day, committed to helping you and your product out. While not everything is roses, and in cases you will get negative feedback, when it's constructive it can give you ideas about future updates. Therefore, while feedback tends to be altruistic, reward those who make an effort. Rewards can be simple as a discount or large like a (or chance to win) free copy of your game.
Don't just be a lurker, get involved! It's easy to stay on the sidelines, but it's better to get in and amongst it. While some of you may be new to social networking, the industry is quite integrated into it, and it does play a major part in it all. However, before you get started, there are a few things you should consider before shouting from the rooftop about your work.
Now that you know about your target audience in a bit more detail, it's time to start setting up your own online presence. To begin, let's start with a blog. A blog offers many different avenues for communicating detailed information about what you do, albeit as a company or during the development of a product. It's one way to gather followers and provide a more personal snapshot into your lives. In this way, you begin to develop a more meaningful connection between you and your audience.
There are a range of different blog platforms to choose from. Some of the most popular ones include Tumblr (www.tumblr.com), WordPress (www.wordpress.com), and Blogger (www.blogger.com). These three, while not being the only ones out there, all offer great platforms for creating your own blog.
Have you ever read a really captivating headline that made you want to read more? Well micro blogging platforms are great ways to hook your audience in much the same way. Twitter (www.twitter.com) is a perfect example of this because it contains you to a limit of 140 characters or less. So you have to get straight to the point or you will get cut off, and nobody likes th…
Tweeting, there are a number of things to keep in mind when you are tweeting updates about your application, some of which, like time zone. However, Twitter uses a few key methods of interaction:
- Reply: As the name suggests it allows users to reply to what you have posted. This allows you to interact with those who have showed interest in what you have said.
- Retweet: It is Twitter's version of sharing. So if someone tweets something that you liked, you can retweet it so that your followers can also see it.
- Favorite: It is similar to a Like on Facebook or a thumbs up on YouTube.
- Hashtags: These are probably one of the most fundamental things to keep in mind when sharing content. They are like a filtering system, in terms of categorizing information. Using unique hashtags helps you to not only keep track of content distribution that is related to your game, but it also makes it easier to be heard among other tweets.
Some useful links to get you going with advertising on Twitter:
If you're having trouble condensing something into a short version, try putting a limit on yourself. For example, begin with stating you whole idea, then say it in 15, 10, and 5 seconds. You will begin to notice that each time you try to say your idea, the core concepts will become more obvious, and the shorter the time becomes, the more efficient and simplified your explanation will become. We often feel the need to include everything, that one piece of information is equally as important as the next, but in reality that become padding to the concept.
While Twitter is the micro blogging platform, Instagram (www.instagram.com) tells a thousand words with a simple picture (and caption). It works in a similar way to Twitter in that you can add hashtags, and connect with a larger audience and perhaps follow some of the key players (optional).
Facebook (www.facebook.com) offers a range of different options when it comes to creating a place to advertise your game as well as connecting with your audience:
- Pages: Create a page and populate it a bit before making it public so that you have a somewhat established online presence. By having content on your page, it gives visitors a reason to stay. While they are there, you need to be able to keep them there for a bit, and there are different ways to get visitors engaged, such as having an interesting blog post about a recent update or feature to an intriguing photo.
- Posts: These are a versatile feature to use. For example, if you're asking about a particular component for the game, such as the next feature to include, you could ask them to Like for option one, Comment for option two, and Share for option three. Like we have discussed in this chapter in terms of competitions, you can use option two to encourage people to tag their friends as part of the process. As a result, while you are getting them interacting with your posts, you're also getting a bit of publicity from it all while reaching their friends networks.
- Polls: They can be used as a way to quickly gauge users' opinions and see what the common consensus is. It is a bit more linear than post a comment (although this feature is available for the poll in general), but it is quicker. Of course, you can use polls to encourage competitive behavior such as vote now, whichever feature gets the highest amount of votes will be included in the next update. In this way, players will also feel as though their input counts and that they are also part of the development process.
- Live: The live feature allows you to stream an event in real-time and have people watch it, well, live. This provides you with a great opportunity to stream things such as live game development or a Q&A. The best part is that if people miss it, then they can view it later and interact with it (for example, via comments, likes, sharing, and so on).
While you're not ready, you still want a place for potential customers to keep in touch and there is no better way to do that then with a mainlining list. MailChimp (www.mailchimp.com), as well as many others out there, helps you to not only collate mailing lists but also inform them, all at once, about upcoming events, product releases, and many other special events.