The Gamasutra resource regularly publishes articles by developers, art directors and game designers about the industry. We choose the most interesting ones and share them with you.
Another article is devoted to how to properly promote an indie project on social networks: the author, Yolene Rousvoal, talks about his experience as the head of the gaming community.
If you are an indie developer, then your main headache is how to make the game popular while having a limited budget.
Traditional methods (advertising in stores, television or radio) are expensive and often ineffective. But social media marketing is pretty cheap. It is, among other things, characterized by virality and gives a high degree of user engagement.
Based on the experience I gained as a community leader of the Stormancer game, I wrote this little guide. In it, I’ll tell you what you need to know before you start promoting your indie game. There are both specific tips for each social network separately, and general recommendations.
Understanding the sharing mechanism: what we share and why
People want to share information. Nowadays, this is an integral part of everyday communication: according to research, 59% of respondents share content with other users. Moreover, word of mouth even affects the number of sales.
What content is shared more often and why? What motivates users to share content? Why is one content more viral than the other?
Let’s try to answer these questions.
Creating viral content: what is shared
People like to share images and simple content
In marketing, simplicity is equated with efficiency. If your message is complex, the user is unlikely to want to share it and probably won’t remember it. Simple messages are more likely to be shared – the same applies to posts with images.
Visual content conveys ideas faster: up to 90% of the information that the brain perceives is visual. In addition, it is perceived by the brain 60,000 times faster than text. Posts backed up by pictures are viewed 94% more often than those without them.
Hints:
- The message should be as simple as possible. Be specific.
- Attach images of what you are working on to the post.
- Use screenshots and trailers of your game
Visual content plays a key role in promoting your game. A screenshot or video of your game is always more attractive and expressive than the text.
People prefer to share positive information
There is a direct connection between the emotional charge of information and its virality. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania studied a list of articles from the New York Times newspaper that users most often shared by email. The results showed that positive content (surprise, joy) spreads faster than negative content [Meanwhile, there are studies that say the exact opposite: angry messages spread faster than joyful ones, – approx. editorial offices]. Inspirational articles were distributed more often, and sad articles – less often.
The OkDork resource analyzed the articles that people most often share. It turned out that the three most popular emotions were admiration (25%), joy (17%) and surprise (15%). That is, as we can see, humor is a powerful weapon in the battle for users’ attention. Using humorously colored content will help you to be remembered and find a common language with the audience.
Hints:
- Before you post anything, ask yourself: “Why would people want to share this?”
- Create interesting and useful information
- Be natural: people want to deal with people, not robots
- Have a sense of humor. A little humor never hurts
- Try to remember (here humor is again your best assistant)
Psychology of a repost: why we share information
Little is known about why we are so eager to share information on social networks. We pay a lot of attention to what people repost, we want to know which content is the most viral – and at the same time ignore the question “why”.
Narcissism – the engine of the repost
Social networks are one of the methods of self-presentation. Therefore, it is important to remember that people are driven not only by the desire to share interesting information, but they are often driven by narcissistic motives.
In psychology, there is a concept of “I-concepts”. Some experts define it this way: there is a real self, that is, the way a person appears to others, and I am ideal, that is, the way a person wants to be. The image of the ideal self plays a key role in our behavior on social networks. This is the main motivation for sharing. We tend to constantly control what we share-and at the same time keep unrealistic images of ourselves, our “ideal selves” in our heads.
Hints:
Always remember who your target audience is when sharing information on social networks. Think about who they are, what they would like to share. Refer to their image of the “ideal self”. People want to look funny, popular, interesting – and are ready to share information that represents them as such.
How to advertise the game on social networks
If you are an indie developer, you need:
- Twitter, Facebook and YouTube account
- Own website
- Blog (The latter is optional: it takes a lot of time to blog)
How to manage your Twitter account
Social networks, as I have mentioned more than once, have the highest virality rates. This is the best way to declare yourself as an indie game developer.
Subscribe/Subscribe in response
There is a fairly large community of indie developers on Twitter. There they communicate with each other, subscribe to each other. I advise you to do the same – but with caution, you should not be zealous (for example, being subscribed to 10,000 people and having only 500 subscribers is not comme il faut).
At the same time, I recommend subscribing to each new subscriber. Not to say that this is a universal rule: someone may advise you to do this, but I think it’s a great way to increase the involvement of your community. But, again, you should not sign blindly.
The number of your subscribers is a measure of your influence: the more subscribers you have, the more you will be able to attract, and the more likely you will appear in the recommended subscriptions. And the more your posts are retweeted. It’s a vicious circle.
Use hashtags (wisely!)
#gamedev #indiedev – here are two hashtags that are most popular in the community of game developers. Use them in each of your posts. They will be retweeted by bots, and this will help you to declare your project. No need to abuse hashtags: two or three per post is more than enough.
Some “rituals” of the developer community:
#screenshots Saturday: Every Saturday developers share screenshots of their games using this hashtag. Not a bad way to announce a new project.
#IndieDevHour: A time when indie game developers communicate with each other. It takes place every Wednesday night (19 hours in London). The most appropriate moment to make yourself known (you can join the discussion, tell about your game, and so on).
A few tips useful in working with Facebook
Create a Facebook page for your company or project. There you can put a detailed description of the project and add details about your game. Join an interest group – for example, Indie Game Developers or Indie Game Promo – this will help in promoting your projects.
A few tips useful in working with YouTube
As we have already mentioned, people like to share visual content – including videos. Upload your trailers, demos, and gameplay videos to the network.
Share your videos on social networks. Put a link to your Twitter and Facebook account in the description of your videos. You can put your nickname with a watermark on the video, so it will be visible.
Don’t forget to make sure that your social media accounts, video blog and website are linked.
How to post posts on Twitter/ Facebook
- Don’t spam (maximum 8 tweets/2 Facebook posts per day)
- Don’t capitalize all the words
- Do not stuff subscribers with explicit advertising
- Be natural, try to personalize messages. Don’t use bots.
Remember the sharing mechanism we mentioned above: simplicity and humor are your two main weapons. Let the videos, screenshots and music from the game go first.
Be friendly and sociable
Yes, in order for people to find out about you on social networks, you need to be friendly and sociable. Don’t trust sullen misanthropes to run your social media account.
Communicate with your fans and subscribers (and with those who haven’t subscribed to you yet. It is especially convenient to use Twitter for this purpose). Answer the questions of your audience. If someone praises your game, don’t forget to thank them.
The power of social media is in interaction. Involve others, communicate with them. Word of Mouth is the driving force of social networks.
I hope this material was useful to you. Good luck!
Other materials on the topic:
The characters in the images belong to (in order of appearance in the article): The Walt Disney Company, Nickelodeon, Soyuzmultfilm studios and Cartoon Network.