colin cummings
June 02, 2022
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In this article, I will give a review of the main communication strategies for game developers and publishers for social media and netpaintings, and the current state of those strategies as of last month. This evaluation will also have backup data such as anecdotal experience of my own works within those platforms. I’ll also talk about what a network paint manager or social media manager is, and why you need one (or more).
I’ve worked with a variety of clients ranging from AAA developers to small independent groups and everything in between. The following observations should not be taken as gospel words, but are revisions supported by experience. With Twitter, one of the main means of communication. for the gaming industry, in a position. . . Interestingly, it’s a good time to take a step back and see where things are.
Video games of all types and sizes depend on certain fundamental platforms for communication and marketing, and fall into two categories: internal and external.
In the “internal” category, you have platforms over which you have more control: your website, your blog, or your newsletter/mailing list. These are the platforms you need to direct other people to.
The “external” category has everything else: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Discord, shopping pages, and many other platforms. These are places where you can host marketing projects or your community, but they are vulnerable to external tweaks and influences, especially in terms of algorithms, how posts are viewed and shared at scale.
Twitter is a dominant force in gaming communications. This is where much of the industry lives, in terms of Americans and companies. This is a platform that has the highest engagement rates (if they are consistent!) your store page!On paper, Twitter offers one of the most productive opportunities you have to get wish lists or directly generate game sales thanks to its inherent discoverability with higher retweets and engagement percentages.
It is also one of the only social platforms that allows you to publish GIFs natively, avoiding playback problems and sounds played on the mobile; it repeats without problems and, despite everything, attracts attention in the valuable seconds you have!
Sony (and its affiliated studios) are leaders in games and GIFs captured by experts.
Facebook and Instagram are still active, but in rare cases, they don’t have the engagement rates of Twitter or TikTok (49% of gamers on Twitter are more likely to receive percentage reviews and recommendations compared to gaming audiences on other leading social media platforms). ).
Instagram is still definitely seen as a “visual” platform, and Facebook still has influence in a variety of foreign markets and age groups, such as India (329 million users), Indonesia (129 million users), and Brazil (116 million users). , or the age group of 35 to 44 years. Facebook and Instagram also have some of the most resilient and useful advertising teams with Business Suite/Ad Manager.
TikTok is the exciting newcomer. . . For now. There is a lot of potential visibility on TikTok with the right amount of luck and effort, and there have been a lot of successes on the platform. This may be a transient experience as TikTok tries to aggressively expand its platform.
TikTok also relies heavily on video content, which requires a lot of time and effort to create, more so than other social platforms. Since I live the life of the company and the contract, TikTok also has another complication: games and brands are more successful. whether they have a human or non-public element, and as an outdoor entrepreneur, it can be tricky to be the “face” of a game. I presented this Waypoint article through Patrick Klepek as a smart starting point for TikTok: “Video games have a new way of locating an audience: TikTok. “
Under the skillful hand of CM Paige Wilson, Aggro Crab’s TikTok (developer of Going Under) has been very successful.
Discord remains the go-to platform for gaming communities despite plenty of clever reasons not to rely on it primarily to host their network. However, it is a convenient platform, with many benefits such as a large installation base, a wide variety of network bots, and overall ease of use. Discord communities (when they’re not too big for their own intelligence) are also a wonderful position to create a highly engaged audience.
While old smart forums are arguably the most productive way to build a gaming network and provide an eternal verbal exchange space, it can be tricky to talk about the built-in features and ease of use that Discord offers.
Internal platforms (even platforms hosted through third parties, such as Mailchimp, Medium, or WordPress) are the other primary strategies for communicating with a community. These strategies lack the engagement team and the ability to grow based on discovery, but they allow you to have more control over what is displayed and are stronger platforms for vital communications. A smart blog post or newsletter will be (and should) be the backbone of your communications.
You can see a clever example of this with Project Zomboid, which has built a network over time through its deep and fluid network upgrades. Direct your audience to those platforms wherever and whenever possible. To be more informed about this, I present “Don’t Build Your Castle in the Realms of Others” through Chris Zukwoski.
YouTube and Twitch live in another world, as those forms of platform are an absolutely different ball game that requires a huge investment of time, effort, and consistency. Twitch streams are a wonderful way to interact with a network with a strong visual component. , however, they are also incredibly difficult to start and must be done in conjunction with other network efforts. A wonderful example of Twitch’s expansion in association with some other form of outreach is Sea of Stars’ Kickstarter updates and feeds.
Reddit is also a clever example of a platform with a possible biological expansion (as noted with Strange Horticultures, an intentional pun), but it requires careful attention from the messages and audience. Since self-promotion is frowned upon among the Reddit audience, outreach to other reddits can’t be done directly through your network or social media manager.
Most subreddits are fan-managed, and if your game has one, it’s a decent forum replacement with an integrated audience. However, this requires a lot of attention and commitment, even if they need official representation from developers, and can be a problematic space.
With a committed Kickstarter and constant updates and feeds, Sea of Stars is a story of good fortune on the net.
So we’ve gone over the basics of where you can build your network. Let’s communicate why this is vital and why, if you haven’t hired one yet, you want a social media manager and/or a network administrator. (Fun fact: there are two other jobs!)
This may be a wonder for some of you, however, if you don’t have time to manage social media and the network yourself (and you don’t), preferably hire a full-time social media manager. If you already have a large number of subscribers or a large network, those other people would even want to be other separate people!
Agencies like Evolve can help you take over some of the work, but as an external team, we don’t have the simple access to developers and resources that an internal staff member has. These roles will help you build an audience before launch (especially between primary PR beats); help your game’s long tail with post-launch support; and they’ll have that network that you’ve established between game releases. Let’s look at the two roles.
A netpaintings administrator will be at the forefront of your communications and netpaintings. Respond to feedback, answer questions, set expectations, build engagement with various teams and initiatives, and help the overall feel of your game. It also works to create campaigns and methods for their game, and plan for crisis control so they can be proactive rather than reactive. It’s a year-round role that relieves its developers and gives them greater reporting and insight into game performance, tracking a variety of metrics ranging from social media engagement to netpaintings growth.
They also wear a lot of hats! These other individuals may act as moderators or directors of your Discord forums/site, write blog posts and newsletters, set up questions and answers with developers, work with other CMs or brands for collaborations and crossovers, interact with influencers and streamers, and act as a visitor. and a general wisdom base for its players.
A social media manager is the other aspect of your network’s currency. Many of your roles are shared with the network administrator, but your responsibilities may also be unique!They also serve a variety of roles: they write and create content for all social media platforms. ; they can be the face of your logo on social platforms; are graphic designers or video editors who create new assets; they with the message and tone of their logo; train their developers on the proper social media label; and are experts in engagement rates and account growth.
But let’s also see what those roles aren’t. They are not sold. Game.
Imagine if your games are the products of a coffee. Your developers are the kitchen that lovingly prepare bread or slats, creating anything you expect other people to come and buy. Some visitors may enter just because they smelled the hot bread or new coffee grounds of the street as they passed (discovery of the store), and some other people would possibly have heard about the coffee in their local newspaper (PR beats).
A network manager and a social media manager are the frontline staff, the coffee environment, and the visitor experience. They stay like other people in the store, sitting and enjoying the experience, and even buying an additional gift (DLC). They are the ones who convince other people to tell their friends about coffee and even bring them the next time they come.
Pictured: Your community manager or social media manager at work
What if the store continues to get court cases that the coffee is constantly burning?CMs and social media managers can tell kitchen staff what other people are saying, but we don’t have anything about the product. A social media manager can place a funny black sign on the street (Twitter post) inviting someone in, and maybe the sign is fun enough to share!But none of their efforts directly result in coffee (game) sales, and they shouldn’t. service and supply data anywhere they can.
Would you run a serverless café? Would you make an area without open microphones?Not to commit beyond the walls of your café in a biological way?
You would do at least some of those things, and hopefully all of them.
Now that we know where we’re talking, why we’re talking and who. . . Speaking, we are more prepared to understand the social media and networking landscape and prepare for future changes. This part of the industry is sand-based: it’s constantly becoming and requires consistency to adapt to the new instructions you’re taking.
We believe that Twitter does not. . . It loses users, falls into a hole, and its user base is divided into a variety of platforms. This is not the end of the world. However, in fact it is not ideal.
Despite all its many problems, Twitter is an easy-to-use tool for game developers and publishers. It is widely used by many and provides a “good” foundation (although it is an external platform) for communications and engagement. to the maximum of the gaming industry, and there is no better option for that.
I doubt very much (just as I’m preparing for this to be captured in a year) that Twitter will suffer the same fate as Tumblr, and I think it will continue to move in one way or another.
However, replacing comes with new opportunities. We seize this opportunity and reinvent our communities and communications anywhere possible. We want more permanent network spaces (forums!); we want more biological discoverability; and we want to create more spaces that allow users to create their own teams and content, and help them thrive. While our strategies differ widely by budget, gender, and even platform, they can all be united by one ideal: to be that warm, welcoming café for our network.
If you’re a developer and you’re reading this, this is a call to hire someone to help you turn your network into a welcoming area for all players. If you’re a network administrator, this is your chance to think about what works. and what not for your own network.
As network (and social media) administrators, we’re going to be stuck between creating that coffee shop for our network and trying to sell as much as we can to anyone who walks through that door. It’s a complicated tightrope that we take care of every day. on dozens of other platforms, however, we do, and our games are better.
Long-term network control in the gaming industry is constantly becoming and we as managers will have to adapt. packed with game launches, in-person meetings, and conventions that are no longer the safest option for sharing a hands-on experience, and with Twitter and other platforms facing change, the old strategies are no longer showing off as they once did. With more tweaks to come, we’ll want social media and network managers more than ever.
Colin Cummings has been working with Evolve PR as a media and social media specialist since early 2021. He has been writing and talking about video games and his own for many years, writing articles and interviewing developers for his podcast. He can be discovered on Twitter @colinmcummings where he talks about video games, pop music and board games he creates in his spare time.
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