Promoting Your Game with Social Media

In this presentation, we will cover how to use various social media outlets to promote a game to reach your customer base. Topics covered include Twitter, YouTube, WordPress, Yoast SEO plugin, Reddit, Social Media Cards, Google Alerts, Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools and more!

Transcript

1. Promoting Your Game with Social Media Levi D. Smith Knoxville Game Design June 2015
2. Twitter • Tweet analytics now available • Find most popular tweets • How many people interacted? • How many times tweet appeared in timelines (impressions) 8
3. Twitter • When is the best time to reach your audience on Twitter? • Schedule a tweet with Tweet Deck
4. Twitter • Use appropriate hashtags (#gamedev, #indiegame, #madewithunity, etc) • Don’t @ reply announcements intended for all followers • Keep tweets informative and interesting to avoid losing followers
5. Twitter • Take advantage of special promotions – #ScreenShotSaturday link a game image
6. Twitter • Keep a good Follower / Following ratio – Friend or Follow – Tweepi
7. YouTube • Use Audience Retention to determine what viewers like and dislike about your game video 3
8. Analyzing YouTube Videos • Real Time statistics
9. YouTube Analytics • Metrics – Views – Minutes Watched • Demographics – Geography – Gender (how accurate is this?)
10. Wordpress Statistics • Worldwide – Where is your audience located?
11. Wordpress Statistics • What is the most popular content?
12. Wordpress Statistics • How are people finding your site? • What social media sites need attention?
13. Wordpress Statistics • Where are people going? • Are they going to the marketplace page for your game?
14. Wordpress Statistics • What search terms are people using to find your site? • Are games your most popular content? • SEO optimization for game pages
15. Wordpress Publicize • Automatically announce new post on multiple social media sites
16. SEO • Search Engine Optimization • Yoast plugin reviews page for SEO improvements
17. Social Media Cards • When you link to a post on Twitter, a link and image will be displayed for tweet details
18. Social Media Cards • Use Yoast SEO Wordpress plugin to add appropriate headers for Twitter cards
19. Social Media Cards • Add link to relevant content to YouTube videos
20. Social Media Cards • Creating a YouTube card is simple • Website card must point to a page on your validated site
21. Google Alerts • Notification when a new site mentions your game
22. Google Analytics • Create a new “Property” • Get Tracking ID • Add it to Google Analytics Wordpress plugin
23. Google Analytics • How many users are at your site • Where users are located • Real time statistics
24. Google Analytics • Desktop or mobile users • Top referers • Social Traffic • Keywords
25. Google Analytics • Daily Statistics – Time on Page – Users – Browser Type
26. Google Analytics • Daily Statistics – New Users – Bounce Rate – Country
27. Google Webmaster Tools • Identify keywords • Crawl statistics
28. Google Webmaster Tools • XML Sitemap
29. More Promotion • Other promotional sites – Zebra Strut – IndieDB – One Game a Month • The more sites linking into your site the better!
30. Facebook • How to get more page Likes? • Group may be better • Pay for visibility 2
31. Facebook • How many people reached? • Boost Post
32. Reddit • Reddit is highly effective in getting views, but don’t abuse it (Good Reddiquette) • Find the right Sub-Reddit – Make sure there are a considerable number of subscribers – Too many subscribers and you’ll get lost in the shuffle – Some subreddits don’t allow article linking (must post text of article) – Read and follow the rules of each sub-reddit! 24
33. Tumblr • Where the “cool kids” are? • “Notes” for comments and likes 35
34. Google Plus • Does anyone still use this? • Integrated with YouTube • Can create a profile for your group/company
35. StumbleUpon • Could possibly expose your game to audience who wouldn’t have found it otherwise 269
36. Other Social Media • Pinterest – share screenshots • Instagram – images, mobile only • Vine – share short video clips, integrated with Twitter • Identi.ca – open source version of Twitter • Diaspora – open source version of Facebook 37 26 636 73,280
37. Greenlight • Concepts (free) • Submission ($100 one time fee) • Players vote on your game • Use social media to promote your Greenlight page • Even if you don’t get Greenlit, you do get exposure for your game • Can apply a Google Analytics property ID
38. Website Responsiveness • Ensure your website is responsive and loads in a reasonable amount of time • GTMetrix.com – Page Speed Grade and Yslow Grade – Page load time and size – Waterfall
39. Website Responsiveness • WebPageTest – Can select global location site and web browser – Filmstrip / Video – Waterfall – First view and repeat view