6 principles for using social media to promote your indie game

Everyone is talking about social media these days. But it’s not as easy as signing up to Twitter, posting a few links and watching the masses flock to your game. So here I’ve shared some mostly common sense principles for using social media to promote your indie game.

Understand the culture

Different sites attract different people who behave in different ways. Some sites literally have rules that you have to follow, others have a different culture. They will find different things funny and interesting, make inward references and use a common language. You just have to spend time on sites such as reddit and 4chan to know how powerful the sense of community and shared culture is on these sites. The quickest way to alienate these people is to not understand this culture.  Turning up, posting a link to your game and leaving will almost always be frowned upon. Always take the time to learn about the community, and work out what the best way to tell them about your game is, if at all.

Be active

Social sites, especially the likes of Twitter, are designed to be updated regularly. They are designed for conversations, and interactions between people. This is why the most popular users of sites tend to be the most active, and because of this they will attract much larger audiences. It can be tempting just to use these sites as places to spam details about your game, but it will be much more beneficial to you in the long term if you take the time to be part of the community.

Be nice, make friends

Leading on from becoming a part of the community is to actually make friends within the community. Not only is it nice to make more friends, but it goes without saying that people that like you are likely to help you promote your game.

Be smart, identify the key players

Having friends is great, but having friends in high places is even better. In all networks there are some people that amass larger followings and seem to become more popular and more successful in their endeavours. Learn from them, talk to them, strike up a friendship. See how you might help each other out for mutual benefit.

Don’t be a dick

It’s very easy to fall into the trap of being a marketing douche. All your links are about your game, it’s all you ever talk about. If all you ever do is focus on yourself you won’t get very far. On social media sites some of the more profilic members are those that go out of their way to help other people, to share their content, to add comments to their blogs and generally be nice guys. Screw the cliché, nice guys can finish first.

Remember to convert

Being popular on Twitter or having lots of friends on Facebook is all very well, but if none of your followers or fans are actually playing your game, you may need to reassess the time you invest on the sites. Accumulating influence on these sites is only half the challenge, you have to ensure you are converting fans and followers into active players.