You shouldn’t just jump onto Facebook and Twitter

Contrary to popular belief it is not a good idea to jump in to social media. It’s not important to ‘just be there’ – you need to know why you are there. You need to have a clear understanding of what you want to put into your online presence, and what you want to get out.

Having a Facebook page or a Twitter profile isn’t a means to an end. And simply stating that you want to ‘engage with your community’ doesn’t count as a strategy. Twitter is a great way of sharing news, and getting feedback. Facebook’s multimedia functionality makes it a fantastic place to share screenshots of your latest build.

The problem with just jumping straight in without considering what you want to get out is that you have no measure of success. If you gain 1000 fans on Facebook, what does that mean? It sounds okay. What if it took 3 hours of your day, every day, to reach that number? And those three hours could have been spent outreaching to journalists to talk about your game, or heck, even working on the game itself. Then that number sounds less appealing. Especially if none of those people actually bought your game.

You need to sit down and work out why you are creating a presence on these platforms, what you want to get out of it, and how much time you are willing to invest. Facebook, Twitter and all of the other social sites are important channels, and can be a great way to help market your indie game. You just shouldn’t jump in and hope for the best. You need to plan for success.