I have been working with social media since the good old days of Myspace, Hi5, and even MirC. So when the time came for me to jump into game marketing, it was almost seamless because I had been creating content for various markets and audiences for a long time.

I won’t go into much detail about my past experience, but in this post, I will focus on how my method can easily be replicated by anyone who finds it a little challenging to keep updating their social media channels.

1. Find out Who’s buying your game?

And no, not everyone who plays games. I know there are many gamers out there who enjoy multiple genres, but you have to visualize them as a specific niche of users who know your type of game and what they enjoy. Are they RPG fans? Then you have to provide content that fulfills and piques their curiosity, such as the battle system, character progression, and more. Once you put yourself in your audience’s shoes, you will know the type of content you should focus on.

2. Is it time to show off your game?

Probably this should have been the first step, but maybe not. As soon as you have something to show, whether it’s a proof of concept or just a screenshot, as long as you are positive that you’re going to invest time in it, then YES, it’s time to show off your game. Some developers make the mistake of waiting until a few months before launch, and by then, their community may be too small to work with. So even if you don’t have a budget to get new followers, show off your game organically, and you will start seeing users becoming interested in what you’re doing. By the time you’re about to release the game, you may have even received some feedback and be ready to launch a product that everyone wants to play.

3. Instead of deciding which social media channels to focus on, go for all of them

You may think I’m nuts here, but trust me when I say that to say that something doesn’t work, you need tangible evidence that it’s not working. I would open up a profile on all possible social media platforms and upload the content you have. It doesn’t have to be totally different for each platform, although that’s the recommendation for many profiles. For now, I would bulk publish everywhere and see how each platform responds to what you’re posting. Usually, TikTok is the platform that provides easier growth, but be a little wary that sometimes the followers you get may not be the ones buying your game. I would recommend doing this for at least 3 months and then decide which platform gave you the best engagement, click-through rate (CTR), and, lastly, which platform has the largest community.

4. Don’t worry about paid campaigns yet…

Most of my experience revolves around PPC for many clients I have as a digital marketer. But when it comes to game marketing, it’s a different story. I wouldn’t worry about money UNLESS you are getting closer to the semester when you think you’re going to launch your game or a Kickstarter campaign. You need visibility to create a community on social media so that community transitions into wishlists or a funded campaign. Start with small budget amounts and aim for awareness or impression campaigns so that you can get more for less. If this doesn’t ring a bell, just remember that when you create a new campaign on Facebook or Google, it will point you in the right direction. Also, don’t do this if you don’t have any content at all. You want to bring people to your profiles and get them hooked on what you are posting.

5. The most common question: What can I post on social media?

To be completely direct, you can easily grab a ChatGPT free account and ask it what to post. Of course, as I mentioned before, you need to know who you are talking to and what their preferences are. From working on your game, you surely have a lot of assets to show, as long as they don’t compromise your development. You don’t need to make crazy designs to show off your branding (although it can be nice to show commitment and professionalism), but you can simply post a character sketch, some UI screenshots, or gameplay videos, even if they’re not final. Keep them in a repository where you or anyone from your team can easily access them without asking for content. In my past experience working with indies, I would ask for a Google Drive folder where devs would throw anything they thought could be useful, with the product marketer’s permission, so that we wouldn’t show something that was not supposed to be seen.

Now, to be more practical, I have some categories for how I split up my content:

• Branding: Content that talks about the studio or the game in general. The idea or story behind the team, interviews, and more. This often feels like a commercial where you are selling the idea of your team.
• Gameplay: Self-explanatory. Show off what your game is about in real-time. If you’re going to make an ad out of it, focus on “why this game is so cool and worth your money instead of the next game down the list!”
• Temporalities: It’s okay to post a “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Easter,” or whatever holiday message there is, as long as you do it WITH PURPOSE. Show a character from your game dressed up as Santa or a member of your team in a video introducing themselves and their role in the studio, alongside your game’s name.
• Behind the scenes: Early artwork, sketches, in-progress videos. People want to see how hard you’re working and the effort behind the game.

There can be more categories for sure, but these will fit most teams’ efforts into social media, and as long as you keep them in mind, you will have a guide for your next post.

6. Finally: How did it go?

It’s a common mistake to keep posting content and then move on to the next month or week without knowing what really worked or not. Just because you see a post spike in interactions doesn’t mean that the rest of your content was okay. Perhaps you missed a very good post that did better, but you just weren’t there to appreciate it. Try to look for tools like Data Studio or Meta’s own reporting tool and see what worked and what didn’t. Focus on the ones that did great and replicate them, and for the ones that failed, try new things and measure.

Having a robust social media strategy takes time, and we know that not many studios and developers have that time, but I think it’s worth spending the extra effort to see how your work starts showing up to other users and how they interact with it.

Also, we exist for these reasons, so if you only have time to make your game epic, send us a message, and we’ll take care of your marketing strategies.