Since social media arrived on the scene, it has become an avenue for marketers to advertise to consumers. The prominence of social media networks became so pronounced that a sub-niche was created for it called social media marketing.
Marketing agencies consider this new form of marketing as useful as the more traditional forms of promotion. When surfing social media, you may come across several ads promoting music, books, online casino(s), and conventional video games. Depending on the ad’s engagement, these ads convert for the promoters.
Why social media networks top the list of advertising platforms
To understand why social media is so valuable for promoting online games, you need to evaluate what it offers. Facebook has close to 3 billion active users as of mid-2022. That translates to about 42% of the global human population leveraging the platform for different purposes.
A report was released by eclbet.com Statista saying that at least 92 out of every 100 mid-size US firms utilize social media platforms for promotions. 75 in 100 marketers also state that social media marketing has led to moderate conversions for their firms. Instagram also has 1.4 billion active years as of mid-2022.
If you observe these statistics, you will understand why it is natural for social media to become the destination for all marketers. Additionally, game development firms are going down the same route as digital marketers to target specific audiences.
Best Game Promotional Ideas On Social Media Networks
Here are some top game promotional ideas on social media networks:
Organize giveaways
Although gamers spend a lot of cash on things they want to purchase, they still appreciate free things. You can organize giveaways on social media networks with themes unique to your game.
You also need to ensure that the items you’re giving out add to their excitement and largely offer utility. Your item, which serves as a sort of souvenir, should attract them to your game.
Collaborate with streamers
If you love to purchase sneakers and an Instagram influencer you admire advertises a new brand of sneakers, wouldn’t you be interested in them? That’s how influencer marketing works for gamers too. When an influencer discusses a specific game, their audience is bound to pay attention to and try out the game.
If you want to leverage social media influencers to boost your game’s popularity, you have to go with one that has the right audience. Getting into a partnership with an influencer that genuinely enjoys playing your game will increase the chances of the audience playing your game.
Maintain exclusivity on behind-the-scenes content
The moment you pique an audience’s interest in exclusive content, they find it difficult to hold in their curiosity. If gamers show the slightest interest in your game, you have to induce curiosity by offering behind-the-scenes content.
Doing this will increase the value of your game in the audience’s eyes, and releasing that content to select consumers will satisfy that curiosity. Offering behind-the-scenes content also helps to make gamers understand your game better.
Grant early access to gamers
If you’re hard-pressed to get finances to fine-tune your gameplay, you can provide early access to gamers. This gives you an advantage on two fronts since you’d be able to save funds and still improve your gameplay.
When you grant smartphone users early access, they’d be able to point out the areas where you need to enhance your game. Gamers’ reviews are highly crucial since they represent a sample of your target audience.
Increase retention with late game reveals
Gamers are typically curious about what the late stages of a game have to offer. Once they understand the goals they can meet and the abilities they’ll gain as they progress in the game, it’ll serve as a source of motivation to keep on gaming.
Although getting active gamers at the early stage of a game’s release is vital, retaining them is crucial for its longevity.
Hype your game with expectation posts
Gamers are big on anticipation, and hyping your game with posts that induce expectation will serve to improve gamer retention. One of the best ways to do this is to create a post with countdowns.
Instagram has a countdown feature that can work optimally for your game. You can create countdown posts for important updates to your game.
Maintain the humor
Gamers are all about having fun, and maintaining the humor is one way to fan the flames. Gaming developers can only be creative up to a certain point before interest begins to die down.
The best way for you to keep them interested is to maintain the humor by sharing memes on social media about your game. If the meme fever spreads to your game’s fans, they could create their memes. This would explode your popularity in the gaming community.
Social media marketing has been considered a viable promotional channel since its widespread adoption. That makes it prime for gaming developers to leverage for marketing their games.
You can use social media networks to boost your game’s popularity by organizing giveaways, creating meme posts, granting early access to gamers, and maintaining exclusivity with behind-the-scenes content.