next »

[RubberMan]

  A wise man once said to me we should be active on social media to get visitors to Virtual Earth Online.

We have since set up a YouTube Channel

Started showcasing some screenshots on Instagram: @virtualearthonlinethegame

My problem is how to do that effectively and still have enough time to eat and sleep an hour or two.

I do not want to offer any suggestions here, I just want to tap the brains of the many knowledgeable people here for advice.

How do you spread the word about your great games?

What sites do you use and to what degree of success?

Do you use any social media management tools and if so which ones?

Thank you in advance for any information or value you add to this thread. 

[ryansumo]

Generally speaking, it's hard to find out what site converts the most players, but Twitter, Facebook, and reddit are the highest in terms for acquisition/bringing people to our steam page.

[dom1911]

We use a content calendar that you can plan a week ahead and it could look like this http://imgur.com/6YtBw73.
In addition I suggest using a tool like Buffer (free to a certain degree) to schedule posts ahead. That way you only have to interact with fans since the posting is automated.
As main social platforms we concentrate on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tumblr. Reddit is another good but tougher to reach.
Another thing I suggest is creating lists on Twitter to keep track and stay in touch with certain people & fans, we for example have:

1. Most Active Followers
2. Top Gamedev News
3. List of Top Influencers
4. Industry Leaders
5. Competitor List

Nurture them over time (the most important ones are Top Influencers and Most Active Followers to us)
I suggest making most of them private.

Your overall goal should be to drive people to a certain action (Call to Action). This could be a link for a newsletter sign up or a new blog post you created. Track every tweet and post and test what worked and what didn't - adapt if need be.

Hope that helped a little

[RubberMan]

Generally speaking, it's hard to find out what site converts the most players, but Twitter, Facebook, and reddit are the highest in terms for acquisition/bringing people to our steam page.

Thank you for replying and passing on the information. Much appreciated.

[RubberMan]

We use a content calendar that you can plan a week ahead and it could look like this http://imgur.com/6YtBw73.
In addition I suggest using a tool like Buffer (free to a certain degree) to schedule posts ahead. That way you only have to interact with fans since the posting is automated.
As main social platforms we concentrate on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tumblr. Reddit is another good but tougher to reach.
Another thing I suggest is creating lists on Twitter to keep track and stay in touch with certain people & fans, we for example have:

1. Most Active Followers
2. Top Gamedev News
3. List of Top Influencers
4. Industry Leaders
5. Competitor List

Nurture them over time (the most important ones are Top Influencers and Most Active Followers to us)
I suggest making most of them private.

Your overall goal should be to drive people to a certain action (Call to Action). This could be a link for a newsletter sign up or a new blog post you created. Track every tweet and post and test what worked and what didn't - adapt if need be.

Hope that helped a little

Wow, this is awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to add such value to this post, not only for me but to anyone else looking for information on social media promotion.

[dom1911]

Happy to help!

Another thing that came to my mind was that you should engage with other gamedevs as frequently as possible, I take 10 minutes out of my day to get in touch with the same gamedevs on their latest progress. Giving feedback, spreading the word about running Kickstarters and generally helping each other can go a long way in this community!

[kingdombunniez]

I think every social media platform can be used. Just think about what kind of people you want to reach? What kind of gamers.

I am in no way an expert, but I had some popular FB pages and tumblr blogs. Also imgur can work pretty good. But like anything become part of a community first and don't only promote yourself

[carlospidox]

This thread made me discard my native language twitter and start a new one.
I forgot how awesome it is to follow developers. 
What devs should I follow? Tell me your favorites.
Also, here's my new twitter: https://twitter.com/carluspedroso.

[theaterofdreams]

For me... I don't bother with Instagram, as it's not really my target market  Facebook and Twitter have been great, but like other people have said, it's good to use some social media tools. They can make life a lot easier regarding data analysis and posting ahead. I'd suggest looking at this 1&1 guide, as I found it pretty useful to find nice social media tools   

[MrPhil]

What do people think about streaming game development on Twitch?  I've been researching best practices, but I haven't found anything that's convinced me it is a good way to reach and build an audience.

[valambrian]

I believe Vlambeer did that with their Nuclear Throne, Mr. Phil.

[MrPhil]

True, but they already had a fan base, so it's not really a good case study.

[valambrian]

I encourage you to try and share your experience. 

[MrPhil]

ha ha okay.  I kind of think Twitch would complement a YouTube development "vlog" channel for live Q&A sessions.  I just feel that the gamedev process needs to be edited down into a quick story, giving an explanation of goals and methods, documenting the process, showing game play etc. Long drawn out live sessions are not that engaging and frankly not what the Twitch audience is interested in, they are there to watch games really.

[WarpQueen]

We have since set up a YouTube Channel

How do you have a couple of videos with 20-30k views, and then others with 12 views? What did you do when you released the former ones? Press-release? Have you analyzed this?

[WarpQueen]

We use a content calendar that you can plan a week ahead and it could look like this http://imgur.com/6YtBw73.

This post has a LOT of excellent advice, but the schedule you link to here is crazy! SO many screenshots and blog posts! Do you have time to do anything else? Or maybe you have someone to run social media? We try to have one blog post per week...