The easiest and free way to grow your game’s social media following

A lot of studios struggle with growing their social media following. There are, of course, many things that could be done to enhance and speed up the process – adjusting communication strategy, posting more content etc. Some even use paid campaigns to improve their brands’ recognition. However, there’s a simple thing that can be done in the game itself that can provide a decent following and, aside from slightly altering UI, it costs nothing. In this article, I’ll talk about this little trick and will provide some info on how to measure its effects on your social media presence.

Traffic redirection

Let’s quickly define what traffic redirection is. It is a process in which people visiting “destination A” (the traffic) are being moved by some means to “destination B” in the digital world and Internet (redirection). This can be done in many different manners and for many different purposes but in general, it is done to either showcase a different piece of content to the recipient (ie. linking another chapter of an online course)  or to make the recipient take an action (ie. making a recipient click a button in an online store that will move them to an order and delivery form). Thinking of it, traffic redirection lies pretty much at the essence of most content in which there are links to click, or CTAs to act upon.

How can this process be used to grow your games social media following?

Slapping buttons all over the place

Just have a bunch of buttons with links to your social media profiles in your game. The main areas to place them are:

1. the title screen,
2. main menu,
3. in-game pause menu,
4. pop-up boxes.

There’s a bunch of things you’ll have to keep in mind, though:

1. Don’t make the buttons an obstruction or distraction to the gameplay itself.
2. Don’t make them too big, as you want your menus and your boxes/windows to be looking well and immersive.
3. Make sure that you’re compliant with the social media portals’ brand and logo usage guidelines.
4. Don’t shove pop-ups into the faces of already existing fans.

In order to make them more incentivised to follow you on social media, you can grant them a cosmetic item or some in-game currency for doing so. You also have to be sure that your social media actually provide some valuable info and entertainment for the players. Ultimately, it’s your content that is going to keep them engaged and active.

Measuring the effects

Of course, you should measure how the buttons are going to influence your social media growth. Who knows when the team leader or the CEO will ask you for a report? Maybe some of the buttons will be driving so much traffic that it will be better to delete other ones in order to streamline the interface? Whatever the case may be, it’s always good to have such data. The two easiest ways to measure how well they click, are as follows:

1. creating a Google Analytics campaign and using custom links with parameters,
2. using bit.ly or similar shortened links with analytics dashboards provided by the link shortening service.

Honestly, I prefer the second method, as it’s quicker and allows us to measure clicks effectively. However, you will have to decide which one of them is going to be more suitable for your studio. You will also need to keep in mind that there will not be a simple way of correlating likes and clicks, as, as far as I’m aware, there’s no simple way to measure the effectiveness of redirection and the actual conversion into new followers. I’d recommend tracking the sources of new likes in the traffic sources in your social media (if available) and estimating the data by comparison to other forms of growing your presence. The followers, at least on Facebook, have a high possibility to be tagged in the analytics as coming from “your site” or “api” (this is an effective way of measuring the traffic, but you will need to have some integrations in the game itself and, since I’m not a coder, I have no clue how to do that and you’ll have to talk to your coders if it’s possible and viable in the case of your game).

While I’m not able to provide any case studies due to the confidentiality of such data in the company I work at now, believe me – it works REALLY well, at least in the realm of mobile games.

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Have you tried to use this technique of expanding your social media channels’ following? If so, share your case studies in the comments below, as it’s always fun to find out what is the experience of other individuals in the field! By the way, if you wanna talk about marketing and gaming, or wanna hire me, hit me up on Twitter, LinkedIn or email me at jakub.mamulski@gmail.com. Thank you for reading, share this article with your colleagues and cheers!