One of the greatest marketing platforms for a game is Twitter. Yet, it is not always clear how to really use Twitter to build a following or to promote your game. If you’re an indie game developer or are part of a growing games studio, if you’re not already using Twitter to grow your audience – you are definitely missing out!
From a recent poll that I ran on Twitter (@Ninichimusic) – most indie game developers seemed to agree that the most important component to a game development marketing plan is to share images, gifs and video clips with their audience. In essence, you need to share regular updates on your game development via your Twitter feed.
So what can you share with your audience? Here’s a list of ideas to help you get the most out of this:
· Concept art – any visuals that show what your indie game looks like and what you’re working on can get people excited about your game
· Key characters or objects in your game – introduce us to them. Who are they? What are they? What do they look like? Show us some images, gifs or video clips of them in action.
· Title screen – give us a glimpse of what this looks like. Get the name of your game stuck in our heads!
· Map of your world
· Menu options
· Beautiful scenery & other screenshots of your game - share scenes from different sections of your indie game. Share shots from different angles. Get creative!
· Game levels – if you have different levels in your game, show us what they look like and how they’re different
· Boss fights – who are the enemies in your game? Let us see them! Let us love them! Let us hate them!
· Gameplay examples – we love seeing clips of example gameplay. Show us what we could be playing and getting our teeth into!
· Game music – let us hear what your game music sounds like. Share some tracks. Even better – share video clips with the game music included.
(If you don't have your game music sorted yet contact me to explore some options. Also, listen to examples of my game music for ideas and inspiration)
· Special sound effects – are you using anything that’s funny or unique to your game. Share it! Or was there a particular sound effect in your game that was tricky to create or get right? Tell us about it!
· Trailer – if you’ve got a game trailer – show us and get us excited about what’s coming! If you don’t have a game trailer, why not?
· Kickstarter campaign posters & links
· Facebook page links
· Mentions, thank you's, conversations between you & your team – let us see you interacting with each other & let us see who in the team has been involved with what
· Press coverage or reviews – if you’ve managed to get yourself on a blog or in the press – share it with us so we can learn more about your game. Check out my blog and game features and contact me if you'd like me to feature you game here.
· Conferences – if you’re visiting any – let people know so we can see how active you are and where you’re going to be
· Merchandise – if you’ve created any merchandise around your game – share these with us. Make us want them!
This is not an exhaustive list – so by all means, share more with your audience. I hope that this just gives you a few ideas to start off with. It can be daunting and it can be a bit scary to share so much of what you’re up to without knowing exactly how people will react – but more likely than not, I think that you will be pleasantly surprised by how supportive everyone will be. The indie game development community especially - will most likely do their best to support you wherever they can. We all want you and your game to succeed! The more you share with the world, the more we can get behind your game and support you with it.
Read next: 6 Must Do Marketing Tips for Indie Game Developers
About the author: Ninichi is a UK-based freelance composer. She create music for games, film and other media and is available for commissions.
Find out more About Ninichi, explore her music on this site and follow her @ninichimusic
