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Episode Summary
Are you a game developer struggling to make a splash on social media? You’re not alone. In episode 23 of The Games PR Podcast, we delve into the secrets behind successful social media strategies that will help you boost your game’s social media following and increase engagement across X, TikTok, Discord, LinkedIn, and more!
Join BGM’s social media expert Tamsin, and Astral Clocktower Studios’ marketing dynamo Sarah, as they provide actionable strategies and insights into what you need to do in order to level up your social media presence and achieve stronger results. If you’re a game developer looking to enhance your social media presence, this episode is a goldmine of information. Here are four actionable tips based on their advice:
Quality Over Quantity: The Cornerstone of Success
Many developers fall into the trap of thinking they need to be everywhere at once. However, as Tamsin and Sarah emphasise, quality content trumps quantity. By focusing on creating high-value content for your target audience, you can maximise your impact and save valuable time.
- Actionable Tip: Identify your top two or three social media platforms and commit to creating exceptional content for those platforms. This may be based on audience, or game genre!
Leveraging Different Platforms for Maximum Impact
Each social media platform has its own strengths. Discord is ideal for building a strong community, while Instagram can be effective even with minimal visual content. LinkedIn is evolving, with a shift towards keywords and engaging visuals.
- Actionable Tip: Experiment with different content formats on each platform to see what resonates best with your audience.
Handling Negative Feedback with Grace
Negative feedback is inevitable. The key is to respond calmly and constructively. Distinguish between genuine criticism and trolling, and focus on addressing valid concerns.
- Actionable Tip: Develop a response plan for handling negative feedback to ensure consistency and professionalism. Consult friends, family, or fellow developers who can offer valuable perspective.
Standing Out from the Crowd
Identifying key USPs and focusing your social media on these is a crucial way to ensure you’re doing your utmost to hit the right audiences and sell your game. Kristala’s anthropomorphic cat-like characters and metal soundtrack saw Sarah focus on partnering with relevant creators to produce engaging content on social media platforms.
- Actionable Tip: Make a list of your games USPs such as visual design, a distinct gameplay hook, or even its music. Ensure that all your social media posts focus on these aspects to build your game’s personality regardless of which platforms you post content on.
Social Media Calendar
A social media calendar is a super helpful way to ensure you spread out content in an appropiate manner and can help keep consistent uploads across your platforms. At the same time, being able to adapt to unexpected opportunities can help secure viral posts on trending topics that are great opportunities to increase engagement and bring new eyes to your game.
- Actionable Tip: Create a content calendar with flexibility built in to accommodate spontaneous posts. Having content planned around a month ahead of time gives you plenty of room to account for taking advantage of social media trends and opportunities that pop up.
Conclusion
By following the insights shared by Tamsin and Sarah, you can elevate your game development social media strategy and build a thriving online community. Don’t forget to listen to the full podcast episode for even more valuable tips and actionable advice.
Transcript
Jack:
So if you’d like to introduce yourself, Sarah, we’ll start with you as the guest here on the pod. Welcome.
Sarah: Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to chat, about this stuff because I am one of the co owners at Astral Clock Tower Studios. And as you mentioned, Jack, we are developing a game called Kristala and I am also our marketing director. so not a dev on the team. So I don’t usually get to chat marketing, with fellow marketers. so this is very exciting for me.
Jack: Tamsin, welcome to the Pod. Podcast debut.
Tamsin: Thank you. Yeah. I am Tamsin. I am the Senior Social Media account executive at Big Games Machine, and I specialize in providing B2B social media management and support to our clients.
So I cover everything from drafting and scheduling copy to analysis and reporting, and yeah, really [00:02:00] excited to get into it.
Jack: Excellent. So you mentioned Kristala there, Sarah, that is set in the world of fantasy. So let’s start with what are some common social media myths and perhaps fantasies that, game devs, marketers shouldn’t fall for when it comes to this world.
Sarah: That’s a good question. I think one of the biggest ones I would maybe say is thinking that you have to be everywhere. Oh, I have to be on Facebook. I gotta be on Reddit. I gotta be on Twitter and TikTok and Instagram and LinkedIn it can feel very intimidating when you think, okay, especially for a solo developer, like I’m developing this game.
I’m a creator. That’s what I do, but I might not be. A marketer. So like, how do I handle that? so I think it really just falls down to knowing your audience and knowing what Platforms there on where are they communicating? Where are they engaging and just start [00:03:00] there? you can just start with a few platforms at 1st, if you’re new and just trying to, start to build your brand from a social media standpoint.
And then I think the 2nd, big 1 is you hear a lot, Depending on the platform, but like you need to be posting every day and sometimes multiple times per day and like people think okay Then I just have to be like constantly churning things out But I think what’s more important than frequency is just having quality content, right?
Like You don’t have to post every day if you don’t have something to say or something great to share. Don’t be hard on yourself about that. it’s the quality stuff I think that will get your community to keep building and get the people there to engage.
Tamsin: Yeah, I completely
Sarah: agree.
Tamsin: I completely agree with you there, Sarah, because it can be such a waste of time and resources to be churning out content to a space where nobody is interested. So definitely [00:04:00] when you’re starting out a social media strategy, it’s so important to think Where are my audiences? You were saying, like, where should I focus my time?
I appreciate that LinkedIn is a social media platform for professionals. I get that. But professionals are still people. You don’t need to adopt this overused LinkedIn tone of voice, you can be playful and still come across as reputable on that platform without, leaning into this LinkedIn ness, like you can still be professional.
Jack: I believe it’s journalist facing just as much as somebody looking for investment just to have that presence. as you’ve said, times in LinkedIn has changed a lot over the years. I know in the office here, we consistently see people posting about, things I’ve seen on LinkedIn and thinking perhaps people aren’t using it correctly, which for an example might be.
[00:05:00] Going into great detail about the personal life and then trying to tenuously back to business. we’ve talked about maybe not posting too much. I think that also goes, don’t go into too much detail about your personal life. If it’s not relevant to your community, do they need to know that?
Sarah: It’s so true.
Jack: So that
Sarah: can be like a fine balance too. Cause there are some platforms where I don’t know TikTok or Instagram, where face content is much more, appealing and gets more traction than just a gameplay clip kind of a thing. We tend to struggle with that, like, how much do we share, and how much do we hold back?
Now generally we err on the side of caution always, which is good, but yeah.
Jack: Definitely an interesting one for this game dev specific conversation, because as we’ll dive into what worked and what didn’t work for Kristala, you folks had quite a hefty development process and part of that was [00:06:00] outlaying what roadmap looks like.
And so some devs. Going quite behind the scenes and introducing themselves and we just talked about faces there putting faces on who’s behind the game and who isn’t so what did you folks find worked for Kristala and perhaps with the game still very much in process might you want to do that you haven’t done yet Or vice versa, what have you not got to touch again?
Sarah: I’ll probably say this like a ton of times during this chat, but it really does depend on the platform. I always. Tell people who are just getting into the marketing space or whatever to forget what you think, and let the data speak because sometimes I’ll work really hard on a very polished and beautiful gameplay compilation that I’ll be like, this is going to do really well on Twitter slash X, which has a huge gaming community there, and then I’ll post it and It’ll flop, but then I’ll share a very [00:07:00] rudimentary shot of just like white box assets set up and we’re showing off a new four legged traversal skill very early in progress that takes off and does super well.
So for us it was definitely a lot of Testing different content on different platforms. I think people really do the beauty of being an indie developer is that I think you can have more of a conversation with your audience. I feel like a lot of AAA studios and developers feel like these mysterious, secretive, Entities that don’t interface a lot with the community.
And so we’ve really tried to adopt the exact opposite of that responding, engaging, just being present. And inviting people, not only into our development process, but also just into the conversation if they want to know us as human beings, we’re happy to [00:08:00] share to an extent but yeah, I think just being there and being available has really helped us a lot.
And as far as what hasn’t worked. Again, that depends on platform too. Like before we used to just share, let’s say strictly gameplay content on TikTok. And then the content is performing abysmally and we’re like, what’s going on? And then we share a silly meme using a trending sound and showing one of our faces and it takes off, which is, it’s just been really cool to do that testing, process.
And we’ve been in development with Kristala and stuff since 2018. So we’ve had quite a bit of time to do that testing, which then really helps when you come up on an initial launch or a big milestone that you’re reaching to then be like, okay, I have a bit more of a targeted approach to what I’m going to share on each different platform.
Tamsin: I think that’s what can make social [00:09:00] media so difficult is because like you said, Sarah, you do have to do testing. It’s not there’s some magical, cheat code that you can use to Go viral or get metric success. Like you have to work out what works for not only your platform, but the social media accounts that you’re managing.
So yeah, it is tricky to work out, but it’s so rewarding when you do find something like that works for my brands. This, we’re going to go down that avenue. So yeah, rewarding, but hard sometimes.
Sarah: Totally. We were talking about myths earlier and I think sometimes people will be like, okay it’s this day in this time will yield good success.
You know for you on whatever platform and that’s a whole other beast like we’ll share Something on a Saturday afternoon and it just totally tanks, but then Tuesday night it does great so it’s that’s like a whole other piece of the puzzle in the mix That’s like what kind of content what time?
Hashtag yeah, all of it is like a little [00:10:00] Puzzle and like marketing nerds like us might really love that But I know like especially those solo developers like I was talking about i’m sure it can be difficult if they’re like, I don’t know where to start a thing.
Jack: Do you think then?
both of you that Having a content calendar is something that they have to have or is there still value in Going off the cuff and just thinking I’m going to post something at some point and just see how it does. If having a calendar is something they should do, how might someone go about putting that together to really engage that audience?
Tamsin: I think that a content calendar is really important for planning ahead and making sure that you don’t post loads all at once and get all your amazing ideas out there and then suddenly have a drought of activity. So consistency is super duper key on social [00:11:00] media. So I definitely say that having a content calendar.
is important. However, ad hoc posting is also, can be really valuable. For example, if you find a trend on TikTok or X or whatever social media platform that it might be, and you suddenly think, Oh, that’s really relevant to my brand. Or we could hop on this and come up with a funny meme that goes along with this trending sounds or this hashtag.
And that is the time when it should be like, I know that we’ve got this content calendar in place, but I want to post today to jump on this because if you plan too far ahead, if you think, Oh, that’s a good trend, we’ll do that next week. It probably won’t be trending by then. So it’s about finding a balance between keeping an eye on what’s trending and also being forward thinking and thinking this is our optimal posting frequency and also getting in those little snippets where you can.
Sarah: Totally. I completely agree because, You’re so right. If you miss that trend, even by a couple of days, [00:12:00] sometimes then you’re like, you look like out of touch with the trend Or you just don’t get good performance. I know for us, a content calendar has helped just to be able, like sometimes we’ll need things from our developers, right?
Whether it’s a gameplay clip or we want them to have a piece of face content to join into the mix. So it really helps with planning in that sense. but yeah, there’s often times where we’re like let’s jump on this right now, or use this sound. It’s trending right now and doing really well, or here’s something new that everyone’s doing on X.
Here’s something. Somebody’s doing on X and the, the gaming space is really jumping on it. So let’s do that too. Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more.
Jack: Which brings me on to. Because we’ve discussed, before you said that can be faceless, even the larger ones, all the way down to an indie dev, but keeping that social content aligned with all the other marketing you have going on an example.
We frequently might see is. at least from the PR side, trying to put some news out that [00:13:00] might have already been announced a few hours ago on the social media platform. And then you’re putting journalists in a tricky position. If you’re trying to keep that information under wraps for an optimal news time, when they can just go and look on a different platform and see that, so was that something you took into account?
with Kristala about working with, as you yourself leading on the marketing, checking in with what some other members of the team might need and, just keeping that aligned. How important was that?
Sarah: Definitely important. There are some things, like you mentioned, if we have, a big, launch day reveal or something that’s coming up that we want.
press or influencers to get access to first. Yeah. We really have to make sure that the entire team is on board with that. even if there’s a set group of individuals on our team, that are managing our social media presence as a studio and brand. But then we have a pretty large team, right?
So the, all of these other individuals [00:14:00] have their own social media that they use that. That’s not connected to the studio. So we really have to make sure that we’re communicating, as a marketing team, just Hey, here’s this coming up. Hey, we’re holding back. This is under embargo until this date. And then, feel free to share it all over.
but yeah, I think we definitely have to think about those things and be aligned on them so that we’re allowing the people that we want exclusive access to something to have that access.
Tamsin: And that’s another reason why content calendars are so important because you’re able to get all your ducks in a row, you can plan ahead with the whole team.
I share the different content calendars for the relevant teams so they know what’s going on from my side and then they can put in, oh, we’ve got a release on this date and things like that. So yeah, it’s definitely important. To keep it consistent across because it just else it gets really confusing as well.
So in terms of making our lives easier in terms of marketing, it’s definitely worth doing.
Jack: So with all those different [00:15:00]
ideas in mind about, okay, we’ve got lots of content and we discussed at the top, the risk of trying to do too much across too many platforms. because we’ve talked a lot about x we’ve talked about linkedin and we’ve touched on tiktok But I know within the game space, especially discord has become really big for indie devs and growing that community Just as much as serving as a kind of social platform and Instagram as well.
Kristala was blessed to have really amazing visuals, which was a key selling point, but there may be some people listening who are making an incredibly niche puzzle game or A very text heavy, old style RPG, and they perhaps don’t think they have the visuals to lean on for so many, image heavy platforms.
I guess just a open discussion about some examples of how you can leverage different platforms rather than just one or two.
Sarah: Yeah, Discord for sure is [00:16:00] great for having that conversation and discourse with your community. And if you don’t have a lot of visual content for say an Instagram, there’s still things that you can do.
Like you can adopt a color scheme, even with text and other assets that you’re putting on to your content. So you can think about. What is somebody seeing when they come to my page? what are the feelings or the, emotions or energy that I want them to get from my content, even if it’s not, super, inherently visual, like you were talking about Jack.
but then that’s where something like discord is. Fantastic, because that’s more of a private, you can have a public Discord where anyone can join, but it’s more of a text based conversation type of, platform where you can, host giveaways, contests, weekly events, show, every Friday I share hashtag fresh content Friday, and we’re [00:17:00] sharing something new about the game, there are definitely ways I think that you can.
connect into each platform’s quirks and charms.
Tamsin: I think in terms of other like platform specific best practices, first off. All social media platforms are consistently changing you’ve really got to keep your finger on the pulse, haven’t you, if you want to keep up with everything that’s going on. but there are some tips and tricks that you can try, obviously, for your account it might not work, but in terms of appeasing the algorithm.
For example, on LinkedIn, you shouldn’t really post more than once every 18 hours, else the algorithm can flag it as spam and then you’ll get deprioritized. in terms of accompanying assets, LinkedIn loves carousels. Basically, when you’re clicking through the carousel, that counts as engagement, so the engagement rates, on some of our posts recently, we’ve got engagement rates above 80%, which versus a platform average of [00:18:00] 4%, we’re really pleased with.
And a big part of that is the use of carousels. If you’re on LinkedIn, definitely recommend, just you can make them on Canva, Canva’s free, if you’ve got Adobe or something like that, absolutely go for that as well, but Canva’s a great way of being able to get into that and get into those carousels without having to spend money.
as Sarah was saying about content. Which includes pictures of faces, faces receive four times more engagement on LinkedIn than graphics. So definitely think about, you don’t need the best camera in the world. It can just be a selfie or something like that of you and your team, but that content really does well.
And to always try and use an accompanying asset, if you can, it is more eye catching for the audience and also. The algorithm prefers it, but then, there’s lots of other little things as well. LinkedIn no longer actually likes to use hashtags and more into keywords. so yeah, there’s loads to [00:19:00] consider when it comes to best practices, but I think doing your research consistently and keeping up to date with changes, that’s how you’ll really get the results that you want.
Jack: And that can be used across different platforms as well. cause those LinkedIn tips, I will see often Instagram might have a scroll of pictures to a music. So it all counts as the same. So you go, I’ve got to look through all of them and the music’s playing, that’s the engagement. So you can, and this circles back to the content calendar and keeping everything aligned.
You can build up a strategy. that will work across multiple platforms that you can reuse and really eek that content out for different results.
Sarah: Totally, you just taught me so much about LinkedIn too. I admit we treat LinkedIn not as important as the other platforms.
Thank you for sharing all that.
Tamsin: But that’s the thing, isn’t it? As we were discussing earlier, like if your audience isn’t [00:20:00] there, Then why waste the resources, if you’re looking for funding or you’re looking to hire or things like that, then yes, it can be a really useful tool, but if it’s not useful for you, then.
A bit like X or Instagram might not be worth it for your brand or your game. Then you really do just have to prioritize, don’t you? Totally. Yeah.
Sarah: Yeah. I’ve heard recently that, on Instagram often has been, Lately oh, video is king, but I’ve heard we’ve been trying to do more carousels for some of those reasons that they are like prioritizing images in that carousel form lately.
thank goodness. I have a lovely marketing team that works with me and my one gal specifically tries to stay up on all those trends. Like you were talking about, cause it can be tough, but They like to change those algorithms. Quick.
Tamsin: Don’t they just?
You just get in like the flow of one of them and then it’s oh, no, not using [00:21:00] hashtags anymore and it’s okay, I need to change my whole strategy but yeah it is tricky keeping up with the changes.
Sarah: It can be really frustrating too and sorry, now I’m gonna, we’re probably deviating a bit but I, we were just hearing that on TikTok you’ll get shadowed now if you are like re sharing somebody else’s content which is really frustrating if we have An individual in the studio or one of, me or, Alexis, my, my partner, if we want to reshare something from the Kristala page, that it apparently they’re like cracking down on that, I guess to protect the creators, but it can become very frustrating when you’re just trying to cross promote or yeah, just, reshare something.
The platform’s Nope, it’s frustrating.
Jack: An interesting one that, because I [00:22:00] know that user generated content for certain games was really critical for them, starting from scratch, even just putting out hashtags for fan art, and then that was their way. Of building that community was that present so Leveraging that user generated content From within the team or outside the team if that’s suddenly something that isn’t going to be Useful anymore like we said hard to keep track of trends, but something to keep An eye on we’ve seen what can be great from Going back to linkedin sharing about what the dev team have been up to and if you have a new hire really shouting about them Is great So Was there something, again, from the Kristala side with the community that, that you saw that worked in particular, or something you’d like to get involved with, or maybe giving another dev a shout out for something they did that you’d like to look at?
Sarah: You mean specifically for LinkedIn?
Jack: LinkedIn [00:23:00] or outside. I’m talking about just this leveraging content that you yourself haven’t made, but you can use as part of this social. in a positive way, obviously not just crapping on someone’s work, that kind of thing,
Sarah: Absolutely for us specifically, There are two cool things about Kristala , One of the things, if you’re not familiar with us, is that, Our characters are like, anthropomorphic cat like characters.
and then we also have this unique collaboration happening, with popular death core and metal vocalists. So we have those vocalists, That can help us with content. And then we also try to collaborate with different, cat V tubers cat pet influencers
We’re able to take content through those collaborations to sure, it might not be directly game content, but, we can fill in the gaps in between some of, the more regular gameplay content with, showcasing our vocalists or, like [00:24:00] sometimes we’ll just wear a Kristala shirt.
This is actually a shirt I’m wearing as part of our, metal collaboration, but we’ll send them some merch and they’re wearing our shirt in a cover that they’re doing, on social. So that’s been a cool way for us to, I think beyond the obvious like streamer, gaming influencer to collaborate Creators that are related specifically, to our game and some of the things that we’re doing.
Jack: giving you,
Jack: Sorry.
Tamsin: No, I think with Influencer stuff and things like that, Jack, it’s definitely your bread and butter there. But it is Such a, when we’re talking about working with influencers and stuff like that, it really is important that you do what you do Sarah, and you work with ones who are relevant to what you’re trying to promote.
so yeah, it’s really interesting to hear about that. I love the cat stuff as well. Very cool.
Sarah: We are huge cat lovers,
Jack: dive into the crisis things a bit later. I think just something we can touch on now, because it was [00:25:00] something you’d talk to Tamzin about, especially that corporate side, but again, it goes to whoever you’re following on all these platforms.
Be careful who you’re following, because it can give people coming in the wrong impression if you are following, or if there’s been a controversy Again, it goes back to trends, if someone was really popular, then suddenly he’s getting cancelled and you’ve done something there, that can always be something just to consider with the, it’s an incredibly fast paced landscape, social, to try and keep ahead of all that, but just start from the ground up, just be careful who you’re interacting with, or following just from a base level, right?
Tamsin: Yeah, definitely. It can be difficult because it is such a fast paced landscape and you can also sometimes forget, when you created your LinkedIn account, let’s say, or your Instagram account like 10 years ago, and you were following your Insert name here who has now been, outed as this awful person or something like that.
[00:26:00] It can reflect badly on your brand, especially if it’s something that, you definitely don’t align with now. So it’s important to give your social platforms, and this is for personal and for businesses, a bit of an audit every now and again, make sure that everything still aligns with your brands.
And also going back to what we talked about earlier about, Making sure that everything’s aligned across all of your social media and your marketing is to look at your profile pictures and things like that, make sure that they’re updated so that if somebody comes across your account, if they’ve come from your website, they can definitely recognize that.
Oh, that is, this company’s x page, Instagram page, whatever. So yeah, just keeping an eye on who you’re interacting with, who you’re following, who you’ve reposted and things like that as well. it’s really important and it is hard to, keep on top of it, especially when. you’re getting loads of interactions and loads of people commenting and things like that, you just have to remain focused on the fact of I need to quickly check, this person’s profile, [00:27:00] make sure there’s somebody that we want to be positively interacting with.
Sarah: I agree. Every now and then we’ll do exactly that. Like just a little audit like you were talking about. Just go through and, check who we’re following and that kind of stuff.
Jack: At least on the community side You can also be at risk of the inverse of that. if you have a really successful discord There’s discords get raided all the time or if you have Because again, lots of devs like streaming their development and build their community through Twitch and they can get raided as well and just get lots of negativity in that stream.
So a, Big part of that is okay. You’re managing socials. You’ve also got to start thinking about managing community and not every studio or dev is going to have the luxury of having a community manager. So if that isn’t something they can hire externally, Sarah, what can they think of from the community management side?
that they might be able to start just from very basic [00:28:00] ground level.
Sarah: So at least for something like discord, I know there are like a moderation type bots and stuff that you can set up. So let’s say you want like a safer work. Discord community.
Some people don’t, if you want that kind of a community, you can enlist the help of, automated tools where you can just plug in, Hey, these are like the terms and phrases that I don’t want Any conversation or discourse in, in my discord community. You can do stuff like that.
social media, that’s a bit more difficult, to have automated as far as I’m aware. But I think you could at least help set the tone yourself of the type of energy that you want or the type of language that you’re using if you want it to be a super positive and welcoming and warm and engaging space, for your audience.
then you can reflect that out in your content and the verbiage that you’re [00:29:00] using. I think that could at least be an easy way to start if you don’t have, the funds or the capabilities currently to, hire an actual community manager.
Jack: If we keep things positive, and I think Tamsin, you can help weigh in on this, but increasing that engagement, if that’s now part of the community manager’s job to keep everyone talking and engaged across different platforms.
We talked before about what potentially type of posts work, but what other things can be considered as ways of just keeping that community active and talking to each other, just as much as they’re interacting with you, the main account.
Tamsin: Some advice, and this goes across all social media platforms, is having a really clear call to action of what you want your community to do.
Whether it’s leave a comment with what level you’re playing currently, or go to this link to join our group keeping it very clear and directing users on what you want them to do is great [00:30:00] for increasing engagement, but also making it feel a bit more personal to people because when you think about it, really, we’re just looking at a screen at the end of the day, and it can feel very impersonal.
so yeah, call to actions are great in general, like Sarah was mentioning earlier, like contests and things like that. where you can ask people to like follow comment, share for the chance to X, Y, Z that can make people feel involved and also get them engaging with your content. and in that term as well, a game key, for example, could be a really good price because one, you don’t have to post it.
And two, it’s very relevant to, If you’re a game developer, it’s very relevant to that on LinkedIn. What you can also do to try and build your community is you can actually invite users to follow your company page. You get 250 free invitation credits a month, and as long as you’re connected to somebody, you can invite them to follow your page and we’ve used that as a strategy actually on multiple accounts and we’ve increased our followers.
Dramatically. [00:31:00] And that’s just a really simple way to also get your company involved. So you can ask other employees who are. Admins on the account to invite connections as well. so yeah, that’s just a few bits of advice and you can also, on LinkedIn, a good idea actually is to do a LinkedIn live. That is a really good way of getting your community involved.
We’ve started a freemium mode series recently that Jack, actually you were on only last week. where we basically do a series where we invite our community to ask us questions on a selection of games industry topics. So last week’s was literally on podcast. and it can be a really good way of just getting that advice really quickly over to our followers, but also getting them to connect with us with questions.
And then we can use those questions to inform all of our social strategy. They’re interested in these topics. That’s what we should hold into with. content moving forward.
Sarah: Yeah, that’s a really good strategy I think just a Q& A and [00:32:00] I think it goes back to also Yeah, just being like available and there and like present and actually responding to comments and that kind of thing we’ll do a Reddit AMA, come ask us anything, or like a community stream or community game night type of thing in the discord.
I think, just like regular events like that, where people can actually be interfacing with you. and I love what you said, Tamzin, about having what folks are interested in those type of Q and A sessions, inform your social strategy. that’s a good point.
Jack: It’s, to reference, Chris Darla’s journey as well. There was, talk within the community, just wanting to understand more about what the plans were. So you went we need to create a roadmap here. And that was a really positive way of the community asking for something, the team being able to produce that, and then everyone winning,
Sarah: totally. Yeah. we did a Kickstarter that was successful. And, so now, like you mentioned, we’re in early access [00:33:00] and a lot of our audience are console backers or console players, and they are interested in not PC and steam versions.
We were getting a lot of questions before creating this roadmap of when can I expect the console copies or what’s going on? Why isn’t there more news about that specifically? And yeah, just having this, simple graphic of our roadmap that we created that we can then get out to everybody.
It’s on the steam page. We send it out via newsletter. It’s on the website several times. it helps people just feel not only okay, I’m being heard, but like, all right, I have this information. I feel like I can breathe a little bit better. I know what to expect and that’s definitely helped us tremendously.
It’s just like setting the proper expectations totally helps overall with the community and managing them in general, and their questions and what they want to see.
Jack: And that was obviously a very positive response. How do game devs, companies in general, [00:34:00] deal with that negative feedback?
What are some obvious and perhaps not so obvious approaches to responding to criticism? Open the floor.
Sarah: Yeah, that can be difficult. and I think number one that I try to tell because we do have several people with access to our social channels and some of them are direct developers and working on the game and it can feel personal when somebody Is leaving negative feedback about something that you put your heart and soul, a lot of times, your own money, into.
so I just always tell her, number one, don’t be defensive and don’t be reactive, right? So you might. read something that’s not so savory, and you immediately want to do the, but you’re misunderstanding this, or you’re missing this point, or, you just want to defend yourself, which is, I think, a knee jerk natural reaction.
so I always say, give it a beat. if you’re a person that is very okay, I’m just [00:35:00] Say what I’m thinking in the moment, stop, even give it an hour if you need to give it some time so that you can really internalize and come up with a response that is essentially saying, I hear you.
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts about this and here’s how we’re addressing it or working on fixing it. it really depends on what the feedback is for that third piece. I know this. Isn’t something that all developers or studios can do, but that’s where it’s really helpful for us specifically to have a marketing team
It, they aren’t developers, right? they’re the marketers. So they have that one step away from being so close to what’s being creative and having it feel so personal when somebody still does, don’t get me wrong, like it’s our collective baby, the game, but it’s a little bit easier maybe to, I don’t know, even if you need to run it by a friend, if you’re a solo dev, run it by a friend or a family member Hey, should I, this is [00:36:00] what I’m wanting to say.
Is this okay? you just want to make sure that you’re not, being defensive really is the biggest one, I think, for us because gamers, they’ll pick up on that and they will come back at you sometimes. and very last thing, sometimes people are just being trolls and they’re being jerks and then sometimes it’s actual constructive criticism and so you should try to, know how to differentiate the two.
It sometimes is hard to tell which is which, but you usually can tell. the constructive criticism person is actually giving you details on their experience with your game and whatever feature or mechanic that they’re having a problem with. and to the people that are just the trolls, I say ignore them.
I don’t, feed the trolls, or don’t feed the trolls is a saying, for a reason. Yeah, that’s our experience with it.
Tamsin: Yeah, I think everything you’ve said there is so spot on, Sarah, because it can be difficult sometimes, can’t it? But you’re not going to be everybody’s cup of tea.
If we all like the same things, then it [00:37:00] will be boring. So it’s important sometimes to remind yourself Members of the public, they’re going to have their opinion, even if we might not like it. And going back and arguing with those users, about what they think of your game can look petty, so I completely agree.
It’s really important to avoid that, but saying that there is a clear difference between criticism and sometimes it can really go over that boundary can’t it, and trolling It can become quite relentless, and it can turn into harassment and bullying, especially if it’s, when it’s to a company page it’s a little bit different, but when it’s to an individual, that can become really difficult to deal with feel free to report accounts that cross that boundary, you can block people.
It’s your account at the end of the day, especially if it’s a personal account, so yeah, protecting your space online is also valid. You can ignore the trolls, and you can also report on blocks, and you are fully welcome to do that.
Sarah: That’s a really good point. I used to think that you should always [00:38:00] respond and always try to have That discourse sometimes it’s okay to just not We just don’t always have to respond all of the time and I think protecting Your space is crucial because it can be easy to get really, focused on this kind of back and forth that you’re having with somebody when in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter.
Jack: This is an example of why having a, we say full time, but that has to be full time. But having someone who’s defined role if possible is community manager. Even if you are a solo dev, just putting that boundary between you and all your work and then someone else being able to do that.
almost shield or at least filter some of that through because we get asked a lot. Can you do community management full time? And it’s a very tricky thing because you have to be so involved with the game.
Sarah: Yeah, I don’t know how solo developers can do it all. So first and foremost, [00:39:00] if you’re in that position, you’re a solo developer, you’re developing a game because you love to develop games, right?
And I’m sure like, Managing a community is like something you need to do, right? But is like totally secondary. So yeah, I would prioritize like your time, especially for your own like mental health and being too and for just like keeping your project going and focusing on what you really are there.
In the first place to do, which is create your game. Community manager is definitely great to have. But yeah, if you can’t have that resource take it in stride. And maybe give yourself said, okay, I’m going to take, I don’t know, an hour or two today and. respond to comments or and get, however, you can set it up, to have a.
Separate, I think personally is wise.
Tamsin: Yeah, I agree, and especially when you’ve got so much else going on, it can feel quite overwhelming to be doing that as well. In terms of thinking about how you can respond to people, I’d argue that it’s a really [00:40:00] good idea to anticipate potential scenarios, for example, game bugs and things like that and then you can mentally prepare some responses you can even write them down so that if you get into a situation where you’re starting to panic and you don’t know how to react you can be like i’ve thought about this before or a similar situation you know you can’t preempt absolutely everything But then you’ve at least got this little guide to yourself that you can look back on in stressful situations.
Jack: Almost like a list of canned responses for some of these things you might encounter. Which is something you often see where on mobile reviews, you look at a mobile game and it says, developer has responded, and they will have some kind of thanks for getting in touch, and like a generic response to buy some time, but also not to say anything.
To not to overpromise something or to say something that will just make the situation worse. So it goes back to as we move towards the end here, create a content calendar, create a response plan of some kind as well to [00:41:00] good and negative comments. that’s why you can perhaps look at others and see what’s working for them and what isn’t working. because we reference, Kristala a lot here is perhaps a really good example of what you should be doing, something that works. So yeah, like I said, moving towards the end here. are there any other bits that.
Spring to mind that we haven’t covered here before we wrap things up or just final closing statements.
Tamsin: Drop that knowledge. And this is arguably like a scary thing to say, but I don’t mean it to be like that. It’s to remember that the internet. Is forever, even if you delete something, people can screenshot it before.
So it’s important to really think about your strategy. Think about what you want to say. as Sarah was saying earlier, like your tone of voice that you want to have, you can change things up if things don’t work, you can change it, not to just have a knee jerk reaction to everything on social media, cause it can feel very fast paced, especially with the algorithm [00:42:00] and things all changing.
So yeah, you want to make the best impression that you can so to create a strategy would be my biggest bit of advice.
Sarah: Yeah, I agree and also like just have fun too. Engaging with your audience is one of the most fun things that I enjoy doing. So yeah, don’t always feel like it’s, a ton of extra work on my plate.
I love marketing in the gaming space because you can be like looser and freer with your voice and your tone and certain things that you might not do. If you worked at the nine to five office job and you are marketing, the language might look different.
So it’s really fun to be able to market in the gaming space.
Tamsin: Yeah, that’s so true. Because also if you’re having fun making your content, then the odds are that, your audience are going to really enjoy it as well, especially when you’re not afraid to, Do.
TikTok trends and memes and stuff like that if that’s what you like and you like your game, then your audience are probably going to resonate with that as well. So yeah, just leaning [00:43:00] into it and having fun, that’s a really big point there, Sarah.
Sarah: Even like bloopers and stuff, if you’re recording a video and you like mess up a million times, that in and of itself, those mess ups, that can be several bits of content if you want it to be, the way you break it up.
So yeah, I think that all adds into like your personality too as a human being, which I think is what Started the whole influencer thing to begin with is like people connect with other people. And yeah, you being you is going to attract, your audience.
Jack: we’ve seen it with certain brands. They become their social team almost becomes part of the brand.
I know Wendy’s was one of the earliest adopters of that on Twitter in the States. And then in the game space, at least like the Sonic team on Twitter. Yeah, have fun with it because it can benefit in just other ways and unexpected. Yeah, it’s a serious subject, but try and have some fun with it.
Tamsin: Exactly.
Jack: Excellent. So [00:44:00] Sarah, where can people find more about yourself and Kristala? Sure.
Sarah: Yeah. So you can find us pretty much on all of the major platforms. We are primarily at ACS games. and then TikTok is our outlier. We’re @Kristalagame there. and then me personally and all the platforms I’m on, I’m pretty much Astral Sarah, so you can find me that way.
Jack: You’ve said the game currently early access. When can we expect a potential launch
Sarah: Both, I will tell you, but please follow along as well. so early access, we have about seven chapters in the game. The first chapter is out right now. you can expect full release likely Q4 of next year, Q4, 2025.
So a lot of content still to come and we chose early access because we really do Value the discourse and communication with our community. So please check it out. Share your thoughts. We are receptive and listening [00:45:00]
Jack: Tamzin, where can people find more from us here at Big Games Machine?
Tamsin: So you can find us on LinkedIn where we have, actually we’ve got two newsletters now.
We do the BGM daily download DLC every Friday that you can subscribe to for free. And we also have a monthly trends report, which you can subscribe to as well. And then also on LinkedIn, we’ve got our freemium modes that we do monthly, which is the LinkedIn lives that I mentioned earlier. You can also find us on Etsy.
We’ve got a TikTok as well where we do little BGN Bites videos where we show you games industry goodness through like little tips and tricks. And then you can also head to our website for our content hub where our podcast is and our blogs and all good stuff like that.
Jack: Amazing. Thank you
again, both for joining. I really appreciate that you’ve made your podcast debuts. So as Tom will say, you’re now officially friends of the pod. Join the VIP guest list. we hope to have you on again soon. [00:46:00] So to everyone listening, thank you for joining. Share this if you found it useful.
it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms and we will catch you for the next one over and out!