Design & Development
Week 1: Marketing Research
Tuesday 1st February 2022
WEEK 1 -
TO DO: MARKETING RESEARCH​
PURPOSE FOR RESEARCH
The purpose for this research is to familiarise myself with the tips and tricks on social media. I have a lot of experience with running social media accounts in the past however, all with different purposes and end goals. In this case, I will be basing my research off of Marketing specifically for Games Developers and studios because I am aware there are different techniques for different fields. Today we had a lecture from Derek Yates which inspired me to begin thinking about our brand and how we can market ourselves online.
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WHAT DO I WANT TO LEARN?
I'd like to take note of any specific techniques I can use online to grow our community/game/game studio, to grow a wider audience and connect with industry experts. This might include the use of different hashtags or methods for creating reels, or other content.
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GOALS FOR THE DAY​
My goal for today is to complete a foundation of research before I begin with the 'Image and Branding' for Getaway. I plan to spend the next few days focusing on this, by creating logo concepts and a 'branding toolkit'.
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TEAM WORK
In terms of team tasks for this week, we have agreed to focus on our brand, inspired by our morning talk with Derek Yates! (Can be found in Week 1 of my Notion). This will involve individual research and brainstorming our own ideas. We should reconvene by the end of the week.
QUICK PLAN FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS​
Tuesday 1st February - Friday 4th February
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Marketing Research - Marketing for game developers/companies/studios/games
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Image and Branding - what is required to brand our studio/game?
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Branding Toolkit - colour schemes, set the tone, how does our brand speak/look/act?
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Logo concepts
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Marketing Plan for social media
WHERE DO I BEGIN?
MARKETING RESEARCH
"A Guide to Social Media for Game Developers"
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How to create a game marketing strategy, how to reach gamers and engage with your target audience.
HOW TO CONNECT WITH GAMERS ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
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Be Authentic - be more genuine! Create a connection with your audience. Being a small team gives developers/designers the chance to create a unique image for themselves, and result in being more approachable and likeable.
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Share as much as you can - what's the plan for the game? What kind of updates are planned for the game? Update the community regularly. Comment on bugs, new content etc. (Weekly updates)
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Question & Answer - Answer questions from your audience. How to play, provide information etc. Builds a sense of community and gamers will appreciate it.
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Address bugs - Provide gamers with updates on game bugs, if they are unaddressed can sometimes frustrate players. Let gamers know that you are working on fixing it. (They will be appreciative)
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Reach out to influencers - communicate with people that have a healthy following and might be interested in your work. This can help reach new gamers and increase engagement.
REFLECTION - HOW CAN I USE THIS?
I know the importance of interactivity when it comes down to growing an audience and building relationships. For our own social media accounts, I plan to post interactive stories, polls and q&a's to engage our audience and get to know them on a more personal level. I like the idea of presenting ourselves as 'approachable' as we want to make people comfortable on our page and know that if they need to reach out to us, they can. To do this, I will definitely be setting up an Instagram account to post development progress in the form of images and reels, but as well as this, I want to take advantage of interactive stories, polls and other features. This can be to gather feedback, talk with the audience and set the overall tone of our studio.​
WHERE TO CONNECT?
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INSTAGRAM - Great for developers and designers to give your audience behind the scenes content and regular updates in to development. Sneak peeks, user-submitted imagery, reels, videos, interactive stories etc.
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TWITTER - Great place to post regular updates. More sophisticated than Instagram. Reach a wide audience using game related tags.
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DISCORD - Gaming chat platform, live tool to engage with your community. Great for chatting, discussing ideas and asking questions.
EVALUATION
I will definitely be setting up an Instagram for game 'Getaway' and potentially a Twitter too. These too platforms can coincide with each other. Instagram will be more visual content based, providing behind the scenes information and interacting with viewers whereas, Twitter will be used for regular updates in a more sophisticated manner. Once I have created my 'branding toolkit' I will know exactly what we should be posting to set the tone of our game and studio, as well as present our brand in a particular light. For now, I plan to dive deeper into these social platforms and establish ways I can use their features to enhance our online image.​
"Instagram Marketing: Growing Your Audience"
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Instagram growth techniques, utilising the platform for indie game development.
METHODS FOR INSTAGRAM GROWTH
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HASHTAGS & LIKING - search for relevant hashtags and scroll through tag feed, interacting with everything appropriate and similar to your brand. In our case, this will be mental health posts, affirmations, VR games etc. A percentage of people see you have interacted with their content and will view your profile and interact with yours. Also known as the 'reactive interaction'.
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COMMENTS - simple comments on a post you like. Stand out from the crowd. Reference exactly what is being shared to avoid being mistaken for a bot.
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FOLLOWING - Follow to get follow backs. Follow people with similar interests to you, brands that do a similar thing, even competitors.
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STORIES - Stories on Instagram help to engage followers by allowing them to interact. Stories only last 24 hours which make them more playful than just regular posts! Polls can gather feedback to work, check-up on followers and gather survey information. As well as this, you can post fun quizzes to get followers more involved.​
REFLECTION - HOW CAN I USE THIS?
A really important method to take into account is using hashtags. Hashtags are vital when it comes to reaching a wider audience, reaching other gamers, studios, developers, designers and brands. Our posts will reach those that have a genuine interest in the topics we are focused on which guarantees us a following and essentially growth in the long-run. On Instagram, we are limited to 30 hashtags per post, which is why we must identify the most relevant tags to use for our game. Our game is focused towards relaxing play but is extremely different to a game like Animal Crossing. Because of this, we must establish what makes us unique and use tags to highlight these things.​
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Examples of hashtags we might use:
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#gamedev #gamedevelopers #gamedesign #gamedevelopment #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #immersion #immersivetechnology #safespaces #education #escapism #distractiontechniques #anxiety #selfcare #motionsensor #gesturecontrol #getaway #tothegetaway #wsagames
Examples of Interactive features on Instagram
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Question & Answer
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Polls
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Quizzes
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Countdowns
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Music
"Most frequently used Instagram game development hashtags"
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#gamedevelopment #indiegamedevelopment #videogamedevelopment #indiegamedevelopment_of_pc_windows #gamedevelopmentstudio #mobilegamedevelopment #boardgamedevelopment #3dgamedevelopment #gamedevelopmentgirls #unitygamedevelopment #gamedevelopmentworkshop #iosgamedevelopment #gamedevelopmentproject #computergamedevelopment #gamedevelopmentaustralia #indiegamedevelopmentproject #gamedevelopmentsydney #indierobloxgamedevelopment #gamedevelopmentcomany
RESEARCH LINK: https://displaypurposes.com/hashtags/hashtag/gamedevelopment
Examples of existing game designers/developers social media
Lucy Kyriakidou
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Lucy Kyriakidou was a guest speaker that came in last year and gave us a talk on all things related to the games industry. She had some great tips for networking and social media, so I thought it would be a good idea to look at her social platforms and take notes on the things she did to grow online.
RESEARCH LINK: https://www.instagram.com/artylucy/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/artylucy/​
NOTES:
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Progress pictures, unfinished work.​
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Sketches/concepts/drawings and finished outcomes.
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Reference images and final designs.
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Sketchbook work
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Competition entries!
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A bit about her - who she is, what she does.
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Highlights - taken advantage of short snippet posts in the form of highlights.
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Hashtags regularly - #drawing #procreate #art #artistsoninstagram
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Captions kept short and sweet, not too much information.
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Engages with her audience - replies etc.
Noemi Pischedda
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Noemi Pischedda was another industry guest speaker that spoke to us about the importance of networking and her journey into the industry. Her Instagram is another good example of great content and growth overtime.
RESEARCH LINK: https://www.instagram.com/noomi_art/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/noomi_art/​
NOTES:
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Similar to Lucy Kyriakidou's content, many similarities between the two.
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Concept sketches against final pieces.
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A lot of content in relation to character concepts and art as this is what she specialises in.
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Content relevant to skills you want to showcase.
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State role/position in biography.
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Linked portfolio work to bio.
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Highlights - welcome stories, new incoming work.
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Short and snappy descriptions/captions of post.
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Hashtags - #dailyart #digitalart #myart #sketch #badasswomen
REFLECTION & EVALUATION OF FINDINGS
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Both Lucy Kyriakidou and Noemi Pischedda post similar content and have a general process to the way the go about posting in general. I think the most important thing for both of them was consistency. They both spoke about the importance of being consistent and posting regularly in order to grow your audience, it's evident that this works as I can see they both have a good following on Instagram. As for the content they post, it's clear that development updates and progress pictures are appreciated, even more so than final pieces. This allows potential consumers/players/your audience to get a glimpse into the process of the making rather than just caring about the final piece. This to me is much more authentic and fascinating to me. As I found in my research prior to this, it's especially important to use hashtags and interactive features to grow on Instagram and reach others. This is to reach those that create similar work as well as have a general interest in the kind of things you post. I have an idea of ways we can reach a wider audience by using general hashtags and overtime, this should become more niche. I feel it's best for us to begin with a breakdown of who we are as a team, what we stand for and what the game is about and from here go into the depths of the process, involving our development process and behind the scenes content. This will excite viewers and want to know more about what we do as well as how we do things.​
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NEXT STEPS
This research was a great kickstart to the branding of Getaway and our studio. It was exceptionally useful and has given me a greater understanding of how I can build our social platforms to reach a wider audience and begin with the marketing for this project. I plan to make a marketing plan as part of my 'Image and Branding' work, to enhance our platforms and build our image online as best as we can. I am excited to get started and to start thinking about how exactly we intend to present ourselves online, which will lead to the kind of content we will post and how we go about this.
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Next task for this week can be found here:
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