MARKETING RESEARCH

My responsibility

I have been assigned Lead of Marketing for both Anima Mundi and our Online Arcade Event taking place to showcase our Semester 2 projects. In order to do this to the best of my ability I will be researching into marketing and growing an audience on social media to assist me with this.

WHAT ARE MY REQUIREMENTS?

I am required to:

• Create an Instagram and Twitter for our game studio

• Post the work of my year group on both these channels to promote our work and the upcoming event

• Promote our game Anima Mundi via any social media channels (whichever I decide are best)

• Create promotional material for both Anima Mundi and the arcade event.

• Organise the arcade event.

I will be focusing this blog on my research into growing an audience through social media which will help me gather an audience for both our studio and team project.

As a user of many social media channels myself, I have knowledge in how to go about promoting a small business and/or gaining an audience by sharing work etc. I have an Instagram where I create and sell customised footwear and therefore have a few tricks in running a small business online that I will use to my advantage to promote our event and reach a wider audience.

MY PERSONAL TIPS

• Make objectives clear, a clear biography stating what the account is about and what the brand/core service/product is. State your purpose.

• Use relevant hashtags - Using hashtags related to your work allows viewers interested in similar posts to come across your posts and therefore interact with your work. This increases engagement and boosts your following.

• Posting regularly - I tend to post every other day however I know it's best to keep active and to show potential consumers/viewers that you are dedicated and are putting effort into your work to improve and develop over time. Being active grows your audience and increases engagement.

• Use insights to check when your audience are online, at which times are they on their phones, when will they interact with your work, which posts do they like the most?

• Follow relevant hashtags/topics, people and businesses - supporting other individuals and businesses help to grow a foundation first and a reliable 'client-base'. From this, you will reach mutual followers and show an interest in each others work which allows you to gain a few more followers.

• Interact with followers - this is something I make sure to do everyday. I make sure to post a mental health check up via my Instagram story every other day or so to show I am here for my audience and support them just as much as they support me. As well as this, simply just using the 'Poll' feature on instagram allows me to interact with my audience. These types of interactions increase engagement and your work gets seen by a wider range of people.

"How to Effectively Market Your Small Business on Social Media"

RESEARCH LINK: https://www.quicksprout.com/social-media-for-small-business/

NOTES:

• Keep up with latest social media trends

• Create profiles on multiple platforms (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook etc)

• Understand your target market

• Use social media channels most used by your target market e.g. 71% of Gen Z use Snapchat.

• Define marketing goals

• Post content on a daily basis - make sure you are active. Followers won't be interested knowing you last posted 6 weeks ago.

• Stand out from competitors - post more than your competitors, remind your followers that your brand exists.

• When in doubt about what to post, refer to your marketing goals.

• Give people a reason to follow you.

• Convert followers into customers. Gain followers first and gain consumers after. Ensure them that you are reliable.

• Form a relationship with your audience, increase social media presence and interact with your followers.

• Use story features on instagram - content displayed for 24 hours. This avoids spamming the timeline of followers but keeps them updated and allows you to interact with them.

"EFFECTIVE INDIE GAME MARKETING"

RESEARCH LINK: https://blog.getsocial.im/the-only-guide-you-need-for-effective-indie-app-marketing/

This source relates closely to the kind of thing I am working towards and therefore will benefit the way I approach this responsibility:

NOTES:

• Optimise the name and description of your game to suit app stores.

• Use screenshots and phrases that will grab a user's attention.

• Gather reviews and share these with potential consumers - to show you are reliable and trustworthy.

• Influencer marketing - approach small influencers who have followers that fall under a similar target audience/demographic. Suggest a game review on their instagram, twitch or youtube etc to reach out to their followers.

• Word of mouth - 84% of people are known to act on personal recommendations coming from friends and family. Sharing information with friends and family and encouraging them to share this via their social media channels and passing on the message will gain a trustworthy foundation to begin with.

• Social media to advertise/promote game - website/blog/landing page:

• Include short game trailer, links to app stores, screenshots, extracts from game reviews.

• Use relevant and smart hashtags - #indiedev #indiegame or #gamedev

• Become active on forums and communities (Reddit, discord etc)

• Focus on user relationships - build relationship between the developers and the players as well as between players. (Potential discord server for players of one game).

HOW WILL I USE THIS?

I will use my research to create a marketing strategy and plan for Anima Mundi and to promote our online arcade event. This will include the following:

• Team website/blog for Anima Mundi to promote my team, what the game is about, personal insight into the developers, a little on the development process and an overview of the game itself.

• An Instagram page for Anima Mundi to promote the development process and countdown to the release of the game as well as the event. I can use this page to build relationships with potential consumers and encourage them to get to know the developers behind development too.

• Digital promotional material for Anima Mundi and to post this on the Instagram page. Will share this page via my other social media handles and forward it to friends and family. Material should consist of information about game release and the online arcade event.

• I will create an Instagram and Twitter for our year 2 game studio to promote development of all 4 teams projects and the arcade event. These two social media channels seem to be the most effective for game development and our demographic.

• Promotional material for the arcade event, including posters, sign up sheets and digital invitations.

I will focusing on building relationships and gathering an audience for both my game and the arcade event. I will approach this by setting up the social media channels accordingly and posting a range of development work to share potential consumers and viewers with the process before the final outcome. Sharing the development process including videos, images and design concepts will attract the attention of viewers and they are more likely to want to follow along for the final outcome. I will make sure to post regularly and interact with our audiences by using interactive captions in posts, interactive stories such as polls and Q&A features to interact with followers.

Nearer the date of the event I will post the promotional material such as posters, invites and a countdown to excite followers and make them aware of the event beforehand. I will create all material digitally as the pandemic has prevented us from being able to promote our event around University or areas nearby. Unfortunately our event has to take place online this year however I will try my best to make it as exciting as possible and no different to before!

My documentation for my weekly marketing work can be found here:

Marketing > Anima Mundi.

Marketing > Windie GameS.