A video game community is an essential part of connecting with your player base. If you’re growing one successfully, you’re bringing together people who have a common interest and keeping them involved in your game.
You can be part of an industry with a market size estimated to be worth $65.49 billion if you know how to market it right to the right audience.
By building a strong gaming community, you can introduce your game to new players and keep it alive, even months or years after its initial launch.
If you’re embarking on the task of attempting to grow your video game community and need a starting point, we have good news. We’ve gathered together our top seven tips and tricks to help you establish your community as the place to be.
1. Understand Your Target Audience
In order to grow an online gaming community, you need to know where your target audience is. Don’t try to grow a video game community on Instagram if the majority of your players use Twitch.
Age, gender, occupation, and other audience demographic data also play a critical role in this.
The best way to address this is to create buyer personas and gather the necessary information that will help you identify your customers and locate where they are.
Conduct research on what platforms your players are most often on in order to maximize the potential of your community.
For example, if your game is on Steam, utilize the news and forums to interact with your audience. If players are mostly on Twitter, build up your community there. You can then reward brand advocates with extra access to information or small in-game exclusive items.
2. Stay Active in the Video Game Community
Marketing your game and staying active in your gaming community is vital to its survival. It may be overwhelming to be active and consistently post in your community but it’s important to your players.
While talking with other players about a topic they all love is great, they ultimately want to hear from the game developers. They want to get insider knowledge about the game and hear about upcoming updates.
One great platform to grow an online gaming community is Discord. It’s a great place to continually engage fans for ongoing conversations.
Keep in mind that it requires a lot of attention as players are in all time zones and can be very active.
If Slack, email, Skype, and/or any other service are too much for you to focus on, consider getting professional help from a credible video game marketing company like UberStrategist.
Choose the right agency in the gaming industry that provides promotional and social media management services to lift the weight off your shoulders and bring more value to your business. On top of helping with Discord, they can serve as your community manager for all of your social media accounts.
3. Keep Your Video Game Community Engaged With Rewards
You want your gaming community to offer value to whoever joins. If you’re not promoting things your audience finds interesting, they’re not going to want to stay.
Consider these following questions:
- Are you sharing content that gamers want to read?
- What does your gaming community offer them that they can’t find elsewhere?
- Are you providing regular game updates?
- Are you responding to questions, comments, and direct messages?
- Are the posts you create visually appealing with a clear call to action?
Another thing you can offer to your community is in-game rewards. You can use promotional codes on social media to encourage people to share your posts. Be careful not to do it too often — you don’t want people to follow your accounts just for sweepstakes and giveaways.
You can also host community contests where players can create fan art based on your game. You can reward them with in-game items or even gift cards. This is a great way to keep players engaged and show them you’re serious about the community.
4. Partner With Video Game Influencers
Research some up-and-coming video game influencers who regularly play your game or play similar titles. Give them access to new levels, game modes, or other exclusive items that they can showcase on their steams or in videos.
Influencer marketing is known for its efficacy, generating more ROI, and improving the quality of leads.
According to a Medikix report:
- 71% of marketers agree that the quality of leads generated through influencer marketing is better than other marketing initiatives.
- 89% of marketers say influencer marketing ROI is either good or better than other marketing efforts.
- 80% of businesses consider influencer marketing to be effective.
Incorporating video game influencer marketing into your community growth plan will help you reach more audience groups.
While they’re streaming, join in their chats to engage with their community. You can also partner with them to do an exclusive interview while they play the game.
This is a great way to put a face to the developer’s name. And you never know, their community may want to join yours after hearing you speak about your game.
5. Be Patient
There’s no button you can press to quickly grow your community. There are certain things you can do, like growth hacking, to increase your following, but it’s typically better to do it organically. It takes time to engage with players to get their interest and gain their trust. If your game is a niche title, don’t expect thousands of people to follow you or join your communities overnight.
Talking to people and building relationships is essential in growing your online community. Putting in the work will pay off as you give your community quality content and listen to their feedback.
Building a positive community is another thing to keep in mind. You don’t want a large community filled with toxic people. Your community should be welcoming and a safe place for gamers to engage with one another.
6. Don’t Forget About Reddit or Imgur for Engaging Your Video Game Community
Reddit and Imgur are two other great platforms to broaden the awareness of your game. However, most subreddits don’t allow companies to come into their own communities to make posts about their product. Oftentimes those posts get deleted and you could get banned from the subreddit.
If you choose to go down the Reddit route, spend two to three months on various subreddits interacting with posts and communities. After you’ve established yourself as a fellow gamer, then you can start posting things of your own. Just be mindful of what content you post as you don’t want to seem overly spammy and insincere.
7. Participate in Video Game Trade Shows and Conferences
While online marketing and social media management work great for building an active and engaged community, trade shows can double your chances of getting more exposure.
Participating in video game trade shows, events, and conferences gives you the opportunity to market your game, meet new influencers and industry leaders, and a chance to showcase your brand while attracting potential collaborators.
Grow Your Video Game Community for the Right Reasons
As you get started growing your video game community, think about what your reasons are. Your goal should be to create a place for like-minded individuals to communicate with one another and engage more with a game they love. The average gamer often doesn’t respond to standard marketing strategies and will be more interested in joining an online community.
Ready to start interacting with your community but not sure where to start? We’ve got you covered! UberStrategist is the #1 choice of video game creators and influencers looking to grow their gaming community, and seeking expert-level guidance and exposure. We create industry leaders, you could be next.
