Becoming an influencer is a dream gig for many people around the world. But if you’re looking to grow a following and make money at it, you must come at it with the right strategy. This article will help you because we’re sharing our top tips for video game influencers.
You see, here at Uberstrategist, we’re on the other side of influencer marketing. YOU are an influencer, hoping to get noticed by video game companies who will pay you to do game demos and create related content. WE are the marketing agency looking for quality influencers to represent the companies we work with and help build their brands.
So, what do we look for? What stands out to us and makes us want to work with a specific influencer? You’ll find out by reading our top tips for video game influencers. Once you know what we’re looking for, you can strategically build your brand in a way that will stand out—to video game companies AND your loyal audience.
Let’s dive in!
6 Tips for Video Game Influencers
These tips for video game influencers will help you develop a strategy, build your brand, and stand out to video game (and marketing!) companies.
1. Identify Your Niche
You’ll get lost in the sea if you’re trying to be everything to everyone. When looking for influencers for our client projects, we want to see influencers who work in a specific niche that matches our project.
To identify your niche, ask yourself:
- What makes you stand out from the crowd?
- What makes your content unique?
- What are you passionate about?
- Do you play one particular genre, a variety of games, or one specific game?
These are all things you should think about when establishing your niche. And yes, having a niche means you won’t fit into every project for every video game creator. But that’s the point. Because there will be certain projects where you are a PERFECT match, and game creators (and marketing agencies like us!) will come running to you.
2. Be Consistent
Taking time to figure out what you enjoy the most (tip #1) will help you be consistent with content creation and publishing. And consistency is one of our tips for video game influencers because when we are scoping out potential influencers for a campaign, we want to see a steady stream of regular content.
Long gaps or ‘on again off again’ publishing are usually red flags. And the reason is that consistency is essential to seeing growth and staying top-of-mind with your community. We’ll cover community building next, but consistency is a necessary step in creating the kind of close community we are looking for.
To become more consistent with your publishing, make a schedule and commit to it. That way, your audience knows when to expect new content from you. Establishing YOUR routine of streaming and posting helps them establish THEIR routine of watching and consuming. Imagine that!
And it is possible to be both consistent and flexible at the same time. For example, tools such as Buffer allow you to make content and schedule posts in advance.
3. Community Building
Community building is one of the most important tips for video game influencers. When we are looking to work with gaming influencers, we want to find people who have a dedicated group of followers. After all, it’s your community that we are interested in reaching, and as the influencer, you can give us access to that community.
As we mentioned above, consistency is the start of building a thriving community. If you are active, your followers will start to trust your advice and judgments because you have spent time building trust with them. They will follow your recommendations, potentially purchase products/games you’re promoting, and even follow you to other platforms you’re trying to grow.
Building a community takes time. Converse with your community and encourage your community to engage with one another. You can’t have a ‘community’ if no one is talking! Every individual interaction counts, and it’s up to you to get the ball rolling.
When building your community, some important metrics to watch are growth, audience retention, and engagement rates. These are statistics we are looking at too as we evaluate influencers. As we mentioned in our article Adding Influencer Marketing to Your Video Game Marketing Strategy, engagement rate is one of the best ways to determine if an influencer’s audience is legitimate.
4. Friendship
Just like we’ve advised you to build a relationship with your community, we also encourage you to make friends with other influencers on the platforms you’re creating content on. Many friendships on Twitch have been made within the gaming community, and you often see streamers streaming together or interacting with one another on social media.
Being an influencer isn’t easy, especially if you’re doing it solo. Friendships go a long way and can be a great support network when things are tough. By being part of an influencer network, you can also help each other out. You’ll be able to collaborate, reach a wider audience, and share opportunities and projects when they are a good fit.
5. Gear
We can’t complete our list of top tips for video game influencers without mentioning gear. So, you need to spend a lot of money and get the best equipment, right? Well, in our opinion, not necessarily.
Yes, it’s always great to have the green screens, high-end PCs capable of running a stream in high quality, expensive cameras, and fancy microphones, but you don’t need these things to become an influencer.
Get the gear you can afford, and then focus on providing quality content to grow your audience and build your brand. The rest will come with time and consistency.
6. Media Kits
At Uberstrategist, we love working with influencers who are mature and professional. So, the final shoutout on our list of top tips for video game influencers goes to media kits. Create one! And don’t sell yourself short.
A good media kit describes you and your content, with examples of previous work and celebrations of past success. Did you raise a certain amount for charity through a stream or video? Were you on the Twitch front page? Mention it!
Video game companies (and marketers like us) love seeing what influencers are doing within the space. The media kit helps us get to know you better so we can match you with the right projects. Having an influencer’s media kit on hand, especially from an agency perspective, helps us plan upcoming campaigns to see who could be suitable.
Tips for Video Game Influencers
So, there you have it—our top tips for video game influencers, based on our experience of reaching out to and working with influencers on countless client projects. Use this information to build your community and your brand. And maybe we’ll be in touch someday!
