Can they share?
So you have built a community or tribe around your games. You’ve uploaded some great trailers and teasers as well as some funny clips from your trip to PAX last year. You even have a blog with readers. With that alone you are way ahead of some in this industry in that you are creating content beyond your game. But do those who love what you make have a way to say it?
I hear this a lot, “I have a web site and a blog but no one reads them”. Yes, those assets are important, but if you don’t have a way for people to yelp, tweet, like, buzz, rate, review or the many other ways people are sharing, then you are missing out on the greatest value your community offers. Allow them to spread your brand’s greatness via word of mouth. Every day these tools get better at sharing your message.
Add these sharing tools to everything you have on the web.
We reviewed a game a while back and in the process tried to contact the creator. We tried everything, but there was no way to reach them let alone share their information. As a result we were left writing a review that had to make certain unflattering assumptions about the game and the team behind it. If we’d had a chance to engage with the development team I suspect we would have written a rather different review.
Our friends at Intel have done a great job with this. Each of their units has their own community. What we have noticed is that they don’t stop at giving their fans ways to share Intel content. They go beyond that, and actively engage with them as well as reciprocate and share what their community is doing. When we live in a world that is getting more and more cluttered with web content, people start to tune out the mass media blitz. They are more and more turning to their friends for recommendations. In the game world I personally look for what my friends are playing and usually only buy a game based on what someone else said about it. I trust what my community says over a stranger’s review. What we need to realize is each of our fans have a small tribe of their own. They are waiting for us to offer them content to shout about. When they do shout, you can be guaranteed their friends will want to find out what all the fuss is about.
Here are a just a few guides that can help you add the sharing tools to your web assets.
