Game development takes a lot of planning. There’s a lot to think about and consider. So much in fact, that many times, executing community properly takes a backseat to the rest. Everyone would agree that community is important, but beyond that, it can be difficult to know where to start. Community can feel daunting, but it’s a critical factor in deciding the level of success a game can achieve. That means getting it right – to the most reasonable extent possible – is also essential. Let me give you some free advice: Whatever you do, don’t let your community strategy be an afterthought. The right strategy will set you on the path to success. Why? Simple: because it defines how community will work for you and your game from the start. It lays out what the goals for your community are and how you’ll achieve them. It details the steps needed to help you community grow and thrive into the future. In short, it’s a roadmap. You wouldn’t blindly begin development on a game without a roadmap, and expect for the process to be efficient and the game to be successful, right? So why would you expect to build a flourishing community without a comparable plan?
The good news is, I have some tips for you on how to build an effective community strategy. While the list below isn’t a comprehensive, it lays out some important points that will get you started and give you the confidence of knowing you’re on the right track.
Goals, goals, goals This one might be obvious, but you’d be surprised how often it gets glossed over. Your goals and objectives are the heart of your strategy. Without them, strategy doesn’t even matter because there’s no focus. Your strategy helps you move forward, but without a destination, what’s the point? The usual rules with goals apply here of course. Be ambitious, but also make sure your goals are attainable. Equally as important, make sure they’re measurable. Without data, it’s hard to know whether you’ve been successful or not. Speaking of data…
Identify key KPIs How do you know if we’re achieving your goals? Data of course! Don’t just know what you’re measuring, show it. Define it. Common KPIs for community include engagement, impressions, audience and reach metrics (followers, etc.), and engagement rate for social, and total members and total messages sent for a platform like Discord. On the same token, define your process for gathering and implementing community feedback and bug reports. When there’s a lot of community chatter about a certain component in the game, who’s responsible for gathering that feedback, and who are they giving it to? How’s the progress of that issue being passed on to the community? We’ll have more on that in a later post, but it’s good to keep it mind. Finally, make sure you’re measuring sentiment – positive, negative, AND neutral – at least weekly. This helps you know not only what subjects your community is talking about, but how they feel about those subjects.
Social channel strategy We haven’t talked a lot about social in this article, but it’s obviously a pretty important part of your strategy. I’ll have lots of social-focused content to share in future posts, but for our purposes here, a social channel strategy is something you absolutely want to have. In essence, your social channel strategy lays out which platforms you’ll be focusing on. I know what you might be thinking: “hang on – which platforms? We’ve got to hit them all right? Cast the net as widely as possible, right?” That all depends. Social channel strategy isn’t about quantity of audience, it’s about quality of audience. The key is to focus on the platforms where your community is. For example, does your game seems to have a playerbase that skews towards a younger demographic? If so, platforms like TikTok and Instagram may be where you want to focus your energies. Maybe your playerbase needs info fast? In that case, you should consider including X (FKA Twitter) in your channel strategy for it’s ability to spread information fast and in real time. Whichever channels you decide are right for your game, define those in your strategy so you know what’s important to you and your audience. After all, this is all about your audience and keeping that in mind will help as you decide which platforms you want to focus on.
Community-focused GTM Timeline The GTM, or “go-to-market” timeline shows up in every marketing strategy, and to be fair, I have yet to see one that leaves out community (here’s looking at you, marketing friends!). Still, putting more emphasis on community is never a bad thing, and a community-focused GTM timeline helps you and your team know exactly what needs to be done and when. It’s easy to think everything is sorted out and ready to go for community during the slow times, then find yourself scrambling when the busy times sneak up on you. Having a timeline that you and your team can refer to helps to mitigate this and keeps everyone a lot more sane.
Engagement plan So you’ve done all of this planning and your community is starting to grow, but how do you keep these new people around for the long haul? The answer is simple – engagement. Having a good plan for how you intend to interact with your community is key. Keep things spicy by planning some easy engagement ideas, such as replying to comments on your social posts daily, to more complex ideas like giveaways. Bonus pro tip: use a tool like Gleam.io to take your giveaways to the next level and super charge your channel growth.
Well, this is the point where I’d normally ask you to “let me know if I missed anything”, but we know I did. The question is, do you think this list has helped spark inspiration in creating your own community strategy? I hope so. Let me know in the comments below, on LinkedIn, or on X. Even if your game comes out next week, it’s not too late for a community strategy.
Need some help? Click that button below and let me know. A week isn’t much to work with, but I’ll do what I can.
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