How Game Developers Can Maximize Their E3 2016 Twitter Efforts

Conversation about E3 2015 averaged 740,000 tweets per day, and Twitter is ramping up for E3 2016, this year’s version of the Electronic Entertainment Expo. E3 2016 will be held in Los Angeles June 14 through 16, and Twitter industry marketing lead, media and entertainment Gleana Albritton and senior research analyst Evelina Achilli shared some key gaming-related statistics from the social network in a blog post: Nearly 84 million tweets in 2015 were related to gaming, or some 230,000 every day. 65 percent of Twitter users say they play video games, and 55 percent say they regularly play console games. 85 percent of Twitter gamers spend money on video games, compared with 76 percent of non-Twitter gamers. Twitter gamers are 1.25 times more likely to spend more than $100 per year on video games than non-Twitter gamers. Twitter gamers are 1.2 times more likely to buy video games for consoles. 78 percent of Twitter gamers researched a game or console by following a gaming handle. Of this group, 81 percent owns consoles, 53 percent bought one during the past 12 months and almost 40 percent intend to purchase one over the next 12 months. Albritton and Achilli shared the following best practices for developers looking to connect with gamers on Twitter: Build anticipation prior to trailer drops: There is a major spike in game title conversations on the day of announcements/trailer drops, which generally happen together and around E3. Conversation during the day of trailer drop parallels that of the ultimate game release—and is nearly as big in scale. Use these moments of connection and receptivity to make a splash with creative ways to announce and preview your games. Some ideas include: Use native video to publish trailers and gameplay demos, as it gets 2.8 times as many retweets as external links. Use Snappy TV to create and share content in real-time including game-play highlights, scratch reels, GIFs and Vines. Use Periscope to live-stream the action from the show floor (it elicits a 27 percent more emotional response versus online norms). Take advantage of Periscope features like “Save to Gallery,” which lets you save your video for longer than 24 hours, or Sketch, an easy way to draw directly onto live video in real-time to highlight specific elements in your feed. You can even broadcast live with a drone. Tap into and drive the conversation between trailer drops and game releases: While advertisers spend most around game release, the months after the trailer drop present the biggest opportunity. On average, 30 percent of annual game conversation occurs during the months between trailer drop and game release, but advertisers allocated only 16 percent of annual spend to those months. Ride this wave of anticipation and excitement by planning your content strategy accordingly. Use a conversational tone: By talking to gamers in the way they talk amongst themselves, you’ll boost brand credibility and make it more likely for them to want to engage with you. Leverage game play for your content: Game play makes for highly engaging content, and because you’ve already produced the assets needed to generate the content, they’re readily available. Our study found that of those with a heavy interest in gaming: 53 percent interact with trailers/videos of game play. 51 percent interact with tweets featuring screenshots of game play. 44 percent interact with bonus content, such as behind-the-scenes, exclusive game play. Amplify your TV campaign with Twitter: A promoted tweet campaign makes a strong complement to your TV campaign because: Two out of three gamers are on Twitter while watching TV. 75 percent have searched for a brand/product seen on a TV ad. Readers: Do you plan to interact on Twitter, Vine and Periscope during E3 2016?

Social Pro Daily

How Game Developers Can Maximize Their E3 2016 Twitter Efforts

Conversation about E3 2015 averaged 740,000 tweets per day, and Twitter is ramping up for E3 2016, this year’s version of the Electronic Entertainment Expo.

David Cohen

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