Where your audience hangs out is just as important as who they are, and chances are you’re missing out on a bunch of the action. Read on to discover their favorite online hangouts—and why you should be bringing your brand to them.
In a nutshell:
Why bringing your brand to your audience is a good move.
Where you can find your players.
What they’re up to on 8 big platforms.
Where your audience hangs out is just as important as who they are, and chances are you’re missing out on a bunch of the action.
In this community management blog post we’ll outline eight platforms on which communities are coming to life and illuminate places where your players might already be forming cohorts.
In case you needed convincing, we’ll start with three solid reasons for you to get out there and find your audience—instead of making them look for you.
Forget, for a moment, the idea that “if you build it, they will come”.
Everything is saturated. Thousands, if not millions, of people and brands have “built” and are now trying to stand out from the crowd and be heard—to convince the target audience to come to them, because what they have is the thing worth having.
The battle is constant and grueling, but the millions are essential to your success. What if you took a different approach? What if, instead of waving your banners and saying “Come to me!” you met your audience at their fave hangout, in their happy place?
Here are three reasons to do exactly that: bring your brand to your audience.
In her podcast on engaging and growing your audience, Gabriella Lowgren shares a pertinent mindset:
“Wherever there are players, I want to come to them to make their lives easier.”
If you remove the effort players must make from the equation, it should be a given that they will be more likely to engage.
When you meet your players where they’re at, you give them more avenues to talk directly with the developers of what is surely (soon to be?) their favorite game.
This deepens their connection with the game and its creators, makes them feel heard, and elevates their involvement.
Any platform that is home to even a few existing members of your audience has the potential for growth. By embracing the fans who are already there, you can expand their cohorts into your community—and with it grow your reach.
If players of your game are out there on a platform, make an account and start engaging with them! —more sound advice from Ella Lowgren.
Remember that different demographics use different channels. Besides community forums tied to specific games or websites, spaces such as Reddit, Twitter, and Steam all cater to very different (sometimes more or less aggressive) audiences.
Here are eight places where you might find your players. When you do, start engaging them on their level!
‘MySpace 2.0’ (we remember that one, don’t we?) has been around since 2004 and is still one of the most popular profile sites to-date.
Who’s on it? Everyone and their mother. Literally. There are 2.4 billion monthly active Facebook users.
What are they doing? Keeping in touch with friends and family, staying up-to-date on local events, following pages for interesting content, watching videos, buying things. You name it, it’s probably happening on Facebook.
Only two years younger than Facebook, Twitter is where the water cooler chat of the internet takes place—with an average of 6,000 tweets tweeted per second.
Who’s on it? Brands, content creators, randoms, but most importantly, a chunk of people waiting for information on your next update.
What are they doing? Everything from sharing photos of their food to engaging in topical discussion threads and brand promotion.
Though it might feel like the “front page of the internet” has been around since the dawn of time, Reddit is not as old as you might think. Founded in 2005, this Niagara Falls of a discussion and sharing platform engages, on average, more than 330 million monthly users.
Who’s on it? Everyone from cat meme lovers to Craigslist enthusiasts.
What are they doing? Posting about everything you can and can’t think of. It’s a rabbit hole, this one, but we promise there’s gold inside.
Ever wondered why absinthe is associated with a green fairy? You’ll just have to wait for someone to answer that on Quora.
Questions on Quora can be as simple as “How many calories can you burn working a retail job?”, as profound as “What is something that needs to be said?”, and as personal as “What was your biggest ‘F it, I'm going to do it’ moment?” (These are all real questions from the home feed, by the way).
Who’s on it? Curious minds who want more intelligent answers than the ones Yahoo has to offer.
What are they doing? Asking and answering questions, as well as building up personal profiles, sharing interests, and connecting on Spaces.
This mobile community platform exists for the very purpose of keeping your players in-game and engaged. It’s all customizable, from look to localization, and the platform lets you get more involved by not only creating community events but monitoring player activities, interests, and feedback.
Who’s on it? People who are playing a specific mobile game with KTplay built into it.
What are they doing? Asking and answering questions, sharing gameplay strategies and tips, posting screenshots and vids. And the big one: providing you and your team with feedback.
Yes, developers still use integrated site forums. And yes, they’re still super popular and effective! Have a squiz at the Gems of War forum to see what we’re talking about.
Who’s on it? Your gaming community! [flex emoji]
What are they doing? Interacting with you, your team, and other players. Posting about all the game-y things!
When talking about today’s gamers and gaming communities, chances are a solid chunk of your audience is already a member of at least one Discord server.
Who’s on it? Gamers, especially those from generation Y and beyond.
What are they doing? Forming discussion groups and communities, coordinating their WoW raid via voice chat, discovering and buying games and asking their favorite games’ developers all the questions.
Bonus: Check out this neat GDC talk by No More Robots founder Mike Rose about growing a community from scratch on Discord.
As consumerism via mobile and handheld devices grows, video is ever on the rise as the most-viewed social media content out there.
More than five billion YouTube videos are watched on a daily basis and a forecast in this Cisco white paper predicts that video traffic will make up 82 percent of all IP traffic by 2022.
Who’s on it? Nearly a quarter of the world’s population. Basically, a lot of people.
What are they doing? Aside from watching the latest viral content, your players might be watching tutorials, vlogs, walkthroughs, playthroughs, talks, full production series, and the list goes on. More notably for you, they’re also engaging in community discussion.
Bonus: The YouTube Creator Academy has a nifty miniseries with tips from various content creators aimed at helping you build your channel and grow your community.
By bringing your brand to your audience, you’ll make their lives easier, deepen their connection with you, get more engagement with your game, and unlock the potential for greater community growth.
All you need is the right team members and enough enthusiasm to go out and do the job!
Let us know where you’ve found your gaming community so far by using the hashtag #GCMHub on social.
P.S. Like what you’re reading? Subscribe to our newsletter for monthly updates on content just like this, and get our essential community management guide for free!
You can also check out our other articles and podcast episodes at gcmgame.com
This article was written by myself and the lovely Flo Alcasas for the GCM Hub.
To find out more about us, head to our About Us page. <3
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