indie developer – Marketing for Your Apps

Social media is a powerful and easy way to get new fans (and customers). We love it so much, we wrote an entire guide for indie developers to make the most of their social media campaigns.

But the reality is that social media is not enough, and here are three reasons why.

1. Everyone else is using it.

Every single indie developer on earth is already using social media. Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are saturated with people sending out messages about their latest releases.

Screaming about your new game isn’t going to do anything if people start to block out the 41 indie developers they follow on Twitter.

2. Most users of social media are not looking for new games.

Out of 100 people, maybe 5 or 10 of them are out looking for new games. The rest are just going about their daily business and are not interested in playing games.

Although social media can help you connect to the right users, it is far from the most effective way to reach your target market. This is where press releases, advertising, and real-life networking come into play.

3. It costs you more than you realize.

As we’ve argued elsewhere, your time is valuable. You can either spend it tweeting, or creating your next game.

As an indie developer, your key strength is in making new and interesting games. The time you spend on that task is worth far more than the time you spend socializing online.

Effective social media management takes a lot of time, and it isn’t worthwhile for most developers. Using social media seems free, but there is a real opportunity cost associated with it.

Instead of using your time sending out futile pleas for people to download your game, you can work with a professional marketing firm with years of experience who can get your game out there in a more cost-effective and powerful way.

There are a lot of benefits to being an indie developer: you get to make the games you want, you don’t have a set schedule, and you have cool stuff to show people at parties.

But there are problems faced by indie game developers because of their small size.

Of course, when you do succeed, the payout is huge, but the vast majority of indie games get little or no attention.

Here are tips for overcoming your small size as an indie game developer.

1. Master Social Media

Social media is one area in which indie game developers have the edge over large corporations. Unlike bigger companies, you (could) have a personal relationship with your fans.

For a full-length guide to social media marketing, you can check out our free guide.

2. Acknowledge Your Size.

One of the fastest ways to fail as an indie developer is to try to emulate the larger corporations with hundreds of people making a single game.

You’ll never be able to match those man-or-woman-hours.

Instead, figure out the best use of your time. What can you do better than anyone else?

Once you play to your strengths, being an indie developer is no longer a problem, but a benefit.

3. Take Risks.

One thing indie developers can do that big companies (usually) won’t is take risks.

Unlike EA, you don’t have hundreds of employees and stock holders relying on the success of your next release. If you make something and it flops, it will suck, but it won’t ruin your life (hopefully).

Take risks, and make things that the big companies can’t.

4. Follow Your Heart.

Last, and most importantly, follow your heart.

As an individual, you have a unique set of ideas, passions, and goals. The more people involved in a project, the more these things need to be shared.

With huge companies, games become the result of the lowest common denominator.

As an indie developer, you can do what’s right for you — and hopefully a good number of fans.