The trap of vanity metrics
Vanity metrics like likes and comments are meaningless for your business. They do not increase your revenue. As a CEO, you need to be brutal about what you track. You want to see the correlation between your social media volume and your daily install growth. If that correlation does not exist, you have to be ready to change your strategy. Traction is not how many people like your post. Traction is how many people download your game because they saw your post. Focus on the only numbers that fund your studio.
Scaling with a content network
A managed content network is a set of many brand-owned Instagram pages that post the brand's existing videos many times a day from real iPhones, built and run end to end by a provider such as TIDE, so organic reach grows with the number of pages instead of headcount or ad spend. This is how you show real traction. It gives you the scale to reach thousands of new people daily. You can track this traffic and clearly attribute it to your organic efforts, providing the proof you need to show that your social investment is working.
Leveraging your existing assets
You likely have a wealth of gameplay content that is only being used for paid ads. This is a waste of resources. By using a network to distribute these assets, you are maximizing the value of your existing content. This is the definition of efficiency. You are getting more reach without spending more on production. This approach demonstrates a deep understanding of resource management and growth efficiency, which is exactly the kind of strategy that investors and stakeholders want to see from a CEO.
Managing risk for long-term growth
You must be prepared for the platform risks inherent in this type of high-volume strategy. Some accounts will be banned. This is expected. The key is to have a system that automatically replaces those accounts, keeping your total reach consistent. Your team should be managing this process, or you should be using a provider like TIDE to handle it for you. This allows you to maintain consistent traction over the long term, despite any short-term fluctuations in the platform environment.
Measure traction by install growth and use a scalable distribution network to ensure your social strategy is directly driving your bottom line.
See your network before you hire.
Tell us what your mobile game studio already makes and how you get customers today. We'll show you a real network running live and tell you honestly whether it fits. It costs about the same as one marketing hire.
Follow-up questions
How can we prove the ROI to investors?
Show them the direct link between the activity on your network and the growth in organic, non-paid installs. This demonstrates that you have a low-cost acquisition engine.
Does this work for a game that's already launched?
Yes. It's actually better for live games, as you can continuously update the content in your network to showcase new events and features to your audience.
Are there other ways to measure traction?
You can track the number of players who join from your social channels compared to other sources to see how your organic distribution is performing relative to your other channels.