TOP 5 Worst Mistakes of Mobile Games in Influencer Marketing

When Game Developers want to start an Influencer Marketing Campaign to target their mobile games, certain common mistakes are easy to fall for.

TIP: Check our previous blog post talking about “Tips for Game Devs working with Influencers”.

Influencer Marketing has been on the rise during the last few years. Influencers present themselves as a great & reliable source to acquire users with a vast reach. They can bring thousands -if not millions- of impressions from users that will be more likely to install your game.

Influencers also provide highly engaged users. Players and users react to influencers as if they were getting a piece of advice or recommendation from a friend.

Therefore, if you are looking for new ways to acquire users for your mobile apps and games and don’t want to leave unattended social media channels, keep reading!

Summary:

• Why transparency matters when working with influencers
• Finding the perfect balance between clear guidance & creative freedom for your influencer campaigns
• Selecting the perfect influencer for your matching audience
• Digging into your influencer's metrics before partnering
• Tracking & monitoring your campaigns
• BONUS! Tips to getting started with influencer marketing

#1 - Be transparent with your Goals

Influencers value a lot when their partners are transparent.

When they promote new products to their audience, they put themselves at risk of losing them and being alienated. The last thing they want is to lose all the followers they’ve acquired through years of hard work.

If the partnership between the influencer and you goes sideways, they may not be as willing to participate in collaborations.

For this reason, as a brand, it is of the utmost relevance that you are sensitive, and tolerant of their pain points.

The greatest commitment of an influencer is to keep their audience’s loyalty. If you betray that, it may even backfire on you.

#2 - Give them some Creative Freedom

People get hooked on compelling stories, and influencers know how to give that to their audiences.

If the story relates to your app, the influencers’ audience will most likely connect with it.

To tell a compelling story, you must find the proper influencer that matches the style and ideas you want to communicate. This way, the influencer does not have to change their style as much, and the audience is already receptive to the kind of content you want to push.

When you find an influencer that matches your style, it’ll be easier to give them the creative freedom they crave.

You will have to put your trust in the influencer you decide to partner with. Still, do not worry. Over the last few years, there have been more influencers so dedicated to becoming stars that they have invested in courses and programs to improve their “creative” skills.

Try to find the perfect equilibrium between clear guidance and staying open-minded to the influencer’s suggestions and requests.

In the end, the influencer has been working for years to understand which content resonates better with their followers. They want the promoted content to be digested as quickly as possible. They are also invested in getting the best possible outcome from your collaboration.

When speaking with influencers, do not treat them just as a source of traffic, but also as creative consultants. They excel in user engagement, and once they understand the benefits of your app or game, they will find many ways to showcase your brand in the best possible way.

#3 - Find influencers with matching Audiences for your mobile games

In previous sections, we have mentioned that it is crucial that the influencer’s audience matches with yours.

However, for that to happen, first you must know what is your audience. Try to picture in your head, two or three “ideal players” of your app/game. Imagine what they do, their hobbies & interests, and their day-to-day routines. There are plenty of resources on the internet to help you create what is called a “user persona”.

This will help you save money and avoid rookie mistakes when signing off expensive contracts with influencers.

Understanding your audience, therefore, must be done before reaching out to the influencer you (probably) have already scouted.

And once you’ve already sorted out who are your top audiences, and you’re building your sales pitch to get the influencer’s interest, you also must check:

• The influencer’s audience: follower count, content quality, ratio of view/interaction, etc.
• The influencer’s main platform: most of them are on Youtube, Instagram, TikTok… but maybe you can find opportunities in small forums or communities.

Depending on the platform where the influencer has influence (forgive the redundancy 😆), the engagement rate may vary.

#4 - Checking the Influencer’s Engagement Metrics

You must take into consideration how engaged & receptive is the audience of the influencer you’re about to become partners.

There are plenty of metrics that you can take into consideration:

• The number of subscribers
• The Average Views (per each publication)
• Ratio (%) of content likes/comments/shares vs. views
• The curve of impressions through time (of individual publications)
• The audience’s reaction to sponsored content in the last months

The first two can be useful for quick scouting, but it is unwise to focus only on them when deciding to work with a specific influencer.

Dig deeper into engagement metrics, and even check quality metrics such as the sentiment of the comments. Those are the real deal and will help you make sound decisions when allocating your budget for marketing actions with influencers.

#5 - Track & Monitor your Results

We already mentioned this in the previous article. However, since this is one of the most common mistakes that game developers make when strategizing their influencer campaigns, we cannot stop ourselves from remarking on this point.

Tracking in real-time the performance of your influencer’s campaign on all your channels may be time-consuming, but it is worth the effort.

You must properly set up your monitoring system and track what newly acquired users are doing in your mobile app or game. This will help you in several ways when the influencers’ campaign is active, and after it finishes.

Some examples where you can benefit from tracking your influencer's campaign are:

• To optimize the campaign and fix, in real-time, any issues your users are facing.
• To detect which messages, tones, or styles are working better, and more aligned with your audience's mindset.
• To keep track of the audience sentiment.
• To improve in-game features or enhance services that the audiences find most valuable
• To track which influencers are reaching the goals you have negotiated with them.
• To use that info for, later on, negotiate better deals, or stop working with influencers whose activities have not generated ROI (Return of Investment).

And the list goes on and on.

#6 (Bonus!) - Start your Influencer Campaign!

It’s time to use all the concepts and ideas gathered in this post on Influencer Marketing - and our previous one, with tips to work with influencers -. Start growing your apps with other sources, in addition to only paid User Acquisition Campaigns.

If you get to partner with the right influencers, you will find that they are a valuable resource to reach many people and generate some hype around your app.

Start applying these tips in your Influencer Marketing Strategies, build a sound strategy for your mobile apps and games, and reach out to new audiences!