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Posting on social when everything is a spoiler ✨ Community Dev Newsletter #37
You are very impressed by my introduction and continue to read this newsletter.
This month's newsletter dives into:
How we can promo a game on social media while avoiding spoilers
New community activity: when should you handle a heated conversation?
20 cool links and community related job posts I've seen
Avoiding Spoilers
Last month's activity was pretty popular when it came to responses! Here's what it was:
I'm working on a very linear, walking-sim narrative game. I find that I don't have anything to share because 'everything is a spoiler'. How can I share things with my community without kind of ruining some parts of the game?
A classic struggle. I've got a slight longer answer for this one, but I wanted to highlight a response from the community first:
I would try to identify a handful of moments from the game that truly capture its themes and emotions to share on social media ahead of its release. If these moments feature a character having to make a decision, even better, since your community will be quick to chime in with what choice they'd make! Each 'moment' can have its time to shine on socials, and you could later compile them for an additional post to advertise the game without any additional spoilers! - Amanda, Marketing and Community Chicken at The Behemoth
Thanks Amanda!! Totally agree that's something fun that narrative games in particular can do.
More generally, if you're looking to avoid spoilers for your games, you're going to have to get into the "scrappy" mindset of doing more with less. Here's how you can start thinking about it:
Creativity: Not just in the general sense of being able to come up with new/fun ideas, but being able to see how content can be repurposed.
Flexibility: You’ll also need a broad-ish skillset, or at least, be willing to learn! Image editing, basic video editing, drawing skills, GIF making, extremely good pun-sense — it can be any range of things, but it will HAVE to be a range.
Determination: Look, I’m not gonna lie. It can SUCK when you think about all the pretty resources everyone else has.
But when it comes to the actual things you can do to create non-spoiler content? Here are some of my tips!
You'll feel like this at some point trying to make content.
Break Down Your Trailer
Trailers are my FAVORITE material. They don’t come around often, but when you do release one, it'll be amazing content for the future. Trailers have distinct chunks to them — an exciting action portion, an informative part, cinematics, etc. Break these up into separate GIFs or static images for content! They're also great for measuring which ones are more successful/appealing for marketing when you post them.
Here’s where I would split it up to become individual GIFs or images for content:
0:04 - 0:05: Highlight creepy monster
0:06 - 0:08: Waking up
0:09 - 0:12: Remove text, use it as a post to introduce the main character
0:18 - 0:20: Farming mechanic highlight
0:21 - 0:23 - Fishing mechanic highlight
0:28 - 0:32 - Combat highlight
0:37 - Good screenshot for relatable email post
0:41 - Creepy monster highlight
0:43 - Gunter spotlight
0:44 - Relationship & skills highlight
0:45 - 0:46 - Every single screen shown in this could be an image post
0:47 - 0:50 - Home decor mechanic highlight
0:53 - 0:57 - Dungeon highlights (plus can retake the shot so it's just the boss monster for a post)
1:01 - 1:05 - Character highlight + jitter to death background
1:13 - Creepy eyeball post
Repurpose Art
Key art, screenshots, silly goofs the team made, work-in-progress shots - all of these are great for scrappy social content. I usually try to ask for:
As many character portraits as possible
At least one background (could be from the key art)
If possible, props/flourishes. (Such as in-game items, mood indicators, or weapons.)
I’m not an artist, so my ability to create new assets is quite weak, but I am proficient enough at Photoshop that I can often find creative workarounds when I need a quick image to throw up on social.
Many think good content always has shiny new images associated with it, but that’s not true. You can reuse images or tweak them to create new posts, relying more heavily on the caption or format of the image to make it more exciting. For example, this post reuses several old promotional images plus in-game content:
Social media moves at a breakneck pace, so more often than not you can assume people haven’t seen your image before OR have already forgotten about it.
Repost Articles
After a big announcement or reveal, you’ll hopefully have at least a few articles about your game that you can use. You can repost them, but after awhile you can also pull quotes you want people to pay attention to (and don’t forget to link to the article again of course.)
Let’s be real here, not everyone will click or read an article in its entirety, so this will help direct their attention.
Remember
Have you ever seen a movie trailer, and after seeing the movie, realized they basically spoiled the entire plot? You can think of it similarly to this. You can share much more than you think, so long as it's given in smaller chunks. People are seeing content all the time and it isn't necessarily an issue if they see it without all the added context of the game, and they'll tend to forget too.
If you want more tips, you can check out these articles I wrote about content creation:
Success through shenanigans with community management.
Hi, I'm Victoria! Join my Community Dev Newsletter for insight into games marketing, social, and community management. Get actionable tips, a skill testing question, and a roundup of resources straight to your inbox every month.
