So, we experimented a bit on social media
And, we have cool numbers to show-off with
When it comes to Trip the Ark Fantastic production, it has been an interesting ride. The game is not there yet (and it won’t be for quite some time), but the stuff is steadily coming together.
This gives us an opportunity to do some SOCIAL MEDIA SCIENCE!!!

So, we did a full 180 when it comes to art style in the game, and you can read about it in another blog post. But, when we were switching to the new art style, it was only us in Gamechuck who knew about it. And… a lot of the stuff was already done, so it was too late to go back to the drawing board.
Sure, we did have a lot of trust in our artists, but we didn’t exactly know how would the community resonate with our new art style.
So we tried social media.
Note: due to recent changes in Facebook and Instagram APIs, we can’t embed Facebook and/or Instagram posts.

Not a bad performance, although we thought it could definitely do better. So, let’s try…
Well, this is much better. Much more engagements, and a solid number of replies as well.
So, in total, the tweet got over 13,000 impressions, with a total number of 1,592 engagements. You can see the details below. Pretty nice numbers.

But wait, there’s more!
As many indie developers know, Reddit is a pretty useful tool to get people to know about your game. There are several fantastic subreddits, where you can post screenshots, trailers, early work-in-progress stuff, and get really good feedback. People are usually really friendly, and if they like your content, they will flood you with upvotes and comments.
Exactly that happened when we posted that comparison image for Trip the Ark Fantastic. The feedback was amazing.
Finally, for our latest trick, we ended up in a place where only the brave go.
9gag.
Oh boy…
Well, for those who don’t know, 9gag is a social network where comments can be a bit… “different”.
But, we did it anyway. And, boy, what an adventure it was.
So, when we published it, we started getting notifications about the first comments.
Right. First things first.

Well, some of the first comments were pretty hilarious.




But, we were never prepared for this. The post got to a “Hot” section of 9gag in a matter of minutes, and for a solid portion of the day we posted it, it stood on the VERY TOP of 9gag.

Incredible stuff. Do you know what’s even more incredible? The final numbers. So, the post got over 19,000 (!!!!!) – that’s NINETEEN THOUSAND upvotes on 9gag and over 2,500 comments. We were simply blown away.

Also, the majority of the comments are beautiful, useful, and constructive, while constructive criticism is seen among the majority of the negative ones.
And you know something else about 9gag?

So what have we learned about all of this?
When it comes to marketing for your game, especially when it’s in the early stages of production, you should never refrain from unconventional types of marketing, and/or unconventional places, such as 9gag.
Of course, we already knew that 9gag is an absolutely humongous social network, but we always had a feeling that it’s mostly about memes.
Well, we were wrong. Really wrong. 9gag is a FANTASTIC place to use for awareness building, and we’ll try using different methods in the future.
So until next time!