PocketGamer: Social game publishers’ fan data on social networks

We all know the importance of social media, but not many people know how important it is and how to use it in combination, especially at this stage where users spend a lot of money on social media such as Facebook. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the current situation, PocketGamer.biz conducted a study on some of the major social game publishers to see how they integrate and use social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter

Some mobile game companies have done a good job in marketing on Twitter. EA has about 1 million fans on Twitter, Gameloft has about 220,000 fans on Facebook, and EAmobile has only about 50,000 followers.

For most companies, social media marketing is a complex and comprehensive marketing method. For example, in order to understand what information you pay attention to, in addition to the company's main account, you also need to register a separate account for the game.

For example, AngryBirds has about 500,000 followers on its Twitter account, while RovioHQ has less than 15,000 followers. GluMobile has about 380,000 followers on Twitter, while Zynga has about 360,000, which shows that GluMobile is quite active in Twitter marketing.

Facebook

Facebook is more attractive to global players than Twitter, so companies are advised to pay more attention to this aspect. AngryBirds has about 21.4 million Facebook fans, while its fans on Twitter are only 500,000. Generally speaking, companies that rank high on Twitter will also rank high on Facebook, and there is not much difference in the rankings of the two. However, as can be seen from the chart below, although Zynga is the main publisher of Facebook games, it has only 3.1 million fans on the Facebook platform, while Gameloft has 7 million fans on Facebook.

Similarly, Facebook game publisher Crowdstar has a considerable number of fans, and GluMobile has about 1.5 million Facebook fans. GREE also has an account on Facebook, with GREE_Corp having 2,100 fans and GREE_Games having 8,200 fans, which is really insignificant for a company with 190 million users.

Twitter as a Marketing Hub

The following figure shows the ratio of the number of Twitter fans to the number of Facebook fans of gaming companies. The larger the ratio, the more its marketing center is concentrated on Twitter. PocketGems is a typical company that uses Twitter as its marketing center. Its Twitter fans are 70 times the number of Facebook fans.

Backflip Studios and Chair Games use Twitter to promote their games Dragonvale and Infinity Blade, respectively, so their game accounts have far more followers than their company accounts. NimbleBit has two or three popular social games, but small independent developers don't seem to pay much attention to Twitter and Facebook. TinyTower and PocketPlanes don't have Twitter accounts yet.

Although Twitter is a platform mainly used for corporate branding, Zepto Labs has three times as many Twitter followers as its game Cut The Rope, which has 1.1 million Facebook fans.

Android game publisher Animoca ranked last, although it has relatively low follower counts on both Twitter and Facebook.

Facebook as the Marketing Center

The following chart shows the ratio of Facebook fans to Twitter fans of gaming companies. Crowdstar has very few Twitter fans, but its Facebook fans have the largest ratio to Twitter fans. GREE also has a significant ratio of fans on both social media platforms, with Facebook fans being about 70 times the number of Twitter fans.

Overview

To sum up, Facebook and Twitter have different functions and can attract different types of users, especially the fan audiences who follow the company's brand and the fan audiences who follow the company's game brand are different.

Smaller companies focus more on their own game brands, especially if they have a popular game.

In this way, the different performances of GluMobile, Gameloft, Com2uS, GREE and Zynga in our first two information icons prove that companies should balance the purpose and usage of Facebook and Twitter so that they can interact well with a large number of users.

Many company users have Facebook accounts, but few companies can do well on both Facebook and Twitter. The cost of acquiring users has become a headache for developers, and these social media promotion methods can effectively reduce marketing costs.

Source: Pocket Gamer.biz