Gaming has become a titan, with the influence of gaming on modern pop culture being an even more massive beast. The evolution of gaming over time has led to a massive amount of modern trends and shifts aligning with gaming and creators within the space, leading to various new forms of interaction and opportunity.
Are You Game?
Gaming is now a broad area; even seemingly unrelated trends can and have been tied back into gaming. As such, it’s worth paying attention to emerging gaming discussions and considering how they can tie back to your marketing efforts. With many users having gamed for a significant portion of their life, or at least that’s the assumption, this could present a significant opportunity for your promotional efforts.
Tying into this, TikTok has published a new overview of how its platform links to gaming culture and the opportunities to promote gaming projects and related initiatives. As TikTok explains:
“The global gaming community is massive, and judging by the amount of gaming-related content on the platform, many of these gamers can be found on TikTok. In fact, the top 100 gaming-related hashtags on TikTok receive more than 40 billion video views per month, according to internal company data. TikTok’s gaming community is also ready to spend. According to a recent survey, 65% of US TikTok users have made an in-app purchase within the last 3-6 months.”
In some ways, it’s a bit surprising how gaming can be overlooked as a niche interest, especially for one that has such high appeal to younger audiences. While youngsters spend the most time gaming, overall, familiarity with the space, coupled with gaming nostalgia and connection, can be a strong draw.
For marketing mobile gaming projects, TikTok advises game developers to take this three-stage approach:
- Organic – This is your opportunity to show up with authenticity and build trust with your audience. Use your organic content to learn how consumers engage with your brand. This is the perfect plan to test content formats and then scale what works.
- Paid – Use paid campaigns to amplify your top-performing content. Paid campaigns also give you the opportunity to directly test new audiences or target and optimize for specific business objectives.
- Earned – Generate engagements and discussion within the TikTok community. The more you post and amplify your best content, the more you maximize opportunities and potential for earned community influence.
TikTok also notes that the following work well for it as a partner channel when pairing your promotions across mediums:
- TikTok Compliments Traditional Media – Viewing an ad on TV after viewing a TikTok creator ad increases memory encoding of the TV ad by 13%.
- TikTok Amplifies Social Media – Watching an Instagram influencer’s content is 43% more memorable if you’re already primed to the content via TikTok.
- TikTok Primes Digital Video Audiences – You’re 31% less likely to skip through a YouTube ad if you’ve first watched a creator ad on TikTok.
Lastly, TikTok has also provided a 3×3 grid that includes tips for planning your campaigns, allowing you to maximize your creative elements.
The Wrap
Though it’s a guide dedicated to gaming trends, these insights apply to all TikTok campaigns, not just gaming ones. It can be worth keeping this overview handy for your future TikTok promotions. There are useful notes here, along with a few important data points relating to the ever-evolving gaming conversation on TikTok.
Check Out TikTok’s Full Overview Here.
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