Why is it that some games seem to spread like wildfire, while others struggle to gain traction? The answer lies in understanding the concept of virality and tracking the right metrics to measure it. By utilizing these metrics, gaming companies can effectively analyze and improve their virality rate, leading to increased user growth and revenue.
In this article, we will discuss the key metrics to track in gaming for optimal virality. Viral growth isn’t just a luck-based phenomenon, it’s a strategic process that can increase the number of new customers. Be integrating these metrics to track alongside your viral content efforts, you can ensure long-term success for your gaming company.
1. Content Distribution Outlets
Before you begin creating marketing for your games, it is essential to identify the most successful platforms for content distribution. Whether it’s social media, influencer marketing, or ad networks, understanding which channels your target audience uses and engages with will greatly increase your chances of success. By optimizing your content distribution outlets, you can effectively reach a wider audience and increase the potential for virality.
It’s human nature for people to share content that expresses how they would like to be perceived. By understanding your target audience’s preferred channels, you can create content that resonates with them and encourages sharing. For example, if a younger audience is on TikTok and your game caters to that demographic, it would make sense to create content specifically for that platform.
To encourage shares on a specific content distribution outlet, you can consider gamifying the process to create virality. A reward box for performing specific actions that increase virality that can be claimed in-game is just one idea of how to implement this strategy. Helika, the leading game analytics company has helped game developers such as Pixelynx implement this strategy leading to increased daily active users. Working with a team of experts can greatly benefit your game’s virality and success.
2. Number of Views
When it comes to the virality of a product or game a simple metric to track is the number of views. This metric measures how many people have viewed your content on a specific channel or platform. By tracking this metric, you can determine which channels are most effective in reaching your target audience and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.
It’s important to note that not all views are created equal. For example, if someone scrolls past your ad on social media without actually stopping to look at it, that view may not be considered as valuable as someone who actively clicks on and engages with your content. It’s crucial to track engagement metrics alongside views to get a more accurate understanding of your content’s success. We’ll get into that in the next point but before we do, let’s discuss the importance of tracking views.
Organic reach is the number of people who have seen your content without any paid promotion or advertising. This metric is important because it reflects how well your content is resonating with your target audience. If you’re able to generate a high number of views through organic reach, it shows that your content is compelling and share-worthy.
On the other hand, paid views are those generated through paid promotion. If your organic reach does well, it may be worth getting even more viewers and potential customers through paid advertising. Now that we’ve covered the importance of initial attention through views, let’s dive into the next metric.
3. User Engagement
As mentioned earlier, tracking user engagement is crucial for understanding the effectiveness of your content. This metric measures how users are interacting with your content, such as likes, comments, shares, and clicks.
By tracking user engagement, you can determine which types of content are most engaging to your audience and tailor future content accordingly. For example, if your target audience tends to engage more with videos rather than written posts, you may want to focus on creating more video content in the future.
Additionally, user engagement can also give insight into what type of messaging resonates best with your audience. Are they responding positively to humor or emotional appeals? Is there a specific call-to-action that generates more clicks? These insights can help shape your content strategy and improve its effectiveness.
As a game developer, you’re aware of how important it is for your players to feel engaged throughout their entire playing experience. More play time = more opportunities for streamers and players to tell their friends about your game. Similarly, the longer a user engages with your online content, the more opportunities they have to share and promote it. For this, partnering with an analytics company that caters to game developers such as Helika would be beneficial.
4. Number of New Users
Although some individual pieces of content goes viral on their own, many of them require some sort of ‘Remix’ or UGC to help the original piece of content to become popular. This is another reason why it’s important to understand which channels your target audience uses and engages with, as this can greatly increase the chances of user-generated content being created and shared.
Fortnite’s virality is in part thanks to their dance emoji as their target demographics (Gen-Z) use TikTok, an app known for their viral dance trends. By creating a dance emoji in-game, creators would naturally be inspired to perform that same dance in the real world, further promoting the game through user-generated content on social media platforms.
So, is your game’s marketing content created in a way that others can easily adopt and express in their own way? Memes are also a great example of this. The base image may be the same, but users from all over the internet can create texts and alter the original image to suit their new context. This is one of the ways that memes become viral, as they are easy to understand and replicate.
Humans are social creatures and word of mouth marketing can make or break a game’s success. By creating engaging content for your customer base and providing opportunities for user-generated content, you can increase the number of new users and potential players for your game.
5. Growth Trajectory
Imagine a popular Twitch Streamer just published a video of him/her playing your game. In the first week alone it has reached 500,000 views. You begin hiring new teams, celebrating as you watch your active user base skyrocket. However, as a responsible game developer/marketer, it’s important to carefully analyze and track the growth trajectory of your game.
The trajectory of a game’s growth is crucial in understanding its success and potential for long-term sustainability. A sudden spike in viewership or player base may be exciting, but it’s important to determine if it is sustainable or just a temporary trend.
Tracking metrics such as daily active users (DAU), monthly active users (MAU), retention rate, and churn rate can give insights into the growth trajectory of a game. These metrics can help identify which demographics are engaging with the game, how often they are playing, and if there is a consistent level of interest over time.
To maintain these viral moments and manufacture new ones can be the difference between a short term buzz and growth for your game that transcends culture. Having a data analytics partner in Helika not only tracks these metrics but also helps you to make data-driven decisions to sustain and grow your game. Don’t let these moments slip away. Contact us to learn more about how Helika can support your game’s growth trajectory.
6. Viral Loop
A strong hook followed by a climax that leads back to the hook is an effective way to create a viral loop. For short form content, this increases the total duration someone spends watching a piece of content as there is no clear ending. The reason this type of scripting works for increasing virality is because it increase the total watch time and replays before a viewer moves on to the next piece of content. Many social media algorithms use this data as a factor for recommending content to others, making viral loops an important strategy in increasing visibility and engagement.
Now, there is another way ‘Viral Loop’ can be interpreted. The above example is more in context of crafting specific pieces of content but from a broader perspective, a viral loop refers to the continuous cycle of user adoption and retention. In other words, how do you get new users to adopt your game and continue using it? This can be achieved through creating a strong community, offering regular updates and incentives, and ensuring the gameplay is engaging enough to keep players coming back for more.
Data analytics plays an integral role in understanding and optimizing this viral loop. By tracking metrics such as user acquisition, retention, and engagement, developers can identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions to enhance the overall player experience.
Additionally, a campaign / reward system that encourages shares on social media can bring in the next wave of new players, further fueling the viral loop. The problem is that it is extremely difficult to do ‘Guess Work’ on how to implement the call-to-action that will encourage users to share with their friends and family. Using advanced data is the most productive way of discovering the perfect time, place and form of your call-to-action to maximize its effectiveness in virality.
Final Thoughts
It’s entirely possible to have a successful game with a steady increase of players but for exponential growth, viral marketing whether it be on a social media platform or through word-of-mouth, is crucial. The virality of your product can be the difference between a great game that only a few knows about and a cultural phenomenon that captures the attention of millions.
With the help of data analytics, developers can better understand and optimize their viral loop to increase their number of users as well as improve their top of funnel brand awareness. Helika’s valuable insights can help you create network effects that essentially serve as a free advertising campaign for your game, resulting in a higher return on investment and overall success.
