Common Misconception: How AAA Games Use Social Media Without Spamming Audiences
This article is part of a series by Glitch Gaming addressing common misconceptions in game marketing that are often perpetuated online. Its goal is to help game developers better market their games. The misconception being addressed in this post is that creating a lot of content on social media is considered spam.
Marketing is one of the most important steps in making a game, and it requires producing a substantial amount of content to reach your audience. This content is distributed across various channels, including email, social media, and advertising. Social media, in particular, is one of the best ways to promote a game, but it is often underutilized due to fears of appearing spammy.
One of the biggest concerns developers have about marketing is the fear of spamming their audience, potentially causing disengagement or, worse, negative feedback about their brand. While this concern may hold true for other forms of marketing, on social media, it is much more difficult to cross the line into spam.
This article will explore the definition of spam, how AAA games produce content, and why creating content on social media rarely comes across as spam.
What Is Spam?
Spam is defined as “unsolicited messages sent in bulk to a large number of recipients, typically for advertising purposes.” Let’s break this down:
- Unsolicited messages: These are communications sent without the recipient's prior request or consent.
- Sent in bulk: Messages are distributed to thousands or even millions of recipients.
- For advertising purposes: The goal is to inform, persuade, or remind recipients about a product, service, or event.
For example, if someone signs up for your newsletter and you send them updates about your game, this is not spam because they have consented to receive these communications. However, a newsletter can become spam if:
- Emails continue to be sent after the recipient has explicitly unsubscribed.
- The content significantly deviates from what was promised during signup.
- Emails are excessively frequent or contain irrelevant information.
- The unsubscribe process is difficult or unclear.
- The recipient was added to the list without their clear consent.
Even though someone initially consents to receive communications about your game, these communications can become spam if they meet the criteria above. While this example focuses on email, which is more prone to becoming spam, this article will discuss spam in the context of social media.
Following on Social Media Equals Consent
When someone follows you on social media, they are essentially giving you consent to communicate with them. By following you, they are expressing interest in your project, content, or something else you offer.
For game developers, this means you should produce content that resonates with your followers—such as artwork, screenshots, videos, progress updates, and other engaging materials. When someone follows you, they are signaling their willingness to receive content about your game. Therefore you have cleared the unsolicited messages requirement of not being spam.
The "Too Much Content" Myth
Now that we understand followers want your content, how much is too much? A common fear among developers is that posting too frequently will alienate their audience. Let’s examine how content frequency works in practice.
Consider the game Sniper Elite. As of this writing, Sniper Elite is scheduled for release in January 2025. However, its marketing efforts began years earlier, with tweets dating back to 2017 and gameplay content from 2022.
The team behind Sniper Elite may posts several times a day, but at minimum they post a few times a week. Typically on platforms, producing a good amount of content in a certain time frame helps you get picked up by its algorithm, where taking extend breaks in between content hurts your algorithm reach. For example, on a different platform like LinkedIn, the optimal is 2 posts per day before the platform suppresses your posts.
So let's examine this instance where Sniper Elite post several times a day on X:
They have 5 posts in a similar topic all in the same day. This may seem excessive and a knee jerk reaction might be that they are spamming, but let’s look at their audience engagement. At the time of writing, the game’s account had 24.9k followers, yet one post garnered just 1.8k views.
In a "perfect world" scenario, where all 1.8k views come from followers, only 7.2% of their audience saw the post. This means 92.8% of their followers didn’t see the content. To reach the entire audience, in the "perfect world" they would need to post 14 times. If they only posted once a week, it would take over three months to reach everyone in our perfect world scenario.
If 92.8% of your audience isn’t seeing your content, is it really spam?
Social Media Requires Frequent Content
In reality, we don’t live in a perfect world. Most followers won’t see your content due to platform algorithms. Organic reach varies by platform, but for Instagram and Facebook, it can be as low as 2-5%. This is even lower than the example above.
By creating eight posts, you might ensure that a small subset of your audience sees at least one post for more than 10 seconds - which certainly doesn't feel like spam.
Now you do have to take into consideration of the platform being used. Social sites like Reddit or Discord, which are forum style, can indeed feel like spam because of the content shows up too much in the forum/chat setting, it can annoy users. But other social sites like TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram and others that "feed" content their users, the chance of feeling like spam are low as users are not likely to be "fed" your content.
The key takeaway is that posting frequently does not violate the definition of spam. Your followers, by choosing to follow you, have given you implicit permission to share updates about your game. Most of these updates will go unseen unless you create a high volume of content.
Don’t By Shy About Marketing Your Game
As a game developer, focus on creating consistent, engaging content and growing your audience. Frequent posting ensures better reach and increases the likelihood of converting followers into players. Marketing is essential to your game’s success, so don’t let the fear of being “spammy” hold you back.
About Glitch Gaming
Glitch Gaming is a marketing platform designed to help game developers better market and promote their games. We offer game-specific resources, including access to gaming influencers, testers, developer logs for social content, gaming newsletters, showcases, and more. Additionally, we provide a variety of free resources and guides for indie developers. Come check us out!