Which social platform is best for my indie game?
Being an indie game dev is overwhelming on its own. There are tons of things to be on top of. And, in this time and age, we have the pressure to be on social media. But you are already doing so many things as an indie game dev, how are you even supposed to start?
Well, let’s start from the beginning. The first question to ask yourself is probably the most obvious: "Which social media networks am I supposed to use?"
You might not love the answer, but is is, as with many things in video games, “it depends”.
Wait, put away your pitchforks, and let me explain. There are some things you need to consider.
How frequently can you update your feeds?
Which medium do you feel more comfortable with?
What are your game's strengths?
What's your target audience?
These will define your needs, and if you keep them in mind you'll avoid wasting energy on platforms that aren't for you. Without further ado, here's a roundup of the key facts:
TikTok
I’ll be honest, TikTok is my personal favorite. If you know the basics of video editing or video recording, it’s worth a shot. TikTok has the best organic reach out of the mainstream social media platforms. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to jump into the app and start dancing (that trend is long dead, no worries). You just need to find the right angle for your game.
Best for:
TikTok is great for showing off gameplay, sharing updates, behind-the-scenes videos, and sharing your story as a gamedev (if you want to!). Also, it’s a great space for humor, if that’s your jam. If you like standing in front of the camera and just talking about your game, that can work very well! But if you are more camera shy, showing gameplay videos and jumping into trending audios can be a good-to-go strategy.
Ugh:
Be prepared for some videos to flop. If you are not consistent, you might get shadow banned by the app and it might get a couple of videos to gain your visibility back. Also, if you want to use trending audios, it’s difficult to pre-schedule your posts, so be ready to manually post. If you don’t have a lot of art assets or gameplay ready to show off, you might struggle to generate enough content to be posting at least 3 times per week.
Instagram is great for videos and images. Although single images do not perform as well as they used to, carrousels and reels can be an easy way to share updates on your game.
“But what’s the difference with TikTok, then?” Audience. You’ll need to find out whether your target audience is on Instagram or TikTok. But generally speaking, younger audiences are on TikTok, while most millennials use Instagram. To be fair, if you are posting on one, you might as well cross-post to the other. Instagram is the “classier” sister of TikTok, so “aesthetic” posts still perform better on this platform than others.
Best for:
Visual and/or artsy games, event photos, WIP, showing personality in your studio life. Stories are a great way of engaging with your audience and are probably the best way to reach your existing followers. On the other hand, reels are the best way to organically reach new audiences in the platform.
Ugh:
Growth can be slower than on TikTok. If you do not have a lot of art assets or gameplay ready to show off, you might struggle to generate enough content to be posting at least 3 times per week.
X
Twitter… err… I mean, X, has been the go-to for indie game devs for years. Sadly, engagement has not been great in the past months due to… events we all know have been going on. If you jump into X, I suggest you cross-post to Bluesky or Threads.
Best for:
Joining the game developers' community and game enthusiasts at large, showing work-in-progress (get those gifs on #screenshotsaturday!), and extending your general network.
Ugh:
If you can't tweet at least every day, you can be near invisible. This is also no place for constant self-promotion (don't be that person at the party only talking about themselves.)
Bluesky
As of right now, Bluesky has a very wholesome community for indie game devs. It’s basically like early-day Twitter, so the community is loving it.
Best for:
Talking about your progress in a conversation-like manner, daily posting and sharing.
Ugh:
Multimedia support is still not the best. You are limited to 1-minute videos, and gif support is very limited.
YouTube
YouTube is a solid platform – of course, this is where you'll upload your trailer. But there are other uses for it that you might be missing out on, especially now that we have YouTube shorts. How about a development vlog, or showing off the art in your game, maybe doing narrative videos? If you can film and edit, you can really get creative in the content you offer.
Best for:
Advertising your trailers. Also, think about dev vlogs, trailers, speedpainting videos, and playlists of your favourite games or music playlists (spread the love, won't you?)
Ugh:
Each video needs a careful set of tags, and video production to YouTube standards can get quite expensive if you want to invest in it. Not the best for cross-posting the same content you’ll be using on TikTok or Instagram, unless you are doing talking head videos.
Twitch
Twitch is the biggest live video platform, which is just great as you can interact with the community in real time. As opposed to YouTube, there is no editing possible, so it really feels "true" - careful, there are no outtakes.
Best for:
It's great for developer streams, art streams and live Q&As, or launching your game while letting viewers play by proxy (if your game mechanics allow it.)
Ugh:
You might miss a large audience if you don't advertise your streams beforehand (on other social networks and/or publishing a set schedule for your streams.) Twitch is also incredible community based - and similar to Tik Tok - has a culture that sometimes is adverse to brands. You’ll find more success here by working with existing creators than streaming from your own account.
You probably have a Facebook personal account, so it's probably the first platform that came to mind. Facebook is good for paid advertising (along with hip sibling Instagram.) But I’ll be brutally honest with you, it’s not a very active place to promote your game. It is recommended to set up a Facebook page to pre-schedule Instagram posts, but it’s likely you will not be using it as a stand-alone platform.
Best for:
Advertising. Don't forget those calls to action. Useful to set up Meta Business Suite and pre-scheduling posts.
Ugh:
Very poor organic reach, long posts without catchy visuals don't do too well.
Okay, that was a lot of info. If you're just starting out, don't pick more than 3 platforms, unless you have an in-house community manager. If you’re short on time, my go-to suggestion is to choose one principal platform and cross-post to others, but keep each platform’s audience and strengths in mind. For example, use TikTok as your main platform and cross-post to Instagram and occasionally post an update on Bluesky.
And feel free to connect with us on Bluesky! And find out more about how we’ve leveraged social media for past campaigns like Dordogne.
