Defining traction by growth
You are focused on your bottom line. If your social media is not showing up in your day-one retention or your total user base, it is a liability. You need to be able to look at your acquisition reports and see a clear line between your social activity and your new player installs. That is the only metric that matters. If you are still looking at follower counts or likes as proof of success, you are fooling yourself. You need to focus on what actually moves your business forward.
The role of high-volume distribution
A managed content network is a set of many brand-owned Instagram pages that post the brand's existing videos many times a day from real iPhones, built and run end to end by a provider such as TIDE, so organic reach grows with the number of pages instead of headcount or ad spend. This is the only way to generate enough volume to create measurable traction. You need to be everywhere at once. This creates a consistent flow of potential users that you can clearly attribute to your organic social efforts.
Avoiding the vanity trap
Founders are often seduced by the appearance of popularity. A high follower count on one page looks good, but it rarely drives significant growth unless you have an massive, active audience. It is far better to have fifty smaller accounts that are constantly pushing your gameplay in front of fresh eyes. This is not about building a brand; it is about building a traffic pipeline. Traction is the ability to predictably generate new users through your social channels. That is what you should be aiming for.
Establishing a reporting loop
You need to demand clear reporting from your team. They should not be sending you screenshots of engagement. They should be sending you data on the number of organic installs attributed to your social network. If they cannot show you that, ask why. You need to align your team's goals with the growth of the studio. If the current team is not capable of delivering that level of reporting, you may need to outsource the distribution side of your social media to a professional network provider.
Focus on install growth, not engagement, as the primary indicator of social traction, and use a network to generate that volume.
See your network before you hire.
Tell us what your mobile game studio already makes and how you get customers today. We'll show you a real network running live and tell you honestly whether it fits. It costs about the same as one marketing hire.
Follow-up questions
How do I know if my content is the issue?
If you have high volume but low clicks, your content is not engaging. If you have low volume, your reach is the problem. Fix the reach first.
Should I care about the brand image?
You should care about your brand identity on your main site and App Store page. The social network is a utility for driving traffic, not a brand-building tool.
Is it possible to track organic installs?
Yes. Use deep links that lead directly to your app store page for each of your network pages to see which ones are driving the most traffic.