Make your social games virile!

How do you increase the virility…..

sriramkri at gmail com@sriramkri

http://cn.linkedin.com/in/sriramkrishnan

…of your social games

Yes, you heard it right. VIRILITY.

Definition

the masculine property of being capable of copulation and procreation

make your social game the alfa male in this dog eat dog world

Your social games ….

Need to stand out … grow …and leave a mark

Getting your game to be virile is just the first step …

A virile game is not the end solution …

Ensure focus is given to developing the funnel …

Kick-ass virile games let the users do the procreating and copulating …

So, how can you create a kick-ass virile social game that will let the users do the procreating and copulating given that Facebook is constantly changing user privacy settings and making it difficult to freely acquire new users

A combination of many things …

Facebook = Viagra 

Assume …

Now that the hard part is out of the way

…

Let’s focus on increasing your user

count …

In public: You want to be the alfa male of all social games ...

Where the sun doesn’t shine: Implement steps to increase your user count!

FB platform features

Incentives

Design Metrics

Publicity

Luck

Utilize all FB Platform features

Games can’t be too dependent on any single FB platform feature

It has to utilize all FB platform features available: publish2stream, publish pictures, become a fan, bookmarking, email

Some features are better at acquiring users, some are better at retaining users

Incentivize co-operation, sharing

Games have to encourage the user to interact with and to engage other users

Incentives, incentives, incentives! To promote in-game action, To invite

new users, To get invited users to accept invitation, To become a fan – Big Thing!, To subscribe to email or bookmarking, To grow avatar, farm, land, accomplish missions etc

Ensure that the users are obliged to engage or to reciprocate action

DesignSimple UI for UX

Complicated applications take a longer time to catch on

K.I.S.S Backend: No major complicated effort

requiredIntegrate non-conditional viral

features in the game mechanics

Start tracking early + track everything

Tracking + Metrics = Feedback -> Better decision making

Listen to your users. Excellent management of community

K factor, Click/Publish ratios, Response rates, ROIs

Publicity + Customer acquisition

Old school – PR, blogs, conferences Leverage others: Cross promotion on

6waves, own apps etc Ads on Rockyou, FB etc

You will also need luck on your side

Increase your count with the 6 steps!

But let’s delve …

FB platform features

Incentives

Those days, games relied on notifications, forced invitations and publish2streams …

Users:

Game developers:

These days, more emphasis on publish2stream; incentivizing cooperation ...

Game developers:

Only major virile option …

So, what’s the most important FB tool you can use to make your game virile on Facebook?

Publish2stream

Publish2stream is the mating call

Incentives = PeacockingPeacocking means dressing for attention. Just like Peacock's use their feathers to get a mate.

Publish2Stream

Incentives

Users procreate and copulate!

To show and tellleveling upwin/loss in battlesending/receivingchallenging friendsobtaining itemsfinding items

When do you publish2stream?

To seek favours, to make requestsbuildings get constructed fasterto grow your farmsfertilize cropsto fill up clanto fill up homeshiring friends in Hotelsurvey questions about user

When do you publish2stream?

Users frequently encouraged to publish2stream

More publish2streams

Incentivizing publish2streams

User 1 Publishes

User 2 clicks, completes action

User 1 gets incentives

User 1 nags User 2 to complete action

Incentivizing publish2streams

User 1 Publishes

User 2 clicks , completes action

User 1 + 2 get incentives

Win-win

Incentivizing publish2streams

Publish2streams can have a variety of incentive strategies

Tips to bring out the beast in your game…

Use a cute picture for your stream post.

Incentivize the small bottom right link to encourage procreation and copulation …

Use “call for mating” headers instead of general boring statements …

Ask yourself, would you rather …..

Get a sign on bonus?

Save the seal?

Play Tiki resort?

Mating analytics

Track the # of times a pop-up is shown, and a pop-up is published to stream

There are three areas on a stream post users can choose to click (look below)

Track the click through rates, and action completed for all 3 areas

Determine which one works best!

Variables2trackDate or Cohort

Type of stream postDesigns or styles for a/b testing

# of pop-ups shown to users (a)# of published pop-ups (b)

Published/shown ratio = b/a

# of clicks from all users for pop-up (c)Clicks/published ratio = c/b

Click breakdown – Where did users click? 1 – Picture (d), % of total clicks = d/c 2 – Header (e), % of total clicks = e/c 3 – Small link (f), % of total clicks = f/c

Actions completed 1 – Action 1 – g 2 – Action 2 – h 3 – Action 3 – I

Total action completed = g+h+I = j

Total ROI = j/c or j/b or j/a depending on what you’re tracking

Variables2track - contd

Date/Cohort Why Pop-up Styles # shown to user

# published by user

Ratio (pub/shown)

27 May Item found Style 1 A B B/AStyle 2Style 3

27 May Game won Style 1

Date/Cohort Total clicks Ratio (clicks/pub)

Call for action

# of clicks % of clicks

27 May C C/B 1. Picture D D/C2. Header E E/C3. Small link F F/C

27 May

Date/Cohort Actions competed

Ratio (action / clicks)

Total action completed

Total ROI

27 May G G/DJ = G + H + I J/CH H/E

I I/F

Date/Cohort Why Pop-up Styles # shown to user

# published by user

Ratio (pub/shown)

27 May Item found Style 1 A B B/AStyle 2Style 3

27 May Game won Style 1

Date/Cohort Total clicks Ratio (clicks/pub)

Call for action

# of clicks % of clicks

27 May C C/B 1. Picture D D/C2. Header E E/C3. Small link F F/C

27 May

Date/Cohort Actions competed

Ratio (action / clicks)

Total action completed

Total ROI

27 May G G/DJ = G + H + I J/CH H/E

I I/F

Hopefully you’re now able to develop a virile game …

Increase your game’s user count … !

Be the social game alfa male … !

The END

Need any clarification on Facebook virality? Any feedback? Like to have the excel sheet for the publish2stream analytics? Contact me below. Cheers.

sriramkri at gmail com@sriramkrihttp://cn.linkedin.com/in/sriramkrishnan