Time to find some streamers and YouTubers? Successful influencer campaigns are based on data and relevance. This is where the PR manager, influencer marketer, and community manager spend a lot of their time before a game launch. But where and when do you find content creators? We know what good prospecting looks like and which tags and metrics are key for your campaign. We also know how you can present them in a way your marketing team understands.  

Prospecting relevant content creators 

As a PR manager, influencer marketer or community manager, it is your job to gather creators and strategic information per your budget and release plan. You must also report the results after the campaign is done. Thoughtful reporting with carefully selected content creators allows the marketing team to make decisions that lead to you reaching your goals.

How do I choose the right content creators?

To begin with, you should distinguish between full channel data (the metrics the creator has overall) and contextual data that gives a deep-dive view of how they perform when they play a particular game or genre. Several less established content creators often perform way better than the big stars when looking at contextual data over time.  

Long term collaborations are the way to go 

The most important creators are the ones that you can build long-term collaborations with. Doing this requires some work and careful thinking. These creators are loyal to your company and closely linked to your strategic goals. Thus, it's essential to think about what tonality the creator has over pure CCV metrics sometimes. What drives your sales goals? Does working with 50 smaller streamers over a long time create more value than doing a big splash now and then?  

Also, think about choosing content creators interested in your game over creators who only do it for the cash. You want an A-team of content creators ready long before the game launch so that you can ensure viewership results in a proactive way, not a reactive one.

Content Creator Key metrics:

Creator metrics are the true hard facts that need to be monitored and analyzed over at least 90 days to provide true insight. Besides looking at their social media, VoDs and videos to get a feel for the content creators tonality, we recommend that you always have the following metrics on top of your mind when prospecting: 

• Hours Watched (The total number of hours the audience watched the content creator)
• Avg CCV (The average concurrent viewers the content creator had during the selected time period) 
• New Followers (The amount of new followers the content creator got during the selected time period)
• Airtime (The amount of time that a channel broadcasted in hours) 

How often should you prospect content creators and share insights? 

You should prospect content creators and look at viewership metrics at least once a month. If your company has an increased need to act quickly, e.g., weeks before and after the game launch, you may need to look at the data on a weekly or even daily basis. To do this at scale, you must find suitable processes and tools for you to gather and analyze data in the frequency required. 

What should the report contain?

The marketing team's responsibility is to state what is to be included when you prospect before a campaign and report when a campaign has ended. The most appropriate directives are drawn up in dialogue between you and management. Some critical areas that you should always include are:

• Demographic 
• Creator activation
• Viewer metrics (contextual based on the same genre or similar titles)
• Branding goals vs conversion goals

If your game has been out for a while and has succeeded in getting organic growth with content creators you should report on the game metrics once a month. Important metrics to monitor are:

• Avg CCV (The average concurrent viewers the game had during the selected time period)
• Avg Channels (The average number of concurrent live channels the game had during the selected time period)
• Unique Channels (The total number of unique live channels that streamed the game during the selected time period)
• Viewer ratio (Average number of viewers per unique channel that streamed the game during the selected time period)
• Channel Languages (percentage division of all the channels to find a correlation with sales) 

Does it take too much time to prospect and report on influencer campaigns?

Last but not least, you need to find an effective reporting process. As a PR Manager, influencer marketer or Community Manager in gaming, you know time is a precious asset leading up to your game launch. Today, digital solutions automate and speed up prospecting, monitoring and reporting for you. If you are responsible for prospecting content creators and reporting for the campaigns, you have extra time to gain from automating these tasks. Get help finding the right tool that will let you focus on the choice of KPIs, analysis and presentation of your decisions for the whole marketing team.