Twitter Sharing Circle - Connect with your friends! :D

Hello, brothers, sisters, friends, and frenemies. I come to you today with a radical idea. Maybe it sucks. Maybe it's awesome. I'll leave it up to you to decide. Consider the following scenario. I think it's one most of us has experienced at least once or twice:

"Gee whiz! I sure worked hard on this one! I can't wait to show this off to the good folks of Twitter - I'm sure people are going to love this!"

Posts to Twitter.
Has a hundred followers.
Gets ten impressions, three media views, a like from his mom, and a retweet from gamedevbot#353


"Huh. This sucks. Everything sucks."

It's a sad story, but it's a common one. The problem with Twitter (and social media) is that even if your stuff is good, you need eyes on it to get hearts and recycling bin arrows. But you need recycling bin arrows to get those eyes. That's rough, and it got me thinking:

"I might only have a handful of followers.....but all my gmc friends have a handful of followers, too. If we could work out a system to pool all of our followers together, we'd have a bunch of handfuls of followers looking at our stuff! Then my chronic crippling depression might be diverted. Maybe some of their followers might even become permanent followers of mine, and vice versa! Neat!"

So here's my proposal for you guys:
Anybody who wants in replies here saying so, along with their Twitter handle. Whenever somebody new joins, I update this original post with their gmc name/Twitter handle, to keep a master list of members easily accessible.

Participation is simple! Each day you look at the list and retweet somebody if you like their stuff. On your first day, you start with the first person after you on the list. Click on their twitter link here on the master list, and find the latest gamedev tweet they made (ignoring pinned tweets, since pinned tweets don't change often), and give it a retweet if you like what you see, and a like if you're feeling really nice. On the second day, you go to the next person, then the next, then the next, until you wrap back around to the beginning of the list. Repeat forever. Each of our feeds will only have one extra retweet in them a day, so we won't annoy our followers, and we'll be retweeting a new person each day, keeping our timelines fresh. If we have a group of thirty members going, each of our tweets will have a tail life of thirty days, instead of the one or two that Twitter usually affords us. Instead of having a few hundred people seeing our tweets, we'll have thousands!

So there's the plan! I think it's nice - we'll basically all be keeping up with each other and raising each other up a bit, and all it costs is a few seconds a day from each of us to check out the person we're "assigned" to each day! =)

Pinging extra people I talk to on here often and people who've liked my game, because I think you guys might like this idea. If you don't like this idea, then that's cool too, and sorry for bothering you, hahah. If you're not on this list, and I talk to you often or you've liked my game, then my apologies. I have a bad memory! Definitely comment below anyway and join in if this group interests you! =)

MEMBERS LIST
RichHopelessComposer | @Hideji_CO
matharoo | @itsmatharoo
nacho_chicken | @nacho_chicken
BiTrunade | @BiTrunade
HayManMarc | @HayManMarc
Roderick | @chronocidedev
JackTurbo | @JackTurbo
Zuurix | @DeveloperZuurix
Rivo | @Rivers7014
Kyon | @fromhereongame
kupo15 | @risingspiritvg
cidwel | @cidwel
Dylaniza | @DylanBrownGames


FAQ:

Q: I don't use Twitter much...should I still join?

A: Yes, I think so! Joining up will give you a reason to post a bit more regularly, which will lead to you working on your game a bit more, which will lead to your game getting even more good feedback, which will lead to you wanting to work on your game anymore. Even if you don't Twitter much now, there's a good chance joining up will be a great way to keep yourself working on your game steadily - a nice positive feedback loop!

Q: Is this wrong? Is this "gaming the system?"
A: I don't think so! This is a project for people who value each other's work, and want to lift each other up because of that. If members come across a user who posts something they find offensive or otherwise not worth retweeting, they should absolutely refrain from retweeting that particular post. I think most of us will find the majority of posts we find are worth retweeting, though - I've already found new work from people here on Twitter, and I've been happy and excited to share it all. We're indie devs - I think most of us will appreciate and enjoy finding and keeping up with the work of our friends here!

Q: I have a million followers. What's in this for me?
A: You'll be helping your fellow GMCers who don't have a million followers, hahah!
Also, viewers add up - even if the average follower count is low, if we get enough members, even our more famous members should benefit from the added viewers - stack enough pebbles on top of one another, and you'll have a mountain sooner or later! =)

Q: Will this really help me get more followers?
A: I think it'll help a lot, for a few reasons:
-Because a new person potentially RTs your newest post each day, each of your post's "half lives" will be much, much longer than they are now. In marketing, repetition is key. The vast majority of viewers will scroll past your tweets without even stopping to view the media in them the first time they see them. By the fifth time they see it, they're going to be thinking "wow, this must be really popular. What's all the fuss about?", and they'll be much more likely to give you a second of their time. Having RTs of your tweets appear once a day for a week or more is going to boost your conversion rates significantly!
-Because each of us has different pools of followers, we'll be much stronger showcasing our games as a group than alone. Instead of our average members getting hundreds of impressions on a tweet, we should be getting thousands. Pure numbers alone are going to raise our chances of success by a lot!

We start actually retweeting once we have at least seven members on the list, so that we all have at least a week between retweeting the same member. Thanks for taking a look, everyone. Let's all work together to get rich and famous, or at least slightly more well known than we currently are, hahah! =D
Because we're growing so fast, let's hold off for a few days until the list solidifies, and then we can start our rotation! Feel free to retweet fellow members in the meantime, though. This is all about keeping up with and sharing each other's work! =)
 
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Flab

Guest
Sorry, I don't have any followers. And if I had, I would certainly not compromise their undying devotion by marketing influence. It's like you think I'm new at establishing cults.
 
Sorry, I don't have any followers.
That's fine! This is all about giving a helping hand to your gmc friends with less followers than you, getting a leg up from the ones with more followers with you, and then starting the cycle over again by helping new members with the followers you've gained. Your cult members will love us, heheh! =D

Definitely in when I setup a twitter for game dev. I dig the idea.

[EDIT] Btw, Soul Healer looks dope -- keep it up!
Sounds good! Looking forward to having you. And thanks, man! =)
 
That's cool, but I rarely use twitter these days. That may change, tho.
I'm actually in the same boat as you when it comes to Twitter! here's my thinking, though: anyone who joins up will have a good reason to post to Twitter again, which would give them a weekly gamedev goal ("progress enough to show something new on Twitter!"), which would lead to them getting more positive feedback from Twitter....which leads to them having more of a reason for working on their game! If we get this rolling, it should be a really nice positive feedback loop for everyone involved! Jump in whenever you're ready! =D
 
I pretty much just use twitter as a middleman to upload my Switch screenshots :p

Cool idea though, and I have had similar thoughts/ideas in the past about this problem. But this is probably better than anything I came up with.
 
I pretty much just use twitter as a middleman to upload my Switch screenshots :p

Cool idea though, and I have had similar thoughts/ideas in the past about this problem. But this is probably better than anything I came up with.
TIL I learned that you have even better taste in games than I thought you did, and that you're very good at them. Nice Mario gameplay, hahah! ;D
And thanks! If you do ever get the itch to start advertising your game on Twitter, hop on board! =)
 

Roderick

Member
My dev Twitter is used so (in)frequently that my posts per day is a negative number.

I've actually been working on dev stuff more in the last month than previously, but I haven't been posting about it because my screenshots would just be blank screens with a few numbers and/or cryptic feedback messages; everything I'm working on is under the hood.

Also, I'm working pretty much exclusively in Godot now. I only stick around here because I can answer the odd noob's question, and there are some hoopy froods here, several who always know where their towels are.

That said, if you really want to follow me and watch the dust gather, I'm at http://twitter.com/chronocidedev
 
I'm in. @nacho_chicken on Twitter.

I won't have much to share as of yet, but I'll be happy to contribute to the feedback loop.
Heck yeah! Starting to roll along now! =D
And to anybody who's interested but feels like their post output or follower count isn't high enough to warrant joining - please don't feel that way! If you're interested in posting more, please join, whether you have five thousand followers or just five. The GMC is the tightest-knit online community I've found - I definitely don't mind that some people that join won't be "putting as much in as they get out," and I don't think anybody else around here will, either. I'd love to see all of us grow in popularity together - if I'm lucky enough to have a hundred thousand followers one day, I'll still be glad to retweet my friends here who have three. Let's band together and make sure everyone who wants to show their work has an audience! =)

@Roderick: Even if you're using Godot, you're still my GMC buddy, hahah! I definitely don't mind you joining up if you'd like to start advertising your game some more! =)
 
G

Guest User

Guest
I like it! Retweeted and followed the masterlist. Truth be told, I spend hours on twitter looking for GMC fellows to follow and now finding them in one list will be much easier!

Anyway, here is my twitter — @BiTrunade
 
I like it! Retweeted and followed the masterlist. Truth be told, I spend hours on twitter looking for GMC fellows to follow and now finding them in one list will be much easier!

Anyway, here is my twitter — @BiTrunade
Alright, go ahead and put me on there. @HayMan_Marc

BROTHERS!

Seriously though:

Heheh. =')

I'm super happy that people are joining. I think this is going to be great for all us, for real. I'm excited! =D
 

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
I'm not keen on this idea. Nothing wrong with like-minded people sharing their common interest. That's what social media is for.

But schemes that "game" the system to influence the statistics will eventually reduce the credibility of those statistics. Instead, re-tweets and "likes" should be based on specific content -- not given automatically because that person is a member of your group.

I think schemes like these are contributing to public suspicion of social media.
 

Fern

Member
I'm not keen on this idea. Nothing wrong with like-minded people sharing their common interest. That's what social media is for.

But schemes that "game" the system to influence the statistics will eventually reduce the credibility of those statistics. Instead, re-tweets and "likes" should be based on specific content -- not given automatically because that person is a member of your group.

I think schemes like these are contributing to public suspicion of social media.
Then people in the group should only like it if they like it? You're probably right but we will see
Yep. I retweet what I like and that's about it.
 

JackTurbo

Member
Well personally (and I imagine this true of most people involved), I wont be retweeting or liking anything that isnt interesting enough that I wouldnt have done so otherwise. The only difference is I'll be actively checking what the others are up to rather than leaving it up to the twitter feed to show it to me.
 
F

Flab

Guest
I'm not keen on this idea. Nothing wrong with like-minded people sharing their common interest. That's what social media is for.

But schemes that "game" the system to influence the statistics will eventually reduce the credibility of those statistics. Instead, re-tweets and "likes" should be based on specific content -- not given automatically because that person is a member of your group.

I think schemes like these are contributing to public suspicion of social media.
/me considers what Facebook, Twitter, Google, Disqus and pretty much any social platform moderating and gaming people for profit has been doing.

Interesting thought you have there.
 
Well personally (and I imagine this true of most people involved), I wont be retweeting or liking anything that isnt interesting enough that I wouldnt have done so otherwise. The only difference is I'll be actively checking what the others are up to rather than leaving it up to the twitter feed to show it to me.
This is my thought on it. Maybe it could be made more clear this way.

Basically, (if I HAD twitter), this would be a good resource for finding the people who might have interesting things to re-tweet. If I was doing twitter, I'd probably only tweet like, once a week. It would be weird to retweet someone else every day. But maybe I could just pick one or two that I especially liked. That I would've retweeted anyways.
 
I'm not keen on this idea. Nothing wrong with like-minded people sharing their common interest. That's what social media is for.

But schemes that "game" the system to influence the statistics will eventually reduce the credibility of those statistics. Instead, re-tweets and "likes" should be based on specific content -- not given automatically because that person is a member of your group.

I think schemes like these are contributing to public suspicion of social media.
First of all, I'd like to sincerely thank you for posting, Chance. I can honestly say your take never occurred to me - the thought that my fellow GMC member's games aren't even worth a simple repost from me once every two weeks or so is a completely foreign idea to me; this group was made for people who think their work has value, and that their friend's work on the GMC has intrinsic value. Joining this group should be an affirmation that you believe this; anyone joining this group should do so because they feel the work of their peers is worth sharing, and that their own work is worth having shared. You're completely right that anyone cynically thinking about joining just to boost their numbers even though they don't actually believe their fellow GMC members are worth retweeting should refrain from joining. This is a project for people who value each other's work, and want to lift each other up because of that. If people come across a user who posts something they find offensive or otherwise not worth retweeting, they should absolutely refrain from retweeting that particular tweet. I think we'll find most are worth retweeting, though, or at least I will - I've already found new work from people here on Twitter, and I've been happy and excited to share it all. We're indie devs - I think most of us appreciate and enjoy finding the work of our friends here! I've added your concern to the faq - again, thank you for speaking up about it. I never thought about it from that angle, and it would've been a real shame if people passed over this because they had the same concerns. Cheers!

With this in mind, feel free to join up if this interests you, @Seabass (The Human)! If you don't find any value in it, that's fine too, of course!
isnt this like 'illegal' or against the rules or somthing?
Nope. Just people sharing work they enjoy!

Nice idea. Twitter: @Rivers7014 https://Twitter.comRivers7014
Nice! Welcome aboard! =D
To the others who were interested, but don't have a Twitter account yet, feel free to join as soon as you do. It's never to early to start sharing your game with a wider audience. The earlier you do, the larger your audience will be when you really want them there. Thanks for the questions and interest, everybody!
 
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You said you were a salesman, right? I feel like it's coming across well in this thread haha :D
Shhhh. "Salesman" is a dirty word. That said, I'm an ex-salesman; I quit because I didn't think it was a morally acceptable job. I hope that counts for something, hahah! Anyway, my last post was all true. Chance's last post was a legitimate surprise to me! I'm genuinely excited about finding and sharing work from friends here, and never thought about it from that angle. Anyone who can't honestly tell themselves "yes, this is worth sharing" shouldn't share, of course!
 
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JackTurbo

Member
How about we simply collate a list of GMC members twitters (who wish to be included) in the OP, and allow people to browse, and support people as they see fit (rather than having specific rules about it).

If a member has an important post that they particularly want to flag they can post up here and ask members to take a look and support it if they find it interesting or something?

End of the day, I dont think any of us want to do anything sketchy, we just want an easier way to see and support each other's stuff.
 
How about we simply collate a list of GMC members twitters (who wish to be included) in the OP, and allow people to browse, and support people as they see fit (rather than having specific rules about it).
If people want to use the list that way, then that's fine too, of course. I think it's best if we all at least take a look at the next member on the list each day though, otherwise there's no real difference between this list and the list of people we're already following on Twitter. Without any structure to this group, it'll almost definitely fizzle out quickly, which I think would be a real shame. Like I said in a few posts already, I've already found pleasant surprises just by looking at the newest posts from people who've joined here. I think taking some time each day to say "alright, what's the next member on my list up to?" is a very healthy thing, and will help all of us out, through followers gained, and just through tightening the community here. If we don't take time each day to go down the list, it'll be all too easy to get "lazy" with it, and revert to only looking at stuff from the one or two members we admire most. I think that'd be too bad for everyone, even the members with more popular games. I think it's going to be really refreshing "catching up" with each other daily! =D

That said, I definitely agree - people should only retweet things they actually want to retweet. This should be a way for us all to keep in touch with each other, not a way of forcing RTs. Thanks for the post, Jack!
 
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Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
It's good that you want your game to be noticed more, and you are taking steps to get there, so perhaps this game of yours could be the kick start to a fantastic career.

2 things I disagree with about your post you tagged me in however...

1) It sounds like you are letting social media measure the value of your self worth, but the reality is, whether your game turns out to be a big hit or doesn't get noticed much at all, you are important, and nothing you do or say will ever change that. If you look at social media in that shed of light, no wonder why you are so depressed. I have this problem as well, so I know what it's like.

2) That's a really long post, I am on a short road trip with a friend right now, I'll read the rest when I get home later tonight. Consider writing a more concise version if possible. ;)
 
I think schemes like this can be perceived as something worse. You could go one step further. Make a secret pact to buy and review one another's games on Steam. Once you conspire to do something, you can conspire to do anything.

Thanks for the invite, but I'll just keep tweeting my own game development pictures and random pixelart.
 
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zendraw

Guest
i mean its organised, its not 'impulsive' or random or whatever u want to call it.
 
1) It sounds like you are letting social media measure the value of your self worth, but the reality is, whether your game turns out to be a big hit or doesn't get noticed much at all, you are important, and nothing you do or say will ever change that. If you look at social media in that shed of light, no wonder why you are so depressed. I have this problem as well, so I know what it's like.
Ahhhh, thanks. You're awesome, Sam. =D
Don't worry, though, my post was facetious - I have no idea how social media likes work, so I wouldn't be able to take much stock in them even if I wanted to, hahah!
2) That's a really long post, I am on a short road trip with a friend right now, I'll read the rest when I get home later tonight. Consider writing a more concise version if possible. ;)
Ha! I thought it was long, too, but I had a hard time making it any shorter. I'll see what I can do. It is a lot of text to read in one go, but I tried bolding the more important parts at least.
You could go one step further. Make a secret pact to buy and review one another's games on Steam. Once you conspire to do something, you can conspire to do anything.
...This isn't "secret," and it's not "conspiring." It's a simple group for people to check posts from a new member each day, and to retweet said post if they find it's worth it.
If you want to make a group for people with games for sale along the same lines, then go for it - I think you'll find that more people can say "yeah, this is worth a RT" than "yeah, this is worth my $20" with a clean conscious, though, so I don't know how well it'll work out for you, hahah!
I'll just keep tweeting game development pictures and random pixelart.
That's all you'd be doing if you joined this group, too. Except you'd take a look at a new person each day, and give them a RT if you felt it was worth it. Please consider it! I'd love to keep up with you and everyone else here. I think this is a nice way to do it! =)
 
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kupo15

Member
How about we simply collate a list of GMC members twitters (who wish to be included) in the OP, and allow people to browse, and support people as they see fit (rather than having specific rules about it).

If a member has an important post that they particularly want to flag they can post up here and ask members to take a look and support it if they find it interesting or something?

End of the day, I dont think any of us want to do anything sketchy, we just want an easier way to see and support each other's stuff.
This is how I would prefer to participate here. I have no problem lifting other people up its just that I don't want to be obligated to retweet things that seem insignificant. I don't know how twitter works that much and I'm figuring it out but I don't think littering one's page with random retweets that don't reflect one's values other than the sake of RT would be good. I could be wrong though!

Here's mine if I qualify :)

www.twitter.com/risingspiritvg
 

Phoebe Klim

Member
AAA developers and publishers: Let's fill our games with MTX, gut them like fishes for DLC, make people pre-order said DLC, keep games intentionally shallow to make them "accessible", make people pre-order said game, chop game further into Standard, Silver, Gold and Collector's* editions (*game not included), and THEN let's whine about how much games cost and how they feel discouraged because players mean comments about them.

Indie developers: You can't retweet other developer tweets, that's manipulative.
 
@Zuurix: I thought this was extremely benign when I typed it up, too, but I can understand why people might've felt iffy about it with my original wording, I guess. I added a bit to the original post to clarify things, so hopefully everyone can participate with good feelings about it. =)

This is how I would prefer to participate here. I have no problem lifting other people up its just that I don't want to be obligated to retweet things that seem insignificant.
Yeah, I added a bit to the original post to clarify this; I agree that this the way to go about it. I made the original post at one in the morning while I was super excited and thinking "nobody's work here is insignificant! I'll retweet everybody!" And I still probably will retweet everybody on this list - I do enjoy seeing people's work here, and I do think most of it is worth sharing. My original wording was probably poor, though - nobody should retweet anything they wouldn't otherwise retweet out of feeling obligated to do so. This should be a way for this already tight-knit community to better keep up with each other and to encourage each other to keep working, nothing more than that. Thanks to @sitebender, @chance, and others who voiced concerns! =)

I'll add you to the list, kupo! ^ ^
 
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This is how I would prefer to participate here. I have no problem lifting other people up its just that I don't want to be obligated to retweet things that seem insignificant. I don't know how twitter works that much and I'm figuring it out but I don't think littering one's page with random retweets that don't reflect one's values other than the sake of RT would be good. I could be wrong though!

That's exactly how I'm taking this. I'm on Twitter strictly for gamedev and gaming news. I'm not going to RT or like any posts I'm not truly interested in. It's nothing personal, I just don't want to clutter my follower's feeds with things I don't like. If anyone feels the same about my game, I won't feel bad if you do the same to me.

I don't think this "alliance" is at all intending to be malicious or manipulative. I do think it is unethical to RT/Like posts you're not interested in just because you're part of a group, and this could have potentially traveled in that direction. Right now though, it seems to be more focused on exposure and increasing a sense of community. If this ever changes, I'm outta here. I don't think it will. Not soon, at least.
 

Bluetail7

Member
This would be easier if you used the twitter "lists" to make a group of developers, without making everyone check every user profile.​
 
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