A THOUGHT FROM YRS TRULY
MJ Widomska, Founder and Director at YRS TRULY, shares her thoughts on the shifts happening in the social media landscape, and offers some suggestions on what you can do to keep up.
R
emember when the games industry used to hang out on Twitter? Not anymore. Social media has changed. It has never been as fragmented and tough to crack as it is today. Legacy platforms are losing users, either through reneging on their previously-touted moral values, or through aggressive monetisation that sucks the enjoyment out of their product.
January 2025 saw Meta dismantling its moderation systems across its family of apps – Facebook, Instagram and Threads – as Mark Zuckerberg attempts to cosy up to Donald Trump. While Elon Musk consolidates his (unearned) political power, his badly-renamed Twitter haemorrhages users at a pretty impressive speed. TikTok faces an uncertain future in the US, a blow for many indie developers who relied on it as a do-it-yourself marketing tool. Alternatives abound: Bluesky recently hit 30 million users, Rednote became an unlikely winner of the 12-hour TikTok ban, and there’s always Mastodon and Threads. There is no mainstream path for users leaving Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or TikTok: some choose Bluesky, some start Discord servers, some forgo social media altogether.
On a human level, it is a disappointment for anyone who found comfort in existing in their own well-nurtured social media bubble. But what does this mean for game developers who rely on social media to market their games? After all, in the past few years, all games marketing advice (including my own) has emphasised the power and importance of building engaged online communities.
the aesthetics of an email from a friend. Social platforms come and go – emails remain (case in point: I still have access to an email inbox I created when I was eight years old). Perhaps for the time being, a smart thing to do would be to cultivate your community where you still retain an ounce of control. In a recent video, content creator Hank
Green asked his audience to be more intentional about what they put in their brains. Marketers would be wise to heed these words and expect audiences to become more selective and harder to please. They will remain loyal to trusted content creators, engage with industry voices through newsletters and congregate on Discord, where paid media can’t reach them.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOUR COMMUNITY BEGINS TO LEAVE YOUR PLATFORM OF CHOICE? While the events of the last couple of months have accelerated the exodus, it is part of a wider trend towards an increased compartmentalisation of social media. It’s not just Bluesky versus Threads versus Mastodon versus Twitter. For years, users chose to talk to friends in private Discord servers rather than public forums or Facebook groups. Many have lamented the loss of easily searchable hubs of specialist knowledge we lost with forums – all while Google makes search worse than ever before. Reddit remains as the only outlier, but it is an imperfect replacement for mass social media.
As social media disintegrates, a familiar marketing tool re-emerges. Newsletters have unexpectedly become cool again, forgoing corporate branding and embracing
“It’s not just Bluesky versus Threads versus Mastodon versus Twitter.”
This may feel scary. But it isn’t. What it is is an opportunity to focus your marketing efforts: zero in on value and creativity. Work with trusted voices and concentrate your resources in spaces you feel confident supporting long- term, rather than trying to cover every existing and new platform.
By helping your fans find their community in the shifting sands of this new social media landscape, you’ll weather the social media storm for years to come.
February/March 2025 MCV/DEVELOP | 17
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