Gaming influencer has long been popular for their entertaining and informative videos. People follow these personalities for gaming tips, fun, and information.
Due to these creators’ high level of engagement, their audiences tend to admire and feel more connected to them. They will only promote products and services if they genuinely enjoy them, and talk about them because of genuine interest. As a result, their relationship with their followers is built on trust and credibility, making it very valuable.
This article discusses how practical gaming influencer marketing can be for you in terms of creating value, trust, and credibility through gaming creators.
How Can Game Influencer Marketing Help Your Brand?
1. By creating value online
Your main aim should be to create and exchange value with marketing activities that can satisfy consumer needs in the context of influencer marketing.
Influencers generate informative and entertaining value for their followers by providing daily content and social media updates in their niche. As a result, sponsored posts with personal aesthetic touches and character provide followers with entertainment value while benefiting the brand.
2. Influencers’ credibility
Brands would never spread anything negative about themselves. A third party, ideally unbiased, provides a more accurate perspective to the public. Gaming influencers have clout because their audiences believe that they have their best interests at heart. The extended periods they spend live with their followers cement this relationship further. Consumers tend to believe an influencer’s recommendation more than a brand’s.
Therefore, the credibility of an influencer’s message is one of the most important aspects of effective gaming influencer marketing. Their expertise and trustworthiness are the two sources of credibility determination. A successful collaboration combines a qualified influencer in their niche with an organic and authentic representation.
Figure 1: Influencers’ credibility plays a significant role in persuasion. Source: Cure Media
3. Content drives trust
The quality of the message and positive reviews contribute to consumer trust in online products or services. Many passionate game influencers share news, game tests, reviews, and similar on their websites or blogs, beyond YouTube or Twitch. Their content’s entertainment and informational aspects contribute significantly to their audience’s trust.
4. Brand awareness supports trust
Influencer marketing is an excellent tool for increasing brand awareness for various brands, particularly in the gaming industry. The more familiar they get with a brand and see their favorite gamer using products from the brand, the more likely they are to recognize it. Also, brand awareness will likely influence a consumer’s purchase decision-making considerations. As a result, it is an essential factor in building the trustworthiness of your brand.
How Do Gaming Influencers Drive Credibility?
Trust (leading to credibility) is at the heart of successful influencer marketing.
Influencers must build trust with their audiences for their content to be compelling. Brands and agencies running campaigns must build trust with their influencers if they want their campaigns to be successful.
Consider that influence built over time. It is a culmination of various factors, emotions, and behavioral aspects working together towards a common goal – establishing an exchange of trust between the influencer and their audience.
Figure 2: Influence is built over time based on common touchpoints. Source: Search Engine Watch
With influencers, you can spread positive sentiment about your brand to an engaged audience to build brand credibility. Influencer marketing mimics large-scale word-of-mouth marketing. Recommendations, testimonials, brand commentary, and reviews spread like wildfire to a targeted audience via social and other digital platforms. Mold this to amplify your brand’s message through influencer strategies to increase brand credibility.
1. Establish partnerships
Create a network of gamers and influencer partners and use their power to help you build your brand credibility over time. Establishing influencer partnerships is also essential because it shows your audience that someone they may look up to likes your brand, which is the ultimate stamp of confidence.
2. Encourage testimonials
When you use gaming influencers to promote your brand, their followers (and your customers) are encouraged to do the same and share their testimonials on social media. Consumers copy influencers. Whether with an Instagram image of the product in use or a Facebook review, customers will follow suit if they’re talking about a brand on social media. A genuine customer testimonial or review is a brand’s social currency, so use influencers to start favorable conversations in the digital space.
3. UGC
Consumers are often encouraged to create user-generated content as an outcome of influencer posts, which is critical for credibility. It speaks highly of your brand if new consumers see influencers and other consumers creating UGC for your brand. It is proof that you consistently deliver to your customers exactly what they want, which helps to build credibility in the market.
4. Serve as a brand ambassador
You can engage influencers as brand ambassadors. If you want instant credibility, a public ambassador could be the ace card for your brand. Engage a well-known influencer in your niche to be your brand ambassador so that you can align your brand with their brand for instant credibility and recognition.
Figure 3: Screenshot of the HyperX WE’RE ALL GAMERS ad campaign. Source: HyperX
Take, for instance, HyperX. They launched a HyperX Heroes program with 25 global influencers to demonstrate their commitment to the esports community. The HyperX Heroes program has a diverse group of international celebrities, famous musicians, all-star athletes, professional esports teams, and well-known streamers to capture the HyperX core belief — WE’RE ALL GAMERS. In 2019, the HyperX Heroes program kicked off with the WE’RE ALL GAMERS ad campaign, which aimed to connect gaming fans from various fields of pop culture, including TV, digital, and social media platforms. Members of the HyperX Heroes program use only HyperX gaming products and get the Heroes treatment, which includes a representation of their gaming persona.
This brings us to the next important point…
5. Reach beyond your network
The central point of gaming influencer marketing is to reach the engaged, albeit a bit enclosed, gaming community through creative strategies. By connecting with the right gaming influencers, you connect with their communities. But you can also extend your circle to other influencers who overlap with your target audience. Having a diverse influencer network is highly beneficial in this regard. When you have a lot of connections outside of your network, it speaks to your brand’s credibility. If other industry leaders are willing to connect and work with you, consumers interpret that as you being trustworthy and worth working and buying with.
Top Gaming Influencers Right Now
David Steinberg (@Stonemountain64)
Figure 4: David Steinberg (Stonemountain64). Source: David Steinberg
Stonemountain64, real name David Steinberg, is a prominent gaming influencer. His massive Facebook following shows he is well-known and respected in the gaming community. If metrics are to be believed, Stone is unquestionably one of the most powerful gaming influencers. On YouTube, he performs as a gaming commentator focusing on shooter games and has 2.1 million subscribers. His videos are from games like Battlefield, Call of Duty, and Battlefront. He has also grown in popularity on Instagram, with 459K followers.
Sceptic (@Sceptic)
Figure 5: Griffin Spikoski (Sceptic). Source: Griffin Spikoski
Sceptic, real name Griffin Spikoski, is a young American Fortnite player best known for his YouTube and Twitch content related to the game. He entered social media early, eventually amassing a massive fan base across multiple online platforms. His accomplishments as a gamer at such a young age vouch for his love of gaming. Sceptic’s channel videos demonstrate that he is well-versed in the games he plays. He’s even taken on a few professional gamers. Sceptic’s channel has already surpassed a million subscribers. He recently competed in the “Fortnite World Cup” and did well in the qualifiers.
Zach Lane (@Zlaner)
Figure 5: Zach Lane (Zlaner) Source: Zach Lane
Lane rose to fame as a battle royale streamer before moving on to first-person shooter games, specifically Warzone. He’s competed in popular tournaments such as HusKerrs Howl and ROKKR Royale and has played alongside industry heavyweights such as Guy ‘Dr. Disrespect’ Beahm. Lane is the fastest-growing streamer on Facebook, where he exclusively streams, with 627K followers and a peak of 21K concurrent live viewers.
Andra (@Andrascorner)
Figure 6: Andra (andrascorner). Source: Andra
Andra Gamer is a PC game setup enthusiast from Germany with more than 100k Instagram followers. She is one of the most popular gaming influencers on Instagram, in addition to her passion for technology and collaboration. Also, among the top tech influencers, she’s a good choice as a micro-influencer to promote games and game-related products.
Tom Mulligan (@Tom72hrs)
Figure 7: Thomas Mulligan (@Tom72hrs). Source: Influencer Times
Thomas Mulligan, an American gamer, is an online video game influencer known as “72hrs” on all digital platforms. He is a well-known streamer and online gamer with a large fan base on his Twitch, YouTube, and Instagram accounts. In 2014, Thomas Mulligan started working in the gaming industry. By March 3, 2018, the captain of the FaZe Fortnite Team invited him to join the team and play as a team member.
Find Gaming Influencers for Your Brand
The gaming industry is thriving, and the demand for gaming influencers is increasing as it expands. Even gaming companies are looking for micro-gaming influencers. If you want to work with a niche gaming influencer in the micro category but need help figuring out where to start, AtisfyReach is the solution.
Once you register on AtisfyReach and specify your goals and preferences, the AI-based algorithm uses machine learning to match you with creators. In addition, you get access to features like campaign management tools to optimize your marketing initiatives.
