GTA 5 sales surpassed 15 Million units already, according to Cowen & Company analyst Doug Creutz as reported by vg247. The game has awesome virality and there are the obvious fans like me who go crazy when GTA launches. Released on 17th September, 2013, GTA has dominated the charts to an extent that nine out of ten games sold in the UK were copies of GTA V and this makes the game 24th best-selling game ever in the UK already.
5 Social Media Lessons to Learn From GTA 5
I have been following the GTA craziness on Social Media since its inception and these stats, I thought it will be a great addition to my ‘5 Social Media lessons‘ series. I have an overflowing bank of stats and figures of GTA5 awesomeness, but before anything else have a look at this-
The link in the above post is a bit.ly link and here are the stats with 174K+ clicks on that link across various platforms
5 Social Media Lessons to Learn From GTA 5
Isn’t this extremely cool? and this is just one such link, there are 5 other GTA pages that are only talking about GTA V. The opening week sales figures were 2.4 times bigger than GTA IV & bigger than all previous GTA title launch weeks combined. Not only this, GTA V sold 250,000 more copies than the previous record-holder, Call of Duty: Black Ops. 2,100,371 copies of GTA V for Xbox 360 were pre-ordered, while gamers pre-ordered a total of 1,421,835 copies of GTA V for PS3, only because of the new scintillating features in the game.
If you haven’t followed GTA V yet, here is a glimpse
Let me introduce you to the first exciting feature of the GTA series, the three new characters; Michael, a retired bank robber living under witness protection; Trevor, another character who deals in Drugs and Guns; Franklin, a 20 year old who wants to run away from the hood to do something big. The players can swap between these characters anytime in the game even during missions. This GTA also involves a lot of planning & tactical learning as customisation is another superb feature in this game, not only Masks, CCTV handling for characters but even for weapons and cars. This has been done especially for extensive planning that this new GTA series needs. Vehicle station wagons, lorry, buses, ambulances, jet skis, army trucks, fire engines, planes, helicopters, bikes, and more on the road with the most varied soundtrack of the series. The list is endless.
Well here are 5 Social Media lessons to be learnt from GTA V
1. Being Consistent
All Rockstar Game properties are only talking about GTA V. They live, sleep and drink with these three characters and the awesome game that’s out there right now. And the best thing is they are consistent while sharing links/images/news everything that makes their work easy too. You’ve seen that bit.ly example above, that link has been shared on Facebook, Twitter, emails, forums everywhere. The game has a perfect storm of blogging, social networking and text messaging, which helps it staying up to date.
2. Know your Audience
Social Media is not just about delivering content, it’s more about engaging, the derived value of the engagement generated. I remember a great advice from one of my Twitter friends here-
Don't focus so much on the SIZE of your audience, but on the question of "are they LISTENING?" Inspire them to care you & your brand exist!
— Pam Moore (@PamMktgNut) September 24, 2013
GTA V got this point very right in their head, they know what gamers want? They know exactly how to deliver value to their audience and make them go crazy. They started with building the buzz, then pre-booking, then launch, then the actual sales, then what? They planned it well, and they know what gamers will need next – cheat codes. Yes, and they don’t want their fans to go and search some other forums, they gave it all-
5 Social Media Lessons to Learn From GTA 5
3. Pictures/Images are the future
GTA V has this awesome feature, where Social Media and Smart phones are being used in the game to take pictures & spread across to your friends on Facebook, Google plus and other social media platforms connected to the Social club of GTA. GTA V has a Snapmatic photo-sharing app available from the in-game iFruit phone, which makes it a cinch to snap and share pictures taken in the game. Rockstar Games’ Social Club members can upload photos from their in-game iFruit phone to a special Snapmatic page at the Social Club website and add hashtags or share it out on social sites.
5 Social Media Lessons to Learn From GTA 5
4. Think Social before Media
Most of the brands and campaigns consider Social Media as another medium to either burn their marketing budgets or to talk about their products. People won’t listen to you if you keep doing that for a long period of time. Social Media keeps them connected to people they are friends with, they aspire, they love or even with whom they compete.
Taking an example of the famous game app Subway Surfer, which has the feature of connecting with Facebook, keep a record of scores of your friends, beat them in the race and then brag about it on Facebook. The same way Social Club website in GTA V has highly-detailed and up-to-the-minute performance tracking to keep a record of rich personal stats for missions, heists, weapons, vehicles, mini-games, sports, finances and achievements. Just BRAG IT on.
5. Make your Social Media Fans feel special
Social Media has a viral aspect and that comes from influencers. If you have 10 influencers and they have 1000 friends each, you can easily envisage the reach of your content now. It’s very important that you convert your online/social media audience into influencers and that will happen when you give them a shout out, give them perks and let them feel that you know they are special.
GTA V has a amazing feature called Lifeinvader to get social self respect. Social Club members can log in to www.lifeinvader.com to stalk some new friends from Los Santos and Blaine County as well as a few favourite local brands, shops and services to get special exclusive offers to be redeemed in Story Mode.
5 Social Media Lessons to Learn From GTA 5
Time for some kickass stats? here they are-
- GTA V has sparked nearly 2.5 million tweets within the first 24 hours of being launched, with many users commenting on how the game is affecting their life.
- Over 100,000 users tweeted about planning to missing work or school to play GTA V
- Over 90,000 users tweeted about playing GTA V non-stop for an extreme numbers of hours—depriving them of sleep
- Over 25,000 women tweeted about ‘losing’ their boyfriend to GTA V
Your turn, share how do you find GTA V on Social Media? Would love to hear your thoughts on this too.
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