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Greetings! Today, I am thrilled to present an in-depth conversation with Benjamin Hartman, aka as Bubblebunz, a game design graduate who is currently making waves in the Fortnite Creative community. This insightful interview sheds light on his strategies, his success in Fortnite Creative, and his innovative approach to marketing and promotion.
With a background in web design and graphic design firms, Benjamin Hartman, aka as Bubblebunz, is no stranger to creative innovation. Driven by his game design education, he embarked on a thrilling journey to develop and promote his own map on Fortnite Creative. His innovative approach led him to explore new realms of community interaction and design techniques, resulting in his remarkable success in crafting immersive video games.
Connect with Benjamin Hartman by following his socials:
Tik Tok : https://tiktok.com/benjihartman.official
Youtube : https://youtube.com/@Bubblebunz
Discord: @Bubblebunz
I begin planning my marketing strategy for a Fortnite game by creating a game design document first which includes an introduction, a summary, gameplay objective, an overview, atmosphere/mood, etc. I plan my map showcase based off this information and all my keywords, thumbnails, and the trailer to be tailored around the final draft of my completed GDD.
The channels that I found most effective promoting my games are through social media using YouTube and Twitter.
A good specific marketing technique that has yielded significant results for me would be tailoring your map content to resonate with players specific interests, your social media tailored to completely showcase your map, And using all your social media links in your social media posts and descriptions.
Very important! My community has been key in testing the success of my game and providing critical feedback. My best advice is to take everything they say into consideration and show your willingness to make changes to your map for players in the community. I like to keep the community informed that I'm making changes to create a more user friendly experience. Even if their feedback sets the standard high and is extremely difficult to accomplish, fulfilling those requests will better portray specific features about your game to highlight in your social media promotions and content
The visuals I use in my marketing efforts tell a story, use principles of design, and engage players giving them a feel for being in the game. This was greatly successful on a TikTok campaign and YouTube campaign. I created three trailers and the amount of feedback I received from each post was between 20,000 to 40,000 reactions.
One instance of player feedback that influenced my marketing approach was when a player suggested to make the lava rise in my map. There were a lot of maps that could not successfully make the lava rise without it going through them if they were standing on an object. They would fall right through the lava as it was rising and they would be underneath the lava. I took on the challenge to experiment with how many ways there were to make lava rise! It took about 8 private publishes but I was so determined because I knew I would be able to rig a cinematic portraying all of the elements I incorporated in environmental design and use them in my trailer if I were successful with this technique. I conquered the challenge of making the lava able to interact with a player idle to an existing collision mesh, while still bringing a third collision of lava to lift the player above and damage the player when lifting. This was a feature that I had to incorporate in my marketing and was influenced by player feedback.
So far, In my promotional strategies, I have reached out to many influencers, and it is an ongoing process to develop a strategy with an influencer. I would continue to provide positive feedback on their channels, share their media, and tag them in my posts. A beneficial proposal would be a feature in one of their videos.
What type of marketing techniques did you use for your map: Hot lava Zonewars?
Target audience is an important technique I used for a map I created Hot Lava ZoneWars. I like to create high-quality content. Using the best SEO practices by optimizing content for search engines incorporating relevant keywords, meta tags, and optimizing titles and descriptions. It was also important for me to promote on relevant channels by sharing my content on social media platforms, forums, either online communities where my target audience is active.
I have not collaborated with other creators for cross-promotion but in the future I may use that technique for a different map.
The metrics that I focus on are engagement metrics. I measure the success of my marketing efforts through the amount of likes, shares, comments, and time spent on a social media post showing how engaged the audience is with my content.
A common marketing mistake is to not identify an ideal client persona. By having a clear understanding of the target audience, It will result in meeting specific needs of the audience and more effective campaigns and overall results. It is also important to avoid posting your map code in the comments of other people's social media posts or using social media in places on a map that would turn most players away
My experience with paid promotions and ads has been directly through the social media provider. The goal is to have real subscribers, followers, likes, views, and comments. Using paid promotions and ads is beneficial when starting off and can be successful if the target audience is thoughtfully defined.
The best way to keep up with changes in marketing trends in the game industry is by subscribing to channels on social media that relate to industry news as well as websites that contain gaming industry news. Being a part of gaming communities an engaging with enthusiasts can also provide valuable insights.
In my experience, improved discoverability by enhancing the search and discoverability features within Fortnite creative. This could include better categorization, tagging options, been sorting mechanisms to help players find specific types of maps More easily. A rating and review system for community-created content. In official Showcase platform within Fortnite dedicated to showing community - created maps. It is increasingly difficult to improve chances of map visibility on Discover. At the moment the algorithm has promoted many maps named after a fruit that are literally listed on Discover and the entire map is one fruit with no game purpose or thought put into them just a simple fruit placed on the ground, while other maps that are high-detail, well thought and marketed, and engaging are unable to reach the discover page.
I had a very tough time marketing and updating my map. And I had been working on marketing and map updates 16-hours a day, 7 days a week for months. Even while using relevant tags and descriptions, engaging with the community by interacting with players and social media channels, networking and supporting others throughout the process, sharing on social media, collaborating with influencers, hosting games and creating tutorials, and using content creation with high-quality visuals to attract more attention, these methods have not been successful to list the Hot Lava Zone Wars onto the Discover page. There was one spike where I reached 15,000 players and other spikes at 3,000 players on my Creator portal player count metrics. It is important to not be discouraged and to continue hoping that over time your map will be played and listed on Discovery one day. Don't lose motivation or give up on reaching a broader audience because only time will tell and if your map is high-quality, what have you got to lose other than continuing to work hard on an amazing creation that eventually will gain traction.
To all the Fortnite creators looking to effectively market their games, even though it's hard work, keep polishing your game and continue making changes until you reach your final goal, and don't stop publishing until You break your game and solve so many bugs on your own so that you are the master of knowing everything there is to know about your map. Once you've solved all the bugs and reached these goals to accomplish unbelievable height where the bar has been set, utilize every detail in your promotional content, Make as many different types of videos as you can of gameplay, fly throughs, animations, And don't stop there. Keep pushing more and more content out of your maps, and breaking the barrier over and over until you feel like you're going to drop. Use your motivation to lift others up and to help others with what you've learned and this will help you be a stronger creator.
Benjamin's key advice? Keep polishing your game, solve every bug, master every detail, create varied promotional content, and continue pushing until you reach your final goal. Lift others with what you've learned to become a stronger creator.
From Benjamin's experience, we learn the importance of meticulous planning, community engagement, and creative use of visuals. His persistence and dedication show that with the right strategy and relentless effort, success in marketing and promotion is attainable.
His innovative approach to involving players before the official release, utilizing social media for resonance, and taking community feedback seriously offers a roadmap to other creators. These techniques can help market your games, engage with your community, and even influence game design for the better.
Benjamin's story serves as a reminder that no matter the competition or the challenges faced, passion coupled with determination and courageous strategy can lead to incredible success. His insights provide valuable guidance to all creators, aspiring to make a mark as a Fortnite Creative Developer!
Stay tuned for more interviews with other seasoned creators in our ongoing Community Spotlight series. Let's learn together and create better!
Stay Inspired!
If you are interested in being interviewed, please connect with me in the FCHQ Discord by sending a DM to @hello.its.dragon!
