How do you promote your map?

[3Dnj]

Hello people !

That's something I'm always wondering and you could say it's like doing marketing for a game, you need to promote your map a little.

Immagine you put a lot of effort in your map but unfortunatly you decided to release it the same day as Mario Odyssey and then nobody took a look at it because there is no moon to catch in it. It's sad but you don't want to stop here.

More seriously, taking my last map as an example (ctf_frosty), I've already released it 3 years ago as a beta so now that it's finished, I don't have the same visibility than If I've made the workshop page today.

So what's your tip ?

- making a video about it ?
- posting on some well know tf2 website ?
- spaming social network ?
- becoming an official map ?

 

[ExtraCheesyPie]

Ideally be famous enough where your name itself can promote your work lol

 

[Zed]

Try making a post about it on the TF2 subreddit.

 

[3Dnj]

Let's do this :

https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/92nab5/ctf_frosty/

I never really got used to reddit, it's like an uncharted continent for me.

 

[Prosciutto]

i usually make a post on reddit and tweet about it

 

[3Dnj]

Well; at least I won 2 subscribers ^^

 

[EArkham]

I never had great luck with reddit. Sometimes a post would get some minor traction (like 30 upvotes), but I never saw a significant number of map votes or subscribers from it. Meanwhile meme copy post #4 for the day gets 900+ votes. I tried Tumblr and it never really did anything for me either except when Fuck Yeah TF2 would repost me.

With social media, you pretty much have to cultivate a presence every day or every couple of days to get followers -- make new posts, comment on other people's stuff, etc... and even then, most of those followers never translate into workshop upvotes or subscribers. It's just too mindlessly easy to upvote on the social media platform and never actually follow links to the workshop, and it's a lot of work and maintenance for a small percentage return.

Creating a steam workshop group helps a lot, but the downside is that you have to constantly post something new there or people forget and you have to start all over. If you can regularly submit workshop items AND maps then a steam group is the way to go.

The other big thing is having really good promo images, but you've already got that covered.

 

[Zed]

If you want to draw in more subscribers, I think you'll have to try harder to draw people in with your title. Something like "After more than seven years in development, my map, ctf_frosty is finally complete" is much more intriguing than simply "ctf_frosty"

Aside from that, submitting your post as just a link instead of a text post might get you more traffic as well.

Otherwise, you could also make mention of the other maps you've developed (the ones that have made it into the game) if you decide to stick with a text post. I'd imagine people on r/tf2 are pretty fond of Lakeside and Mountain Lab.

 

[Crash]

Reddit has been really bad for maps the past couple years. They prefer memes.

The biggest thing for promotion is getting your map on the workshop at the right time. All of my youtube stuff, huge groups of people who follow me, all of that is nothing compared to the initial workshop burst you get if you can catch things at the right time. Having a good thumbnail is a big help, good eye catching screenshots, and a good looking map help a ton, but time is everything.

What time is the best to post? Fuck if I know!

 

[Prosciutto]

Reddit has been really bad for maps the past couple years. They prefer memes.

The biggest thing for promotion is getting your map on the workshop at the right time. All of my youtube stuff, huge groups of people who follow me, all of that is nothing compared to the initial workshop burst you get if you can catch things at the right time. Having a good thumbnail is a big help, good eye catching screenshots, and a good looking map help a ton, but time is everything.

What time is the best to post? Fuck if I know!

yeah, i tried multiple times to upload my map to the workshop and it never got attention until i re-uploaded it last week and now it is quite popular to the point where it even got featured on vnn

 

[Prosciutto]

it is usually also better if you put the finished product on the workshop instead of a b3 or something since usually you're map has died down when it is actually done

 

[Heili]

I'd guess part of the low exposure would be simply that your audience has moved onto the next new trend (see cp_6points).
Everyone else posting here about timing is true, great indie games get released and lose spotlight because a AAA game released at the same time.
I have no marketing advice, but I study your lighting and composition from your maps like cs_seige, cp_mountainlab, and de_ruins.
You are a godsend of an artist 3Dnj and I hope your stuff gets promoted and recognized like it should.

 

[nᵗʰSonata]

Honestly what I think would be cool would be if some big-name person in the community (like @Crash ) would occasionally (like every other month or so) do a roundup of new (or old!) interesting maps to showcase, which would help them gain traction.

it is usually also better if you put the finished product on the workshop instead of a b3 or something since usually you're map has died down when it is actually done

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was a problem with koth_hangar

 

[Harritron]

The main reason why Intrusion's beta became so popular (nearly 10K views) was because I happened to post it at the right time, and I made a raffle involving a key on Scrap.tf for a little promotion. I'm probably going to do the same when the final version eventually comes out.

 

[3Dnj]

it is usually also better if you put the finished product on the workshop instead of a b3 or something since usually you're map has died down when it is actually done

th'ats pretty much waht happened I guess. I guess I deserve this for being absent for 3 years ^^