8 Social Media Tips for Esports Tournament Organizers

Battlefy — May 3rd 2016

Setting up a tournament on Battlefy is easy, but a lot of people are lost when it comes to marketing and actually getting players to join. That’s why we’ve put together our top 8 tips on how you can drive players to your tournaments using social media and ultimately help your community grow.

1. CREATE YOUR TOURNAMENT ON BATTLEFY at least two weeks in advance, which ensures that your tournament will show up in Discovery. Discovery is where people find tournaments for a specific game in a specific region at a specific time.

2. USE FREE TOOLS like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck to help schedule your posts and keep track of your engagements. At the minimum, our suggested post times are: two weeks before, one week before, three days before, 24 hours before, and one hour before start time.

3. TAG POPULAR ACCOUNTS when you’re tweeting about your tournament. There are dozens of “retweet accounts” for each game with thousands of followers that will usually RT your tweet if you tag them.

4. PIN YOUR POSTS to the top of your Twitter and Facebook page. Both platforms offer a “pin” feature where you can keep important posts at the top of your feeds. Make sure a link to your tournament is in that post.

5. PARTNER WITH OTHER COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS on Facebook or Twitter who host tournaments and contact them. Explore if there are any promotional exchanges possible, e.g., “We’ll tweet/post about your tournament, if you tweet/post about ours.”

6. JOIN FACEBOOK GROUPS and post about your tournament. There are dozens of game-specific Facebook Groups with communities of people who are passionate about competing. Search on Facebook and find groups to become a part of and share your tournaments with. Remember to check each group’s rules about advertising.

7. BOOST your Facebook posts. The most efficient way to spend money to market your tournament is on Facebook. For just $5 you can “boost” a Facebook post, and target a highly specific group of people by age and what Facebook pages they “like.”

8. OPTIMIZE BATTLEFY by including terms such as, “Follow Us to Play,” “Like our Facebook Page,” or “RT our Pinned Tweet” in the “Rules” section of your tournament. We want to help your community grow any way we can!

If you still have questions about how to best utilize social media for your tournaments, or want to explore partnership opportunities, email jon@battlefy.com.