Increasing zOMG!'s popularity: Spread the Word

[CleoSombra]

This thread is collaborative to the extreme: A collaboration of users collaborating on a collaboration of methods to increase the popularity (knowledge of existence) of zOMG! around the internet.

As you know, zOMG! is struggling to stay afloat. In fact, it's worse than that. zOMG! development will come to a grinding halt if the game does not generate a LOT of revenue in the upcoming months. All of this was discussed during the dev meeting on December 3rd.

Dev Meetings
December 3rd: Part 1 and Part 2
December 10th: Part 1 and Part 2
December 17th: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 (Screenies by gataka)
December 31st: Part 1 and Part 2
January 14th: Part 1 and Part 2.

The best thing we can do now is purchase powerups, the zOMG! pets, and headstart tickets. But there's also something else we can do.

zOMG! was not as popular as Gaia had hoped for, but at the same time, I never really saw a lot of outside advertising for it apart from being featured on some gaming sites and mentioned in a few online articles. I believe that it is up to us, the zOMG! community, to inform all the internet about this wonderful game. The more players on zOMG, the more it can grow in multiple ways. The more players there are, the more people that will see the revenue-making video ads. The more people that may buy powerups, tickets, and pets. The more people there are, the more voices we have!

Updates
12/7. Small banners have been added. For outside-Gaia banners, changed URL links to zomg.com.

[CleoSombra]

Contests
(Difficulty: ???)

[CleoSombra]

Level 1 Efforts
(Difficulty: Easy)

Like It
"Like" the official zOMG! Facebook page and suggest it to all your facebook friends (link under the zOMG! logo).
Watch and thumbs-up the winning zOMG! trailer made by Sally_Pants
Rate up zOMG! on this game directory.
I found another game directory. Click "Vote" and scroll down to the bottom of the list. Highlight "zOMG!" and submit your vote.
If you have a google account, do a search for zOMG on google and +1 it (thanks, Parodius-daryl).
Thumbs up zOMG! on Urban Dictionary.

Stumble it.
Stumbleupon has more than 12 million members to its name. That's a lot of people! When you "thumbs up" a site, you help to make it more popular, meaning it comes up more often when people are stumbling. You can make a difference by checking out and voting up the following three links:

zOMG! Launch
zOMG landing
Overview

Inform other zOMGers
When you are in the game, explain the situation of zOMG! (the layoffs, the need for money and popularity) to at least one player and tell them about this thread.

Post here
This is the EASIEST thing to do: Just post! Not only are you bumping thread to the top, but you're demonstrating your interest and increasing group morale!

Level 2 Efforts
(Difficulty: Medium)

Put it in your sig
Not on Gaia, but on other websites/forums you go on. You'd really, really be surprised how many people checked out my blog when I had a link to it in my sig on an EA forum. A lot of people lurk at these sites. I mean a lot.

Tell people about it
You know those question sites like Answers.com and Yahoo Answers? If people were asking about MMO games to check out, we could mention zOMG. Not only is it telling about the game to one person, but other people will see it. And really big sites, like yahoo, often appear in google. For example, "Why is my cat drooling" in google brings up some yahoo questions and answers.

Social Engineering
The lovely cave_dweller_candy came up with an interesting idea. You know those random-chat sites, like omegle, where you connect in a one-on-one chatroom with random people? Try it sometime! Talk to people and get to know them! If you think they might like zOMG, recommend the site to them. If 10 people mentioned zOMG! to 10 strangers, that's potentially 100 new players!

Watch it
iRection made a zOMG! playlist on youtube where you can watch a bunch of zOMG! related clips. More views by us means more views by others, too!

Tell POTENTIAL zOMGers about it

Quintafeira12

Only 5% of people on gaia play zOMG!?
We could change that. We can change the number of internal players faster than the number of incoming players who might not like the perspective of gaiaonline. Those who are okay with the nature of the site and are still exploring it are more prone to trying it than the ones whose interests might be out the window of giving it a chance.

Quintafeira12 suggests checking out the Welcome to Gaia forum. This is where a LOT of new people come after they first register to the site. Consider welcoming a few new members and if you think they might like the game, tell them about it! You may want to direct them to the Newbie's Guide, which is very helpful to new zOMGers!

[CleoSombra]

Level 3 Efforts
(Difficulty: Hard)

Submitting zOMG to game sites.

REQUEST: Please let me know if you would be willing to contact some of these websites and see about getting the games up there! Post or PM me!
I know that when zOMG first came out, it was submitted to AddictingGames.com
For several weeks, I would hangout in zOMG and see tons and tons of guest accounts popping up out of the sewers near those twins - and I think a lot of them came from AddictingGames.

So I was thinking we could try it again. While we're supposed to submit our own games to these sites, we could try emailing the developers and asking them to upload zOMG - explaining that they did it before and we'd like to try again. They wouldn't even have to upload the actual game, just sort of link to it in frame. We could play it through there, vote it up, and get it on the popular games lists of these sites (AddictingGames, Kongregate, ArmorGames, etc).

Twitter
Do you have a twitter account? No? MAKE ONE! Scullylam had a great idea, which I found from this thread - when you tweet, use the #GaiazOMG hash tag. The goal is to trend the term if enough people do it. Trending causes the hash-tag to appear on Twitter's page as well as other trend-watching sites.

Posters - IRL

Pirate Captain Sushi

We should make advertisement posters for the game itself and put them up in random places like bus-stops, gas station windows, staple them to telephone poles, set them as wall-papers on school computers, make them into bookmarks, anything to advertise it to the public.

IRL Poster by Loser Laili
IRL Poster by Crimson Damson
IRL Poster by Astral Rain
IRL poster by KyseL

Also, if you live in California, consider contacting FoxTailAngel who's looking for Californians who want to put up posters in their towns and cities!

Level 4 Efforts
(Difficulty: Insane)

Someone asked me about this the other day.

Uh . . .

Make more zOMG!ers
You will need:
A mommy
A daddy OR a turkey baster . . .

[CleoSombra]

Banners/Graphics
Have Twitter? Scullylam made these two banners to support twittering!
http://fav.me/d34hjef
http://fav.me/d34hjvi

Want to let people know about this thread?

[url=http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/t.67619429_1/][img]http://i53.tinypic.com/2efs6r4.gif[/img][/url]

by Cherry Kuro

[url=http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/t.67619429_1/][img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v129/cleosombra/tasuki.png[/img][/url]

by Tasuki_Forever

[url=http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/t.67619429_1/][img]http://i52.tinypic.com/5f4wnk.jpg[/img][/url]

by nummyumm

[url=http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/t.67619429_1/][img]http://i54.tinypic.com/2ztd5om.gif[/img][/url]

by nummyumm

[url=http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/t.67619429_1/][img]http://i55.tinypic.com/10z5vue.png[/img][/url]

by Kain-Senpai

Jazmin`

[url=http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/t.67619429_1/][IMG]http://i42.tinypic.com/1keh5.gif[/IMG][/url]

[url=http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/t.67619429_1/][IMG]http://i42.tinypic.com/10fot37.gif[/IMG][/url]

[url=http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/t.67619429_1/][IMG]http://i40.tinypic.com/166x5ko.gif[/IMG][/url]

[url=http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/t.67619429_1/][IMG]http://i43.tinypic.com/2vbpy60.gif[/IMG][/url]

[url=http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/t.67619429_1/][IMG]http://i41.tinypic.com/33eiy5u.gif[/IMG][/url]

[url=http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/t.67619429_1/][IMG]http://i43.tinypic.com/4g2n1f.gif[/IMG][/url]

Go on other websites? Try sticking a banner in your sig!

[url=http://www.zomg.com][IMG]http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc255/AnkhWing/zomgawa2.png[/IMG][/url]

by Kerize

[url=http://www.zomg.com][IMG]http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc255/AnkhWing/zomgawa-1.jpg[/IMG][/url]

by Kerize

[url=http://www.zomg.com][img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v223/kenny_map/zomgbanner.gif[/img][/url]

by Tasuki_Forever

[url=http://www.zomg.com][img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v223/kenny_map/zomgbanner2.gif[/img][/url]

by Tasuki_Forever

[url=http://www.zomg.com][img]http://i.imgur.com/XE30G.jpg[/img][/url]

by Prorsa

[url=http://www.zomg.com][img]http://i56.tinypic.com/2lx6s6h.jpg[/img][/url]

by i Neurotic-Kitty i

[url=http://www.zomg.comg][img]http://i56.tinypic.com/9s5qf9.png[/img][/url]

by Captain Pirate Sushi

[NateShikaVi]

^^ good stuffs liked ~<3

Edit: 1st ^^

[Marceus]

I love this idea. I've already put a zOMG link in my signature on TFW2005 and will do so for a few other sites. I'll also try some of those other suggestions.

[K4M]

zOMG is down in my interests in most places or in my about section XD

[Tasuki_Forever]

I'll try to think up more ideas, maybe more (clever) ways to advertise... Edit - ...in addition to the awesome ideas already given.
I had to edit this post because I think some people took it the wrong way

[Goddess Bee]

<3

[CeaCia]

During Christmas break I'll try doing a piece of zOMG fanart that can also be put onto a post for people to print and hang up places.

I'll upload the pic to my DA account...though I have almost no watchers...maybe I'll upload it to my account that I had abandoned since it had a few hundred watchers.

[_a bittersweet tragedy]

There are, like, 4 threads for this.

cave_dweller_candy

CAMSTUDIO! CAMSTUDIO! CAMSTUDIOOOOOO!!!

...Ahem.

Someone mentioned making videos that show what the game is like for the player. Camstudio is a really handy program that lets you record things on your screen,,,, like video screen shots. Except you can choose how much you want to film. I use it a lot.

So anyway, for the blog, we could use user-made vids that show people just how awesome zOMG really is!! Pair that with some cool in-game screen shots like the ones on the guild home page, and ta-da~~more content for the blog. EDIT: Or, Also, what if we made, like, zOMG! trailers and put them on youtube? We need to think of where most people are on the internet, eg. Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, etc. and cater to that. The user-run Facebook page is a good idea.

Also;; I was wondering if we wanted to make a user fan sitetype thing with Wix or Freewebs. It wouldn't be too hard. ^_^;

[scullylam]

with twitter, i think it would be neat to try and do contests on there. do something that will promote more people to respond and talk. so there could be a contest that is run just by one person or changes up so much, and contests be through twitter or link back to in game zomg.

example:
contest!!! runs for one day. everyone use the hashtag and answer this trivia! winner that is chosen will win 5k gold!


for inside zomg games/contest, use to advertise through twitter. like how some people have hide and seek, etc.

but as a constant, try to use that hashtag to show you are supporting zomg.


added: this kind of stuff may be advertised through facebook and here on gaia too. so it isn't limited to just twitter.

[Tasuki_Forever]

Oh and if you need any banners I'll be glad to make some. Just let me know

@ Aneyana - I like your idea. I think I may try something like that as well

[Reglare Excile]

Going to release the news to the zOMG Guilds I belong in, they have the right to know and not to be Oblivious. I'll link this thread, but may I?