News

Develop 2013: Developers, send out your press releases on a Tuesday afternoon

Simon Byron on how to win press for your game

Develop 2013: Developers, send out your press releases on a Tuesday afternoon
When's the best time of the week to push for promo for your game? What time of day should you drop your press release in a journalist's inbox?

Ask these questions to almost any games journalist out there, and they'll likely give you an entirely non-committal answer.

In short, there's no one set time that a writer devotes to reading press releases, and there's no guarantee that even if you hit that non-existent time that they'll read your press release anyway.

However, according to Simon Byron of Premier PR, it's of no harm to monitor just when the most stories are posted by the top games sites, and what they're talking about.

Alone no more

Having monitored the RSS feeds of scores of top gaming sites over a two month period, Byron's data suggested that Tuesday is – narrowly – the day of the week when the most stories go up.

Scale things down further, and - while in general 9am to 11am and 2pm to 6pm are typically when the most articles are published - 4pm ultimately wins out as the hour when the most fresh articles flood onto the web.

This doesn't, of course, mean that pushing out a press release in time for 4pm on a Tuesday every week is going to magic up coverage for your game, but it certainly makes sense to avoid the times of day where new content has dropped off.

Talking heads

"Also, keep an eye on the trends," concluded Byron, speaking at the Indie Games Marketing presentation at this year's Develop Conference in Brighton.

"Curve Studios very cleverly offered their opinions on Xbox One's indie game policy after Microsoft's E3 press briefing, and it won them a lot of coverage – the stories essentially acted as a reminder that the firm's Thomas Was Alone was out on PSN."

That was a point backed up by Develop editor Will Freeman, who suggested developers should become "talking heads", taking to the stage at events like the Develop Conference or offering comments to websites on the current issues in order to become a thought leader in the eyes of the press.

"Go to as many events as you can," added Freeman. "Don't just stop at one. The more time you can get your face in front of journalists at events like Develop, the better it will be for you."

With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.