Among Us x Twitter: The stratospheric rise to 1M followers

It’s safe to say that Among Us had a huge year in 2020. From winning two awards at The Game Awards and becoming a Top 10 most played game on Steam to launching on Nintendo Switch, and hitting 1 million followers on Twitter in record time — the momentum truly picked up and never slowed down. 

 

Made in 2018, Among Us was created by the small indie studio Innersloth. The game takes place in outer space, where players each take on one of two roles. Most players are Crewmates while the other few are Impostors. The goal of the game is for Crewmates to identify and eliminate the Impostors before the Impostors can sabotage and eliminate the Crewmates. It’s full of lies, deceit, mind games, and strategy, and it makes a lot of sense why such a game gained a loyal fanbase in 2020, as it allowed socializing despite social distancing.

 

The explosion in popularity occurred over the summer and it caught the studio completely off guard. It wasn’t until later that fall that it was able to hire someone to manage its social presence and launch a Twitter account solely focused on the game. Enter Innersloth’s community director, Victoria Tran, who spoke to us about the rapid success of Among Us, and why Twitter was at the forefront of its social strategy.

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“[Among Us] has nearly half a billion players at the moment, and the entire team at Innersloth consists of four people, including me, so taking on the community was always going to be a challenge, but even I didn't expect the response we got when we launched the official Twitter account,” Tran says.

 

When asked why Twitter was the first choice for launching a dedicated social media presence, Tran and the team factored in the popularity of gaming on Twitter, and the need for quick pivots. “Since so many games industry people, from programmers to streamers and fans, have a strong presence on the platform, it made sense that Among Us should have a dedicated presence too. With a game this large, there's bound to be last-minute updates, emergency bugs, and other various news items that need to be communicated and spread quickly. Twitter is one of the best platforms out there for this,” she says.

 

With over 2 billion related Tweets about gaming on Twitter in 2020  the gaming community has certainly found its home on Twitter. Launching a dedicated account for a game is practically a necessity these days if you wish to engage with your community and keep them up to date with updates to your title. Plan your launch well, and the response can be worth the investment; “Within 12 hours, we ended up with 600K followers. But honestly, the numbers are much less important to me than the actual engagement and community response, which has been...really good, despite my best efforts to apparently self-sabotage myself,” says Tran. “To explain, my first two Tweets had big typos, but I took it in stride and so did everyone else! Whether it's massive amounts of fan art or the players reminding me to hydrate, the Twitter community has been overall fun, hilarious, and warm.”

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Since this interview, Among Us has reached 1 million followers, and actually managed to do it in under a month — despite the typos. A winning strategy is not complete without nailing down what your brand voice looks like as well. Tran took direct inspiration from the game itself to guide her on how they’d conduct themselves on the platform.

 

“Among Us is a game based around chaotic, silly, and fun conversations, so it only made sense that the tone I'd take on Twitter would be very personal. But one of the main ways I feel the Among Us Twitter voice has stood out is the volume of Tweets I try to reply to,” says Tran. “While the general (and valid) social media strategy is to post engaging and fun content several times a day, I knew that my work wouldn't allow for it timewise. So instead, my strategy has been to really hone in on the conversations Twitter would allow me to have with our community.”

The title quickly climbed to our Top 10 Most Tweeted-About Games in the fall of 2020 and hasn’t let up since. Not only are players Tweeting about their experience with the game or trying to find others to play with, they’re also sharing fan art and other creations as well. 

 

Top tip: Not only can you showcase fan art and community content through Retweeting, but you can share a Tweet in a Fleet, too.

 

Editor's note: Fleets is no longer available on the platform.

 

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Original media has been a key part of Tran’s strategy on Twitter. “I believe in adding value through any piece of media you put out there,” she says. “There's sort of a chicken-and-egg type deal when it comes to my content creation strategy. Either I'll have an idea for a caption and will create a corresponding image, or I'll have the asset ready and just need to dream up a clever enough caption to accompany it.” Hopping onto memes and trending topics has also helped the voice of Amoung Us stand out: “The beauty of having full rein over the voice and control of the account means there's no wait if I find a trend I want to hop on.”

 

Tran’s “chicken and egg” approach to content creation is much more flexible than working from the ground up on every post. If you don’t necessarily have a marketing team, but your development team is pumping out assets and you’ve got clearance to use them on social media, start with the asset and shape your post.

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Community is at the heart of Among Us and will continue to be a driving force as the title grows on Twitter. “I've always been fascinated and driven by the intersection of compassion and technology, so you'll often find me exploring how we can create better communities online,” says Tran. “Basically, my goal is to prove we can create kinder communities with the right strategy, and Among Us is a part of that. We're in a lucky enough position to have a big community behind us, and my hopes for 2021 are that we can do right by them and continue creating fun things to rally behind.”

 

According to Zach Mazzotta, gaming partnerships manager at Twitter, the community Among Us has built speaks to the already broad gaming community on Twitter. “The fact that the Among Us handle reached 1 million followers in under a month is a testament to how eager the gaming community is on Twitter as well as how engaged they truly are,” says Mazzotta. “Conversation around a game will happen with or without an official account on platform, but it's a miss if you’re not involved as well. Victoria and her team joined the already booming conversation by providing meaningful updates to the game, highlighting community content, and generally stirring up discussions while looking so effortless in doing so.”

 

For Tran and the Among Us team, the foundation of a strong Twitter following is only the beginning. “Twitter will be an integral part of finding and staying in touch with players, staying transparent with them, and helping to raise others up with us. And of course, to find out who the Impostors are.”

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