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Tips For Marketing Your Business On Facebook

For every big success story I hear about marketing on Facebook, I also hear several stories of, 'Oh, I tried that, but it didn't go anywhere so I gave up.” So does marketing on Facebook work? Without a doubt itdoes –Facebook is the most visited website in the world, and getting seen can mean a significant boost to your list building and your sales.

But the key is to have a game plan for how you're going to build, brand and market yourself on Facebook. With that in mind, I've put together this list of tips to get you moving in the right direction.

1. Create a page. Sounds simple, right? It is –the problem is marketers get confused and they start a profile instead of a page. If you want to market your business onFacebook, a profile simply won't cut it. Pages are meant for businesses and they are much more effective at getting your message out there.

What can you do if you goofed up and you already made a profile for your business? There is a fix: By using Facebook's migrate tool, you can switch from a profile to a
page and best of all, you get to KEEP all of your followers. Here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?migrate

2. Promoteyour fan page. First, place your fan page URL in your email signature. Now every time you send an email, it's another chance for recipients to find your Facebook fan page.

Next, blog about your fan page. Don't just ask your blog readers to like your page–instead, give them at least one compelling reason why they should (bribes work well, but it could be any reason, so long as it resonates with your readers.Now, add a “Like” optionto your blog or websites.

3. Cross page promote your page. By posting on other fan pages using your page's user name, you get a visible link to your page with each comment.

4. Consider getting some Facebook ads. It's easy, you can spend as little as you like, and you can target your campaigns to only those people who are likely to be interested in what you have to offer.

5. Promote your page on Twitter. First, place your fan page URL on your Twitter profile background. (Note: Only those using the web based version of Twitter will see your background, but this is still plenty of eyeballs.)

Second, Tweet about your page. Ask your Twitter followers to like your fan page. Again, offering them a good reason why they should like it will greatly increase your response rate.

6. Why should people become fans? We've touched on this, but it's important: Give people a great reason to become your fan. Maybe it's to get discounts or updates. Maybe it's a free video, ebook, etc. Just make sure it's something that motivates immediate and swift action.

7. Add your page URL to YouTube. Do you create videos to promote your business? Then by all means add your fanpage URL link to your videos, either at the end of the video or at the beginning of the video description.

8. Post frequently. If you forget about your fanpage, your fans will forget about you. Post once or twice a day with good info, updates and questions. Don't make it all about you and your products. Instead, post about events, news, your industry and so forth.

And whenever you can, inject a little humor into the mix.

9. Ask your fans to like your content so it gets shared on their walls. You can't ask every time, but now and then is fine. When they like your post, more people will see it, which can lead to more fans –always a good thing.

10. Speaking of questions: Get your fans involved with your page by starting discussions about your products and services or industry news. What's the best way to start a discussion? Simply ask a provocative question your fans cannot ignore. If you get stuck on what to ask, use the fill in the blank kind of question, such as, “If you could have any job in the world, it would be ____.”

11. Do not become a troll victim. Now that you're starting discussions, remember to remain professional at ALL TIMES, with no exceptions. If you are perceived as quarreling with a fan, it won'tmatter if you're right –it will only matter that you lost your cool and you look like a real dope. And if things look like they may get nasty, offer the fan a private way to contact you (phone or email, for example.)

12. Forget the “I” and focus on the “we.” Much like writing a sales letter, making Facebook posts should be all about “we,” not I. For example, “We reached 500 likes today, thank you everyone!”

13. Remember to use plenty of photos and even videos. Written words are great, but videos are better and photos tend to get shared. So incorporate a variety of mediums into your Facebook communications.

14. Be thankful. This one takes a little time, but it's well worth it. Thank each new person who likes your Facebook page (you can find them by using the “New Likes” box.) This will really make you stand apart from the crowd. After all, how many people have ever personally thanked them for a Like? You might very well be the first.

15. Relax. Facebook is not the place for a suit and tie kind of personality. Instead, be fun, be casual, be funny and make your fanpage an entertaining, inviting place to be.

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Introduction

If you’re just getting started in blogging, it’s easy to get frustrated when you don’t see immediate results. But like anything, it can take a little time to get things rolling. It’s important to be patient in the beginning, because the quickest way to fail is to give up too soon!

When it comes to successful blogging, consistency is key.

Fortunately, there are simple, yet effective ways to dramatically increase the amount of traffic, subscribers, and revenue from the start, while also decreasing the time and energy spent managing your blog.

There is no better way to stay motivated and focused than by seeing results from your hard work, and that is exactly what you’re going to experience when you follow the techniques featured within this special report.

Here’s a quick overview of what’s included:

We’re going to cover some of the best ways to generate highly targeted traffic to your blog quickly (and for free!)

We’re also going to talk about how to get those people to subscribe to your email list and follow you on social media, because ultimately, that is the best way to gauge your success when just starting out. It’s also the best way to keep that connection going, long after they have left your blog.

We’ll also take a close look at the type of content that converts and will help position you as an authority in your niche. This type of content is called “sticky content” because it forms the pillar of your blog and provides valuable information that your niche market is actively looking for.

Are you ready to build a successful blog that generates insane traffic, converts visitors into loyal subscribers and maximizes your income?

Let’s begin!

Setting Up For Success

The first thing you should do is make sure your blog is properly configured in order to foster visitor engagement, motivate people into taking action and subsequently, build an active subscriber base.

Specifically, we’re focusing on building your email list and social media following, so we’re going to make sure your blog is set up to give you the best chance at achieving those two things.

The main things you need to pay close attention to are:

Making it easy for your blog visitors to find your social media profiles.

Making it easy for your blog visitors to sign up for your email list.

Remember that once a visitor reads whatever article brought them to your blog, they will likely never come back unless you keep reminding them that you have content that is useful and informative. The only way to do that is to connect with them outside your blog, and the two best ways to do that are with social media and email marketing.

So let’s talk about how to set your blog up to get more social media followers and email list subscribers.

Social Media Followers

Social media is a very important component of every online business. Nearly everyone is on at least one social network where they log on and use them regularly. Therefore, it’s more important than ever to build a presence on the most popular social networks, especially the ones where your demographic tends to gather.

I can pretty much guarantee you that if you aren’t on social media, most of your competitors are, and that gives them a significant advantage over you. Not only will social media help you to connect with your target audience, but it will help you build an authoritative presence in your niche quickly and easily.

You probably already have a plugin on your blog that enables social sharing, but that only goes so far. Your blog needs its own profiles on various social media sites, and you also need to make those profiles highly visible on your blog. Be sure to place links to your major profiles in your sidebar, top menu bar, and anywhere else you think people might notice.

In the next section, we’ll talk about a plugin you can use to draw attention to things like your opt-in form, special offers, social media, and more. You can use this plugin to remind people to follow you on social media in order to increase your count quickly.

Email List Subscribers

Building an email list is more critical than ever, as blog traffic is at an all-time low. More and more people are spending their time on social media and video sites like YouTube, and less time on blogs. Plus, it’s getting harder to get SEO traffic, too. So building your email list is vital in order to build a source of traffic that won’t disappear with the whims of netziens.

Building your list consists initially of three main steps:

Create a lead magnet.
Create a squeeze page.
Promote the squeeze page.

A lead magnet is something you give away in order to encourage people to sign up to your email list. This could be a report or other free download, a free course, a physical item they must only pay for shipping on, or something else of value. But it must be something your demographic is very interested in.

The fact is, most people don’t return to a blog on their own after the first visit, and that’s often because they’ve already read the one piece of content that brought them there. Perhaps they Googled a problem they were having, or noticed a link to your content on social media and thought it was interesting. But once they’ve read it, then what?

That’s why it’s so important to capture their email address, or persuade them to follow you on social media. Once you do this, you have the potential to contact that person whenever necessary, such as when you have new content available on your blog, or you’re running a special offer or promotion.

One effective way to build your mailing list is by offering short reports that focus on a specific topic.

Think about your demographic and what type of problem they might have that you could help them solve with a free report. Then write up a guide that explains how to do it and use that as your lead magnet.

If you want to grab a lot of attention to your opt-in form, I recommend the WordPress plugin Big Welcome:

>> https://promotelabs.com/downloads/big-welcome/

The Big Welcome plugin will let you create full-size welcome/splash screens where you can put your opt-in form, or a big advertisement that leads to your squeeze page, or even a message asking people to opt-in or follow you on social media.

There’s also tons of other applications, such as announcements, coupon codes, special promotions and offers, etc. It’s a very useful plugin for so many purposes.

If you don’t want to create your own lead magnets, and you are in a marketing-related niche, I recommend joining Monthly PLR Lead Magnets Package:

>> https://www.swabd.com/monthly-plr-lead-magnets-package

Monthly PLR Lead Magnets Package releases two new lead magnet packages, including report, squeeze page, graphics, and more, every month, and it will let you build your list without spending time writing content and building squeeze pages. It’s all been done for you.

You can even paste the copy from the squeeze pages into pages on your WordPress site if you prefer. It will definitely save you a lot of time!

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Introduction

If you want to reach the kind of income you’ve been dreaming of, selling your own information products is one of the fastest and easiest ways to get started.

With your very own info-products, you set the price and control the costs of creating the product yourself. Better yet, you’ll be able to build a brand as a quality content provider, and an expert in your niche without having to go through a difficult learning curve or spending months researching markets.

But it gets even better!

With white label and private label products, there’s no limit to the number of markets you venture into! You’ll be able to start making money in countless niches quickly and easily!

And since you’ll be using private label content as the foundation for your online business, you won’t have the high costs typically involved in product creation, such as outsourcing content to seasoned writers. Instead, you’ll be able to deliver in-demand content to your customers instantly, without spending any time on product creation or development!

So, without further delay, let’s take a closer look at how you can start to make money exploiting one of the easiest ways to skyrocket your income while minimizing your workload.

PLR and white label means you’re working smarter, not harder.

So, let’s get started!

How Private Label Works

PLR, which stands for “private label rights” is content developed by other people who share rights with those who purchase a “resell license”. In other words, you are given a license to resell content at your own prices, and under your own brand.

You become an instant info product creator!

Both private label and white label products comes in many different forms, including reports, ebooks and even software, scripts, Wordpress plugins, graphics, templates and all-inclusive video training packages!

White Label vs. Private Label

There are two main types of product licensing when it comes to selling products that other people have created. They’re similar, but slightly different, so it’s important to know the difference.

Private label rights (PLR) products are those that have been created by other people, and you purchase them for a relatively low price, and then you can edit them, change the name, claim you created them, and sell them for any price you wish.

Within the PLR marketplace, you will find many different licensing offers, some allowing you to resell the content AND the rights to others, while other licensing prevents any distribution or transfer of rights, meaning that you can only resell PERSONAL copies of the product.

This is quite often the most valuable license of all because you can rest assured that the product will be limited in distribution, and not quickly saturated within the market. Stricter licensing rights also means less competition as you will be one of only a few people to ever have the rights to resell or distribute the material.

White label is slightly different. Instead of having to spend time editing a product, setting up a website to sell it, and handling payments, refunds, delivery, etc., you market a product someone else created, but it’s done under YOUR name, as if it were YOUR product.

Depending on the license, you may still have to handle payments yourself, and provide customer service, support, and manage refunds. Sometimes a lot of that will be done for you, similar in the way you’d promote an affiliate product. The main difference is that you pay an upfront fee for white label rights, and you can generate a lot more money than you would if you promoted the product as an affiliate.

You also get all the benefits of having your own product, especially building your own brand and reputation, instead of someone else’s, but without all the hassles associated with product creation.

When you sell a white label product, you usually get to keep all, or most of the sale price, but usually with an upfront fee involved. After this initial investment, which is usually considerably less than it would be to create the product on your own, you keep all of the profits.

Both white label and private label products can be extremely profitable, allowing you to build your name without having to create your own products. It just doesn’t get any easier!

Sourcing Products

There are many different places to source white label and PLR products. If you’re in a niche market, it may be more difficult because there’s no one place to source a wide variety of white label products. You’ll have to contact individual product sellers and inquire about acquiring rights.

However, if you’re in marketing, it will be considerably easier, because there are lots of places to get great deals on white label and private label rights products.

A great place to start is with the products from PLRUpdates.com:

>> https://downloads.plrupdates.com

They have a lot of different products in sub-niches of the internet marketing niche, so you should be able to find something that will fit within your overall marketing plan.

You’ll pay just one upfront fee, and then you can sell the products under your name, and keep 100% of the profits.

Another great way to source products in the internet marketing niche is by signing up for the email lists of all the most popular marketers. Many marketers offer white label rights to their products from time-to-time, and may offer PLR, or reseller rights as well.

Promoting Products
Once you have sourced a product to promote, it’s time to start selling it. The first thing you’re going to want to do, before absolutely anything else, is to carefully read your license.

The terms of the license will dictate how you can sell the product, how you market it, how you price it, and a lot more. And the terms can vary wildly between different products, even from the same seller.

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Introduction

Everyday hundreds, thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people decide to investigate the idea of working from home or starting their very own home-based business. They have heard of others that have done so who have been very successful...maybe even wildly successful at it.

Some of these people are very computer savvy individuals. They may even have the ability to build their own webpages. They certainly know the ins and outs of operating a computer. Others aren’t all that computer savvy but they think they have a great idea for an Internet business and are sure that they can find a way to follow their dream.

The Internet really is the great equalizer. The level of formal education that a budding Internet entrepreneur has doesn’t seem to have much bearing on the degree of success that they can achieve on the Internet or how much of a failure they can become. There are those who have reached dizzying heights of success who never finished high school and those who have hit rock bottom who have multiple college degrees.

The commonalities of those who succeed in either working from home or running a home-based business are:

- They are all self-starters.
- They have a positive attitude.
- They are willing to learn.
- They develop the necessary survival skills....it really is a jungle out there.

If you are considering starting, or have already started working from home or a home-based business, you are obviously a self-starter.

You wouldn’t have even considered such a venture if you didn’t have a positive attitude.

You are apparently willing to learn, you are reading this book.

The world of Internet business is the electronic equivalent of a jungle. In words made famous in “The Wizard of Oz”, “There are lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” Survival and success aren’t based on education. They are both based upon the mastering of survival skills.

Chapter I

There are Lions

Funny! When you log onto the Internet, there is nothing that indicates that you have just entered an untamed jungle. You don’t hear any roaring lions or other ominous sounds and you don’t see any wild animals that are planning to have you as the main course for dinner but they are out there. They are just in disguise.

There is no particular order that you will meet these dangerous characters but some of the first ones that you are likely to meet are those that I like to think of as the ‘welcoming committee’.

Selling What’s Free

The object of this welcoming committee is to sell you what can be had for free all over the Internet if you know where to look.

Anti-Virus Protection

The first thing that you will be told that you must buy is anti-virus software. Now, there are some very good anti-virus programs out there that are being sold. But if your financial ability is somewhat limited, you really do not have to buy expensive anti-virus programs.

Yes, you must have an anti-virus program on your computer. There isn’t any doubt about that one. The Internet is full of creeps that get their jollies by infecting computers with viruses, worms and trojans. You don’t want that to happen to you or your computer.

There are those that spend their every waking hour just dreaming up new and insidious ways of making problems for the rest of us. Luckily, there are just as many good folks out there that spend their time figuring out how to keep them from doing it to us.

Two of the best known anti-virus programs out there are Norton and McAfee and both of them are very good programs. Both of them are also rather expensive. McAfee is more expensive than Norton but neither one of them are really cheap and they are certainly not free.

However, there is also a very good one that is absolutely free. AVG has many anti-virus and other security programs available but they also have a free version. This free version works very well and provides ample protection. You can find this free program at AVG (https://www.grisoft.com/doc/products-avg-anti-virus-free-edition/lng/us/tpl/tpl01).

Firewalls

Most computers today come with built-in firewalls. Windows added that feature to XP. It is already on your computer when you bring it home.

Just because you already have a firewall that is sufficient to protect your computer, doesn’t mean that there won’t be members of the welcome-to-the-jungle committee who won’t be trying to sell you one.

You will be told that the one that is on your computer has failed to protect you. You will see these little pop-ups telling you that you need to have your computer scanned.

The scan is, of course, free. The purpose of the scan is to sell you something that you don’t need....usually a firewall, but there are other programs as well.

You already have a firewall and multiple firewalls do not add protection. They actually interfere with each other. You are better off to stick with the firewall that came built into your computer.

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You’ve heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but have you heard that a video is worth 1.8 million words? Dr. James McQuivey declared this in his study, How Video Will Take Over The World, where he goes through the math to prove this assumption. (https://www.forrester.com/report/How+Video+Will+Take+Over+The+World/-/E-RES44199?isTurnHighlighting=false&highlightTerm=1.8%2520million%2520words)

Not only that - people are visual in nature, so they tend to retain more information in image form. It’s clear that everywhere you look, online video is popular. You see it on every type of social media platform, including Facebook via Facebook Live and of course on YouTube.

But, what is a shy person supposed to do if they want to get involved with video marketing? No worries. Even though you’re shy you can make video marketing work for you. First, let’s talk about the importance and benefits of video marketing.

The Importance and Benefits of Video Marketing

There are numerous benefits of video marketing that make it super-important to get involved even if you’re shy. The benefits are so great that you don’t want to miss out on them. If you knew that just by adding video to your marketing strategy you could multiply your results, why wouldn’t you do it? Being shy shouldn’t prevent you from enjoying all these benefits.

Boosts Brand Awareness

It’s amazing, but you don’t even have to make especially long videos to benefit from better brand awareness. A 60-second explainer video can go a long way to helping people get to know you and realize what you can do for them. It’s important to be yourself, make videos with your audience in mind, and understand your brand identity as you go forward with making a video for marketing purposes.

Improved Online Presence

People love a good story and video is the perfect medium to use to tell stories. You can tell more complex stories and keep your viewers engaged longer too. Plus, your viewers are much more likely to share a video story than a written article - especially if you’ve taken the time to consider your audience and what they want to know.

People Feel As If They Know You

When you do a video and people see your face and hear your voice, they start to think they really know you. This builds that all-important "know, like, and trust" factor for your audience, so that they are not afraid to spend money with you and trust you to help them with the problem you purport to solve.

Enhances Social Media Engagement

Video is fast becoming the favorite method for audiences to get information. In fact, some studies suggest that 80% of internet traffic will come from video by 2020. Part of the reason is that people are more likely to share video, comment on video, and engage with you when you make videos.

Builds Trust with Viewers

When people can see you, they develop more trust for you. But don’t worry; you can make videos without being seen and only heard and still develop trust, if you just can’t for whatever reason make a video with your face in it. Podcasts also build trust, so combine a PowerPoint with your voice to create videos and you’ll be amazed at how much more trust you can develop with your audience. And more trust means a bigger return on investment.

Better SEO

Google Search is still the number one search engine and they rank video higher than text. Learn as much as you can about rich video snippets to enhance your SEO. A rich video snippet allows a Google search to display a video next to the search results that appear on Google.

With video, you also end up with more backlinks, fewer bounces, and higher click-through rates. Since they’re highly shareable, you improve your social signals exponentially. You can use a plugin for WordPress to help called All in One Schema Rich Snippets. (https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-schemaorg-rich-snippets/)

Improves Your Mobile Presence

Fifty percent of all mobile data happens to be attributed to video. Because of that fact alone, using video is going to make your brand more present online since more people use mobile today than even use personal computers. It’s harder to read text on a mobile device so it makes total sense that video gets more attention on mobile.

Spreads Difficult Information Faster

If you have a difficult concept to explain to your audience, using video is going to make it so much simpler. From showing someone how to cook, to how to use a physical product, to demonstrating an exercise video... video can do it all. You can also explain simple concepts, so video works no matter what type of information you want to impart to your audience.

High ROI

Due to everything you’ve read so far, your return on investment is going to explode when you start using video regularly. So many people are using mobile, and so many people need to get to know you first before taking your advice. Using video to accomplish that will make your audience feel a lot better about you and will, therefore, increase your ROI exponentially.

If you are a shy person, you may be feeling a little pressure at this point after reading all that information. But no worries - we’re going to talk more about what it means to be shy, how being shy feels, and how to deal with it when making videos.

What It Means to Be Shy

If you notice physical sensations in social situations such as sweating, blushing, or shaking, it’s likely you are a shy person. You’re just not at ease around people that you don’t know or in unfamiliar circumstances. But typically, once you get to know people you start to feel more comfortable. Unlike someone with a severe social anxiety disorder, you don’t feel shy or uncomfortable in your safe spaces with the people you know and love.

Uncomfortable with Strangers

Most shy people have the most trouble talking to strangers. And when you make videos that’s exactly what you’re going to be doing, which is probably why you’re so anxious about it. Depending on your level of shyness it may feel impossible today to talk to strangers, mostly because you don’t want them to see you shake, sweat, or blush.

The Quiet One

Often, people would say that you’re the quiet one (until you got to know them). When you were in school the teacher wished for 20 more of you but you were probably super-uncomfortable and awkward due to your shyness. Being quiet isn’t all bad, though. Because the truth is, people don’t listen enough, and being quiet gives the other people time to think and contribute. Due to this, remember that pauses are perfectly acceptable as you gather your thoughts during any video you make.

Nature versus Nurture

Shyness can be a genetic condition but is also influenced by life experiences. Just because your parents may be shy or even if you’re shy right now, it doesn’t mean you cannot work through the situation and become less affected when you put yourself into situations that evoke a shy response. The biggest thing is to simply be aware of the responses you’re having so that you can adjust as needed.

Getting Past Your Shyness

While it’s likely you’ll always be shy, there are ways to do things that you want to do anyway. The best way to accomplish this is to stop telling people you’re shy, set small goals for putting yourself out there in uncomfortable situations, and to know your strengths so that you can build your confidence level.

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Foreword

Video gaming can be a very entertaining experience for many people. Sometimes you will notice that hours have gone by while you are playing. If you are a person who enjoys playing video games you may want to consider creating your own video game.

The market for video games continuously expands. There is a large amount of money that can be made in the video game industry. Learning how to create a video game will give you an opportunity to make a lot of money as well as provide you with a feeling of self-accomplishment.

A lot of people have great ideas about video games but sadly many of them do not chase their dreams. The reason for this in most cases is that the person may feel as if it is too hard for them to do or that they may not be smart enough. Do not be one of these people! If you have come up with an idea you have already accomplished one of the hardest parts of creating a video game. Creativity does not come naturally to everyone and you should take pride in the fact that you have a creative mind.
If you have a creative mind and enjoy video games you should seriously consider creating your games. After all, it could present you with an opportunity to generate cash flow doing something you love. The following chapter in this book will shed some light on the basics of creating a game and give you some pointers to guide you through the basic processes.

Chapter 1:

Game Creation Basics

Synopsis

When creating a video the first and probably most crucial thing you need to do is come up with a plan. Trying to dive head first without any type of strategy will surely lead to you becoming overwhelmed and eventually failure. You want to make sure you set yourself up for success by having a clear image of the concept of your game and in which ways you will achieve this concept.

There are some basics things you need to keep in mind when creating a video game. The difference between a great video game and a bad one is attention to detail and making sure a good foundation is set by following the basic guidelines. The following chapter will go over the basics of creating a game and will provide you with some tips you should keep in mind.

The Basics

One of the most important things to remember is the fact that no matter how good the graphics are on a video game it will not be enjoyable if it does not have a good story line or plot. A video game is created in much the same way that a movie or TV show is. There needs to be a script, characters, action, and challenges. Every detail of these essential basics should be complete before you begin trying to program your game. Failing to do so will surely lead in a failure or the result of a poor quality game.

Stick true to the game that you want to create and do not try to copy other people’s ideas. The best games that come out are those that were created from someone’s true original thinking. Once the same idea is done time and time again it begins to become dull and much less exciting. It is important to try to always think of a way to add a twist to your game and add something to it that no other games have. This can be difficult to do but with enough time and thinking your creative mind will surely get it done.

A good place to start would be creating a storyboard to guide you along your way. A storyboard is a sequence of scenes or drawings that depict the story line of your game. It is basically the foundation of your game and without a strong one the entire structure of your game will crumble.

One of the next things you need to do is decide what platform you want your game to be on. You will need to program your game in different ways for different platforms due to the fact that different platforms will have different graphic capability. As well, not all platforms will be able to have the same capabilities as others when it comes to game size and other factors. For example, computers game can be much larger in size and arguably have the best graphics but some people find platforms such as Xbox or PlayStations much more convenient and cost friendly. It just depends on what your preferences are.

Now it is time to create a document that describes every aspect of your game idea in great detail. This will serve as your cheat sheet and will ensure that you do not stray from your original game idea. This can be quite a lengthy process but it will be well worth the effort.

Once all of the previous steps are completed it is time to start sketching out the characters of your game. This step is crucial because you need to draw the gamer in the first time they play the game. You should consider coming up with an original theme for your characters. It is important that you make sure that all of your characters fit the theme of their script for the game and the personality you want them to portray. If you are having trouble with this step you may want to consider seeking some help from a professional artist.

Once you have created your characters and you are satisfied with their appearance and personality it is time to start sketching out some scenery or back drops for the environment that you want your game to take place in. The beautiful part about this step is the fact that you can begin with a simple sketch and scan it into a computer. From there you can create an entire world and begin to get a real feel for your game.

Keep in mind that while it is a good idea to stick to the original concept of your game, sometimes better ideas for certain aspects of it will come along and change might be necessary.

Chapter 2:

What Tools Are Needed?

Synopsis

Now that you have completed all of the essential basic tasks of creating a game it is time to start turning your idea into a functioning game. This step can be made much easier with the use of certain tools. By tools I of course do not mean a hammer or a screwdriver. I am talking about tools that can improve your overall workflow as well as the performance of the game.

You may not be familiar with tools that are used in the process of creating a game and that is okay, you are not alone. The following chapter will go over different types of tools used for game creating and will explain the benefits of using them.

Beneficial Tools

A lot of time consumption and the frustration that comes with creating a video game can be alleviated with the use of certain tools. If you have a great deal of pride and you want to try and do everything by hand consider this first, humans have been using tools since the beginning of time so just use them! They will not only increase the speed of your production but they will also surely provide a much better end product.

The following are some tools that’s you may want to consider using as well as their benefits:

Creation tools

This is probably the tool that you will use the most through the entire process of creating your game. Creation tools are involved in basically every aspect of a game. They are responsible for creating levels, music, characters and items within the game. They are used for basically everything, right down to polishing down rough edges right before the game is released. You can find creation tools for cheap and even some for free but keep in mind you can also make your own. Making your own if you are capable is actually a better idea because you can customize it to your needs for the type of game you are making. Find a simple to use creation tool. This will greatly speed up your workflow and nobody likes trying to use complicated programs that are time consuming.

In-Game Editors

These game creation tools allow the programmer to make real-time in game changes. This can greatly improve your productivity as you do not have to exit the game in order to make changes. As well, sometimes you think something will work and it does not. The last thing you want to do is spend time reprogramming outside of the game to load it back up and discover your idea did not work. That is what makes these in-game editors so valuable.

Debugging Tools

These tools are extremely valuable to a game creator. Anyone who has ever designed a game before know how time consuming and frustrating it can be when something in a game fails and you have to read through pages and pages of codes in order to find the problem. Debugging tools get rid of this problem for you by diagnosing possible issues for you as well as giving you their location. They also keep logs and do periodic performance checks.

Deployment Tools

These tools are commonly used when more than one person is working on the game and different members of the team are working on different parts of the game. For example you may have an artist who works only on characters while you have another artist who only works on backdrops. You will need to make sure that everyone’s work is compatible with each other and correct. Deployment tools are great for this and are also helpful with making sure your game will be compatible when trying to make it for more than one platform. One thing to keep in mind is differences in screen size. For example, a game designed for Xbox would look terrible on a smart phone, which is where you will need the help if a deployment tool.

Post-Release Tools

These tools are not really used to create your game but are rather used for monitoring your game once it is released. These tools can be used to receive error reports as well as complaints about your game. With the use of these tools you can receive feedback on your game as well and ratings which will help you with your ideas for your next game. Post-Release tools are a great way to see what works and what doesn’t and what will appeal to the market.

With the use of these tools you will surely increase your productivity and create much less work for yourself. Just remember, everyone will hit the occasional snags but they will be nowhere near as bad with the help of these tools.