Spreading the Infection of Left 4 Dead 2 via Social Media

The infection spreads to the south this November 17th with Valve's release of Left 4 Dead 2. The game has been surrounded by all sorts of interesting coverage, with the boycotting of the game itself to the controversy of its southern setting and stereotyping. With a 25 million dollar budget to promote this one game, I'm sure you'll be seeing Left 4 Dead 2 just about everywhere. But what if they didn't have that huge budget? How could have Valve promoted this title with social media?

Blogging is one of the first, most straight forward examples. Valve only need to look to themselves to see this approach in action. The Team Fortress 2 blog run by Valve is the go to source for Team Fortress information and updates. It certainly solidifies the brand's style and humor. Left 4 Dead 2, if anything like it's predecessor, will have strong characters with their own humor and voice. This makes terrific content for a blog to be updated with. Updating in the voice of a character is something that has been done on the Team Fortress blog, the the Left 4 Dead cast certainly has a stronger, more developed voice, and a compelling, exciting story to tell. Using the blog as a sort of journal for the new characters as they experience the zombie apocalypse would have been a great way to build excitement, drop development hints, and introduce players to these new characters.



To move outside of Valve's territory, the title Professor Layton's Diabolical Box for the Nintendo DS used their website in a successful way to launch a contest that could have benefited from Twitter. Nintendo launched the contest on the website, announcing the the character, Professor Layton, would be visiting several US cities. If found, participants could solve a puzzle to be entered to win a Nintendo DSi and a copy of the game. The website was used to issue clues to his whereabouts. Twitter could have been used to sent these clues, and possibly give more exposure to the contest, and more exposure to the game itself.

With the popularity of flash-mobs, and anything zombie related, Left 4 Dead 2 could have used a Twitter account to launch a flash-mob or contest in major cities, promoting the game. Updates coming from game characters could have been used to "sight" the zombie invasion, giving clues to where to convene for the contest or flash-mob. The recently launched Zombie Land benefited from flash-mobs like these that I personally witnessed at Boston's College Fest at the Hynes Convention Center.


These social media options certainly would not require a 25 million dollar budget, and inject a little more excitement into the game's launch than just a sea of billboards.