Rockstar Games, the developer of the Grand Theft Auto video game series, took great measures to promote the release of the newest member to the series—Grand Theft Auto Five.  Rockstar Games utilized social media, namely Twitter to promote the new game.  Rockstar Games has a highly popular Twitter account with over two million followers.  On October 25^th 2011, the company made their first announcement about the launch of Grand Theft Auto Five on their Twitter page.  There are many benefits to the company using Twitter in that they reach their fan base as well as have their fans spread word about the game by popularizing the hashtag, “GTAV,” an acronym for “Grand Theft Auto Five.”  Not only is Twitter an extremely effective way to spread word about the game, it is also free.

Twitter is an extremely smart way for Rockstar Games to reach consumers because all of the people following their Twitter account are video game fans as well as active consumers of Rockstar Games products.  An amazing, two million people follow Rockstar Games on Twitter alone; however there are also many separate accounts such as, “Grand Theft Auto V,” “GTAV News,” and “GTAV Informer,” that are specifically set up for Grand Theft Auto fanatics.

The fact that Rockstar Games already has so many Twitter followers allowed them to disseminate information about the Grand Theft Auto Five release and popularize “#GTAV.”  At the end of every tweet about Grand Theft Auto Five is a “#GTAV,” therefore anyone who searches the hashtag will be linked to any tweet about the video game.  The hashtag allows Rockstar Games to reach an extremely wide audience because any fans who choose to use “#GTAV” will also reach their entire Twitter following.  With the help of the hashtag, Rockstar Games is able to reach both active and passive audiences.  For example, if I follow Rockstar Games or one of the linked Grand Theft Auto Five accounts on Twitter and I see “#GTAV” and decide to use it on one of my Tweets, I have essentially just promoted Grand Theft Auto Five to all of my Twitter followers.

The use of the catchy hashtag is ingenious because hashtags are set with hyperlinks and therefore if they are clicked on then all the news and conversations used with that hashtag will appear.  Once a hashtag is popularized, the fans essentially do the social media publicity without much effort from the company.  One way Rockstar Games was able to popularize “#GTAV” so quickly was through “Twitter giveaways.”  Rockstar Games would tweet and tell fans about free gear they can receive by participating in twitter competitions.  Fans simply had to retweet the post by Rockstar Games in order to be eligible to win the prize.  This is excellent PR because thousands of people retweeted these posts and therefore spread the message to their Twitter friends as well.

The theory that fits Rockstar Games use of “#GTAV” to promote Grand Theft Auto Five is the Uses & Gratifications Theory.  This theory states that people actively consume the media and they choose what forms of media to include in their lives.  This means that companies trying to promote a message or a product must also be selective with the media they use to reach target audiences.  For example, Rockstar Games knows that their Twitter followers are their target audience because those people actively chose to seek them out on Twitter in order to get information about their products.  Therefore, working to promote Grand Theft Auto Five on their Twitter account by popularizing “#GTAV,” is a highly effective means of reaching their target audience.

 

By: Rachel Minikes