Yesterday I participated in a live Twitter chat on the subject of PR with host Tap for Tap and several developers. During the chat, we discussed strategies to get more coverage for your game/app using PR. For those of you who weren’t able to make it to the live chat, Tap for Tap kindly posted the summary notes, which I copied below for your reading pleasure.

In game advertising can be a great source of revenue for indie developers. It can also be a great annoyance to players. That’s because in game advertising is often executed poorly. Stuffing ads into games without regard for game play or audience, is a sure-fire way to lose players. However, if planned correctly, in game advertising can generate revenue without driving players away.

John Pleasants, former CEO of Playdom, once said, “successful [Facebook] games’ marketing budgets are upwards of 50% of their production costs and can skyrocket into the millions as the game grows.” While it’s clear Pleasants understands the importance of marketing, it’s also clear he wasn’t addressing an indie audience. Allocating 50% of production costs toward marketing is a luxury most indies don’t have, making Pleasants’ calculation method less than ideal. Knowing how to calculate a marketing budget isn’t about estimating off a percentage of another cost. It’s about understanding your game’s unique marketing needs and pricing accordingly. Here are three steps that should help.