Heavens Blessings Tiny Zoo

You can do big things!

The concept behind the Kickstarter program is for a lot of people to contribute a little bit to make great things happen.  Artists, musician, writers, explorers, even game developers all find a warm welcome in this community of aspiring creative minds. This is your opportunity to help with the final push to get Visions to open beta!  We just launched our very own Kickstarter page today.  Check it out!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1799801709/visions-a-christian-mmorpg

Thank you for supporting us!

2 chances to help us win!

Still have 2 contests in the running. And people can vote once a day.

This one at startup nation is for a publicity package:
http://www.startupnation.com/homebased100/contestant/7272/index.php

This one at Idea Cafe is for a small business grant:
http://digg.com/d31788K

(Remember to Click the DIGG button!)

Both would be helpful to our efforts. We’re really close on the Startupnation contest, I have no idea how we’re doing on the Idea Cafe contest. Thank you for voting for us!

Laurene answers Q&A for Idea Cafe

Laurene answered some questions about Visions and our company, Heaven’s Blessings Tiny Zoo, presented by Idea Cafe in relation to the Small Business Grant contest that we are participating in.  They have published my responses on their blog. You can read them here:

http://blog.ideacafe.com/semi-finalist-qa-heavens-blessings-tiny-zoo

Please be sure to vote for us!  You can vote once a day.

Tiny Zoo in the top 40 and still climbing!

That’s right!  We made it to the top 40 out of 1000 applicants!

Thanks for voting for Heaven’s Blessings Tiny Zoo!

Now we have to win the contest!

http://blog.ideacafe.com/and-semi-finalists-eighth-idea-cafe-small-business-grant-are#33

Even if we don’t win, thank you very much  for voting for us! Every vote counts!

Skate boards and neck ties and t-shirts! Oh my!

Tons of new stuff available to fans on our new Zazzle store! The usual t-shirts, buttons and stickers can be found, plus a variety of unusual items as well, such as skateboards, coffee mugs, beer steins, and neck ties. There is even a pair of Chariots specific Keds brand shoes!

http://www.zazzle.com/tinyzoo*

Get your game gear! Sure to be something to please everyone! All purchases from the tinyzoo* store go to benefit our volunteer game development team. Thank you for your support!

Vote for HBTZ!

Our company, Heaven’s Blessings Tiny Zoo, is registerred in the StartupNation Home Based Business contest.  Please vote for us!

http://www.startupnation.com/homebased100/contestant/7272/index.php

Thanks for your support!

GameStreamer lists Chariots in their flagship store!

And Chariots is now live in the GameStreamer store! Check it out!

http://games.gamestreamer.net/games/chariots

GameStreamer is a digital distribution store that just launched this month, and we’re in it! The layout is very pretty. Looks great!

-Laurene

Social Marketing for Christian games

One of the topics at CGDC (the Christian Game Developers Conference) this year was on social marketing. Seth Crofton taught us about using social networking to maximize our marketing opportunities for distributing our Christian and family friendly games. He has identified dozens of marketing opportunities in the social network. Some that I am already using are facebook, twitter, myspace, shoutlife, youtube, tangle, community forums, ning, homeschoolblogger, and of course wordpress. Chariots and Visions each have their own pages on Facebook, Chariots and Visions each have their own websites, and they share a community forum on our website. Visions has a ning page too.

There are some nice tools that help us integrate some of these tools too so that they are connected to each other, to improve our effectiveness at reaching our audience. For example, this blog post is being sent via email using a special plugin that is available to wordpress users. There are similar tools for other social networking sites as well. I hope to get some of these other tools implemented as well, so my twitter and facebook can be updated every time I post a blog!

One of the advantages of using social networking as a marketing tool is that it gives us as developers direct access to our customers. We don’t have to go through a 3rd party to rely on sterile reports and charts and diagrams. Our customers can talk directly to us through comments and feedback in a more personal way than ever before. Websites are still the front page for people to find us, but social networking will keep us connected and build relationships. We can make the Christian games, and the family friendly games, but if people don’t know about us, how can they buy our games? Social networking is one method to get the word out that we have exciting new games to play!

http://www.tinyzoo.com