Short form video is how game devs win in 2026. Jestr CEO Mahdeen Abrar breaks down how to use YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Instagram Reels to get your game discovered, with 1.2 billion views and 700 campaigns behind the strategy.Mahdeen Abrar is the CEO and co-founder of Jestr, a creator marketplace that connects indie and AA studios with vetted creators who make shorts about their games. In under a year, Jestr has launched 700+ campaigns, generated 115,000+ social posts, driven 1.2 billion+ views across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts, and paid out $3M+ to creators. In this episode we get into why ten videos at 100k beat one at a million, why he would never spend your budget on a single creator, the $500 starter plan, text hooks, the biggest short form myths, and how studios of any size can finally get seen.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎮 ABOUT JESTRWebsite: https://www.jestr.gg/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jestr.ggInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/jestr.gg/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Jestr-gg👤 CONNECT WITH MAHDEENLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/mahdeenabrar━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ CHAPTERS0:00 – Intro: how discovery got democratized3:20 – Meet Mahdeen & the origin of Jestr7:45 – Becoming a short form factory10:45 – Gamescom and the Fireshine breakthrough18:50 – TikTok vs Instagram vs YouTube Shorts23:20 – Why Mahdeen doesn't link out to Steam24:30 – Ten videos at 100k beat one at a million28:20 – Text hooks and finding your format30:30 – How small studios win with their own content36:30 – The biggest short form myths38:00 – One topic, seven videos: the weekly system41:55 – The $500 starter plan48:30 – Play It Forward & final advice━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES📬 Freaking Cool Indies Newsletter: https://freakingcoolindies.com/FCI_newsletters 🎙️ Hangout on the go:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2doPqk8Q9IKstjLDdSMn9nApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/freaking-cool-indies/id1824774892❤️ CONNECT WITH ME 🕸️ Website: https://freakingcoolindies.com/🐦 Twitter: / https://x.com/F_Cool_Indies🎵 TikTok: / https://www.tiktok.com/@freakingcoolindies💼 LinkedIn: / https://www.linkedin.com/in/marnone/🦋 Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/freakingcoolindies.com#gamedev #indiedev #shortformvideo #youtubeshorts #tiktokmarketing #gamemarketing #indiegames #jestr #nintendo #steam #steamwishlist