Subscribe Feed (RSS)Must-Know for eGaming marketers: Social Media Marketing
November 29th, 2008 by Sara | No Comments | Filed in Gambling MumblesWhy social media is changing the landscape of online marketing
Did you know that the best way to market your eGaming products these days is through social media? Let me explain…
This might be a useful blogpost for you in the industry. Please read on…
Where do I start?
Now that I have got your interest, let’s start with defining what social media is. Social media is defined as online-based tools that are used for sharing ideas among people from different walks of life.
Old acquisition marketing strategies like unsolicited direct mail or email list rental are already a thing of the past. Everyone is sooo FREAKIN´ cautious about giving out their email addresses or personal information for fear of SPAM.
Social media is usually confused with advertising on social networking sites. It’s more than advertising it´s pure editorial word of mouth because it encourages active collaboration between folks.
Ok so that´s a really simple account of what social media is; let’s discuss the integration of marketing strategies within this media space.
How do I integrate my eGaming marketing with social media?
This is a very good question. As you know, over a billion people are online. Everyone is sharing interesting site links, videos, photos, notes and events to one another through email, chat, bookmarking sites and social networking sites such as Facebook and micro blogging sites like my favourite, Twitter.
This trend is slowly growing in the eGaming industry. Online poker, blackjack and casino sites can benefit from taking advantage of the social media to market their products to new sign ups, reinforce their legitimacy to convert free play to real plays and reinforce their brand identity to reactivate lapsed or stop defection before it happens. In this article, I’m going to use Facebook and Twitter as our two marketing examples.
How do we do this?
To all the eGaming affiliate marketers out there reading, here are some of the features of Facebook and Twitter that you can use to market your clients. The benefits are clear:
Facebook:
1. Profile Page: This serves as your basic business or brand portfolio you can take control off immediately. This is the place where your passion for the company, product or brand can be expressed. Here, marketers have the opportunity to create real-world scenarios as to why their or their clients´ products are valuable and needed in the world.
To make the profile page more interesting, your Personal and Work Information should be completed. Photos and related videos can be uploaded as well.
Facebook doesn’t have the option to keep track of the number of Profile page views. This may be intentional on the part of Facebook. In order to promote your Profile page, connect to hundreds or thousands of members in Facebook. Before you know it, your Profile page will attract a lot of traffic. Profiles are NOT Google indexed 
2. Facebook Groups: A simple way to build a community that promotes your company or brand. You can create a Group for your brand and this will serve as a central location for gaming colleagues, peers, and industry friends, JV or whitelabel partners, current and future customers and others. You choose B2B or B2B, open or private VIP membership etc. There are many applications that can be used to make you Group page more interesting. There are discussion boards, videos, photos and “post a link” option. You can communicate with the Group members by giving an update every now and then. It’s easy and effective. Groups are also NOT Google indexed
3. Facebook Pages: My personal fave! This option launched late last year as a method for all types of businesses to create brand presence in the Facebook network. It is similar to Facebook Groups but with some relevant differences such as the ability to add flash and HTML applications in Pages and many more. Pages are effective in viral marketing. When someone joins they become a fan and that goes in the Newsfeed (Newsfeed Optimisation – NFO- is the future!).
Facebook Pages are the only type of Facebook content that ARE Google indexed and are visible externally WITHOUT being logged in to Facebook
4. Facebook Events: This is a free yet effective application that can be used to promote parties, marketing events, product launches and other significant happenings. The format of the Event is similar to Facebook Groups – there are wall feature where invited members can post, discussion boards, photos, links and videos.
Invited friends can be made admin officers in the event page which in turn gives them the opportunity to invite other people in their own networks. It’s one of the most effective ways to inform thousands of people about an incoming event without sweating much. It´s probably my second favourite marketing tool after Pages and before Notes.
5. Facebook Notes: Love it! This feature can be used to post information about your company. The information should be genuine or else it will be construed as a SPAM and most members will certainly ignore your future articles because of this negative reputation. Once this is posted, you have the option to let everyone in the network read the note or just choose the target people who are most likely to respond to the note.
6. Facebook Messages: This is similar to sending an email. You can send a message to friends within or outside the network.
It should be noted that Facebook is strict when it comes to preventing SPAM messages in the network. Facebook would most likely red-flag and account that keeps sending messages to those members that are not yet in the account-holder’s network.
Facebook does not specify as to how many messages sent can be construed as SPAM so it is best to be careful in sending advertisement using this option.
7. Facebook Marketplace: This option is the Facebook’s version of classified ads (Craigslist). These can be posted within your network, free of charge. However, if there’s an interest to post the ad in several networks, there’s an extra charge. Good locally for an offline poker tourney in a major city or a sports event and landbased casino etc.
8. Facebook Posted Items: You can post your gaming brand’s company link or info using this option. The posts usually show on the network updates of the account-holder and can be used to update the walls of other members within the network. So you could attract direct clicks from prospective customers. Make the content RELEVANT. GPWA do this well in Facebook posting from their GPWA group (go Michael & Steven C!). Blackjack.com are also excellent at this.
9. Mini and News Feeds: Facebook adds a feed item to the Mini Feed option when there’s recent activity on the account such as the addition of photos and videos. The feed can also be added when someone joins a group or becomes a fan of a Page. This development can be seen by others within the network via the News Feed option.
This means you must be careful when it comes to adding appropriate information in the profile because it would create an impression to the others. NFO rocks! Look out for NFM too (News Feed Marketing -buy PPC off Facebook UK, its legal eGaming guys!)
10. Other applications: There are other applications created by developers that are not affiliated with Facebook. These applications can be embedded in your Profile, Group or Page. Example of popular applications are LinkedIN, Flickr, Stumble Upon, Google Reader and many more.
Facebook is constantly upgrading its service by coming up with new applications almost everyday. I suggest that you take an extra mile in exploring these features.
Allow me to rave on here like a fan, I LOVE Twitter! (almost as much as Facebook).
Twitter is considered one of THE most popular AND useful social media tool and it would be a crying shame if you didn’t sign up for this free service. It´s actually a micro blogging site, what can you say under 140 characters or less! Do you know that it only takes a few words to inform your fellow affiliates, gamers and visitors about what’s new about your games, bets and bonuses?
Twitter gives you the opportunity to gather target demographics by having “followers” who share similar interests, likes and niches with you! And unlike FB it’s passive.
All you have to do is to create your own account at www.Twitter.com, fill up all the necessary information, upload your profile photo and a 140-character long bio. Once you are signed up, you can start searching and following your new friends! You can use keywords like “eGaming,” “online gaming,” “online casino/ poker,” among others.
Remember, it is better that you follow people that are within your target demographic. They will likely respond to your updates.
I have a great tip for you. Search for prominent individuals that are connected with the eGaming industry. I’m pretty sure that these people have a lot of “followers” from the same industry.
Once you become a “follower,” a notification email will be sent to the person you are following bearing your link. The person has the option to follow you back but considering that both of you have the same interests, then I’m pretty sure they’ll do a positive action.
Now that you are officially signed up at Twitter.com, don’t forget to maintain a good reputation and be careful in sending advertisements.
Then try adding apps like Tweetdeck, Twhirl or Tweetburner to help you optimize the effectiveness of Twitter. When you post remember the two golden rules of social media:
THOU SHALT NOT SPAM and IT´S BETTER TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE
Effectiveness of social media
You are probably wondering how you can MEASURE the effectiveness of social media. The answer is through constant analysis and monitoring. There are several measurement tools that are available online. Here are some of the sites that I am in the process of trialing and checking out as recommended by new media God, Chris Brogan:
In PR rather than advertising? I have good news!
The PR world is now taking advantage of these tools to measure, manage and analyze the impact of social media on their clients’ site traffic. Through these tools, PR professionals can come up with marketing strategies to increase sales.
However, measurement of social media is still a matter of debate among marketers because there’s an absence of accepted metrics. This doesn’t mean that we can’t come up with a qualitative or quantitative approach in determining the impact of social media in businesses such as the eGaming industry.
Advertisers are now starting to adopt this new type of online advertising pricing structure called Cost Per Engagement (CPE). Interaction is the key. Online users are invited to participate in online polls, watch a video, play a game and other interactive action orientated stuff. In online gaming sites, target demographics can be encouraged to sign up by downloading gaming software that doesn’t require real money. Fun play.
As affiliates in the eGaming industry, we are faced with another shift in marketing strategies. We can still implement ad pricing structures such as Cost Per Click (CPC), Cost Per Action (CPA) and Cost Per Impression (CPM) but these may soon be a thing of the past if CPE goes full blast.
By applying the marketing strategies for Facebook and Twitter that I mentioned earlier, you can encourage the users to visit your respective sites. You can keep track of site visitors by using Google Analytics. I suggest that you sign up for this free service because Google Analytics provides detailed statistics.
Customer Relationship Management
The challenge has been imposed to you in terms of maintaining a relationship with the users. Social media marketing has made it possible to retain the interest of the online players because they are receiving legitimate and great offers and not SPAM messages. This is imperative in the eGaming industry because clients have several gaming sites to choose from (fickle and promiscuous as they are), 90 day lifecycles and bonuses to chase. It would be easy for them to make the switch if they find that they are not getting their money’s worth. This is how churn has got out of hand as folks have focused on huge CPAs rather than using decent Recency, Frequency, Monetary, Latency etc metrics, running quintiles, using simple excel (Concatenate!). Come on, read Jim Novo!!!
One you have applied the marketing strategies for Facebook and Twitter, it would be easier for you to communicate with existing and future clients by posting motivating message or interesting articles and links in your personal or company’s accounts. If it piques their interest, there’s a big chance that they will share it to their network of friends and so on.
Who will be first with Twitter Bingo Moms ? I will watch the space 
Final Thoughts
Social media marketing at this point is still a work in progress. There’s still a matter of creating an actual structure that it acceptable to everyone. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do anything about it. All you have to do is make use of these social media tools and CONNECT with your target demographics. Interact with your customers and retain their trust. Cheaper than any rakeback program I know of!
If you want to get updates, don’t hesitate to access my official site at www.sarawaller.com.
Happy playing!
Tags: bingo, casino, eGaming, facebook, Poker, social media, sportsbook, twitter
