Well I run out of ideas this week so started to analyse things that I like lately related with the social network or marketing digital. Suddenly I realized that these late weeks I have playing a new game in my Ipad, a social game where I attack other users’ castles and they attack my castle.
So I started to research a little bit on what is behind the social gaming. I discovered that social gaming is not only a business based on networking and entertainment but also a new channel where companies can promote products and develop their communication and marketing strategy.
Games are positive experiences; social gaming can create communities where the brands can promote their recognition in a not intrusive and recreational way.
Around 250 millions of users play social games in Facebook, this activity yielded in 2011 a 12% of their $3,700 million income. 81 millions of people play at least once per day devoting 9.5 hours per week. Here you can see more surprising data from Mashable.
Companies can make more visible their brands in a lot of different ways; including advertising in the game, making explicit references to them, giving (or selling) items for the game or for real life… This is called “advergaming”.
But as we could see the last class, there is a most important outcome here, data mining. If we mix 9,5 hours per week at least once per day exposure to social gaming with the precise and monitoreable target segmentation of Facebook, we make super easy for companies to point to very receptive potential customers.
The way of exploding the social gaming for branding is just limited by the imagination and creativity of marketing departments and agencies. That is why Facebook was trying to partnership with some social game developers before the IPO.
Now I am sorry but I am going to play for a while ;P
Sources:
http://www.ecommpro.es/social-gaming-los-jugadores-sociales-contados/