Online and mobile gaming are rapidly growing, intensely competitive industries with new games, sites and technologies emerging constantly. Social media and SEO can be powerful tools in attracting visitors - but avoid clichés and easy fixes, says Greentube’s Pernille Rude.
EVERY day, the LinkedIn newsfeed, Twitter promotions and emailed newsletters deliver familiar promises: “five ways to improve your social media marketing”, “10 steps to drive more traffic to your website”, “six easy steps to successfully marketing your business online.”
While these articles may serve as useful inspiration, it is important to remember that there are never any universal solutions or easy fixes in marketing, especially not in an industry as complex as online gaming.
Today, most companies have a fan page on Facebook. With the right strategy and content, Facebook pages, apps and ads can be a very successful way of communicating with gamers. Facebook can increase brand awareness, facilitate content sharing and help to better understand target audiences. But remember that social media marketing serves one prime purpose: generating sales. It is generally easy for marketers to drive traffic to your Facebook fan page and get many ‘likes’, but it is basically useless if you are not targeting the right people – the ones who will go to your site, play your games or place money on bets. Facebook is not necessarily for all companies – if you do not have a structured plan, interesting message and creative content, you need to be careful. A dull Facebook profile with no exciting content and limited user interaction can be more damaging to your brand than not having one.
Moreover, you might discover that visitors to your site are not just active on Facebook. Bloggers, online debate forums etc. might be equally important. Analyse the online behaviour of your target group and find the opinion leaders in their online networks – getting them to talk about your products or linking to your site can more valuable than collecting ‘likes’.
Read the full article in the latest issue of iNTERGAMINGi.
