Was there ever a time when media wasn’t social? Granted, the width and depth of connections possible with today’s tools was unimaginable barely a decade ago. Yet, despite the hype surrounding it in internet marketing circles, doing social media correctly can be an underwhelmingly simple task.
We could go and complicate things big-time by mentioning all sorts of additional tools and services used by marketers to nail their social media strategy. At the heart of it all though, it’s all just plain old common sense.
In the second article of our four-part series, we take a contrarian’s perspective of social media. Rather than delve into its complexities, we’ll just take a dip into its refreshing simplicity. Give your audience what it wants, when it wants it, packaged in the most natural way for them to have it.
Good social media connections are not about dumb luck
A numbers game?
Many discussions about social media marketing centre around finding more cunning ways to draw the biggest number of likes or followers.
Despite their intangibility, the imaginary weight of this mass of desirable social signals drags the conversation down to a simplistic my-page-is-bigger-than-yours argument.
Engaging customers and inviting them to take part-ownership in your social media presence takes a lot more courage and effort than that. You’d surely walk away from a networking event where everybody talks about themselves all the time and never asks what is it that you do.
In fact, it defeats the whole purpose of social media when you’re the one who dictates the kind of content your followers get to see. So here’s an idea: ask them what they want from your social media channels. What would they like to see more and less of? Go a step further and ask them ‘why?‘
This can be achieved in many ways. One less-travelled road is to ask your customers directly by sending short email surveys or requests for feedback. This will work best with your most loyal subset of customers, and it shows how social and email marketing strategies can actually support and complement each other.
Do it in real-time
If there’s one casualty in the relentless intrusion of social media in every aspect of our lives – that is, besides our privacy – it’s the old-fashioned idea of building and launching elaborate marketing campaigns centred around one concept and which spans a number of weeks or even months.
Real-time is the name of the game when it comes to social media marketing nowadays. This is a direct extension of the concept that the quickest person in a competition wins, which we discussed in the previous article. This time round, the arena is the internet gaming market and the prize money is revenue which could be added to your company’s bottom line.
Real-time social media marketing forces companies to stay nimble and alert to the wider context they are operating in. There are myriad opportunities, arising every day, to which iGaming operators could respond by incorporating them into their marketing efforts.
The latest sports results, a freak event or weird news making the rounds on social feeds, and celebrity and corporate mishaps are all grist to the social media marketing mill. You just have to be quick enough to catch them. Better still, have somebody else do it for you!
Be trendy (and never, ever user ‘trendy’, ever again)
Short of having you physically standing there right next to them all the time, your customers expect your company to adapt to their every move with near-telepathic immediacy. The tables have certainly turned on corporations, who now have to keep up with the latest trends in their customers online habits and more.
Different social media channels typically appeal to a distinct type of user and each has its own set of conventions. Understanding and speaking the native language of every channel you use is vital to get your message across effectively, even though the uniqueness of your company’s voice should remain intact no matter which platform you’re using at any moment.
Unfortunately, the biggest pitfall in social media marketing is that companies do not the learn the lingo. This ultimately results in poor engagement levels from the fans and a page that has become irrelevant both to them and the company that created it, even as the latter scurries to be the first in line for the next big thing in social media.
The simple truth, which many companies tend to overlook, is that so far there’s no cookie-cutter approach available which makes social media marketing pay off without putting in all the effort.
Will there be one in the future? We’re not holding our breaths.
Save the best for last…
That concludes the second article in our four-part series about the basic principles of internet marketing for iGaming companies, in which we discussed how to make smarter use of social media to engage customers and promote the gaming experience your website offers.
If you have any questions or comments about this article drop us a line on our website and let us know what’s on your mind. The team at Systemato is always glad to advise on internet marketing matters and share tips on how you can craft a social media strategy that engages followers and increases your brand’s influence.
Otherwise, you could simply tell us what you need and we’ll create, implement and manage a social media marketing plan tailored to your clientele’s tastes. You just have to roll the dice.
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