Influencers & Community Marketing » facebook

Adoption of Social Media by the Gaming Industry

arthurecairn — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 23:38:29 +0000

The presence of social media is not something that big developers and publishers like Electronic Arts and Activision have ignored. Just last week, developers of the highly anticipated Starcraft 2 announced that they will be adding Facebook integration into their upcoming title. Big players in the video game industry always play on the bleeding edge of developments in technology, marketing and business models; social media is no exception. So, if social media is the new marketing frontier, where do game developers stand?

Let’s take a step back first; before the social media boom, publishers were already creating online forums and moderating feedback from users. You would easily find feedback from users on what features they liked the most, and what features they hated. Sentiment was as simple as collecting and organizing feedback from magazines and website reviews. Marketers and producers who were tech savvy enough would post forum polls and track discussions from commercial and independent forums. User feedback on the internet was manageable, and located in pockets of communities that the astute marketer would easily find.

Today, the widespread presence of syndicated, published and independent blogs, news about upcoming titles spreads faster than publishers plan for. Biased news leaks and raw speculation leave poor impressions in the minds of discerning gamers. It is difficult to predict and find key community influencers who spark the strongest opinions. This puts developers in a position where they have little to no control of community sentiment before the release date. There are so many different influencers and communities that affect sentiment about a product; it is beyond the control of marketing directors and community managers to find the right one.

The video game blog community is large and extremely active.

Some developers have found a way to regain some of that control. Bioware Corp, well known for creating large open ended worlds for gamers to explore, created the Bioware Social Network. http://social.bioware.com/home.php? This network has become a haven for fans to create their own dedicated blogs, share media, experiences and provide essential feedback for the developers. This gives Bioware increased ability to monitor continued sentiment, maintain customer retention, and build up reputation and hype for future game releases.

By creating their own pocketed community, Bioware hopes to bring a majority of the conversations into a community they can easily monitor, just like in the old days. That alone is not enough; creating an in house community excludes the tens of thousands of conversations of lesser known small to medium gaming influencers and blogs that heavily influence the opinions of readers and writers of larger communities.

There is no doubt that it takes quite a lot of resources to develop and maintain social networking campaigns, let alone the metaphorical social media crusade Bioware launched. In an industry where even small developers have a great chance to make it big, where do they find the tools to reach out to these gamers and influencers? Let’s face it, most developers don’t have the resources and manpower to launch their own social network. These guys need to partake in guerilla marketing; they need to find efficient yet effective methods to bring themselves closer to the tipping point. They need to stimulate the nodes where conversations between gamers and influencers generate the most buzz for their brand.

In short, it’s expensive to launch large social media networks and campaigns. The little guys are going to have to play smart to stay on top of the game (no pun intended). If only there were a powerful yet inexpensive way for small to medium developers to engage the communities and influencers that make a difference for them… =]

Posted by: Arthur Huynh

Content targeting, Behavioral targeting, why I prefer the first

eCairn — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:41:25 +0000

I don’t know whether you’re like me but I hate behavioral targeting.

On one end, it’s entirely built on making use of data I consider private but most important, I find it so basic that it makes me angry. Should I say that it’s lacking “finesse”. I have ended up using Ad blocker on all the sites that do that.

To make a long story short, it works as follows: you disclose that you’re pregnant or just had a baby and you’re bombarded with ads for baby products until you’ll be fed up with it and change your profile – pretend you’re a man- or they figure out your child has just turned 12 .

From an external view, it doesn’t sound much different from “search advertising” which made Google so successful: you type “baby food” as a query and you’re offered advertising for cribs.

But it IS different . In behavioral targeting, the brand is making the first move so they have to earn the right for your attention which means they have to be clever. Expectations are not the same.

Behavioral targeting misses the suggestion power that marketing and advertising is all about. It’s too mechanical and not clever enough for humans. First time it’s funny. 10 000’s time, you fell you’re interacting with monkeys – not that I have anything against monkeys -.

Have you ever be surprised by an ad on Facebook ?

The art of influence and suggestion is more or less a dating game and content targeting offers a much better play for brand to express their creativity without the risk of being perceived as “engines”.

Language is such a wonderful thing.

Much more complex, much more human.

Social Media’s Side Effect

laurentpf — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:44:41 +0000

Sharing for fun, or for thoughts .

I stumble on these two posts during my daily musing of our list of ~1000 social media marketing blog.

First, a piece of psycho-analysis on twittering, which was brought to my attention by Andy:
From the clinical psychologist Oliver James:“Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It’s a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity.”
Me: Is it possible we wouldn’t say anything to anybody if we had a strong sense of identity?

Second, a risk to your health of too much social networking, which was brought to my attention by Matt:
Based on a paper by Dr Aric Sigman: “social networking sites such as Facebook could raise your risk of serious health problems”. Apparently it’s to do with spending less time socialising with people face-to-face and could lead to a rise in illnesses including cancer.
Me: Will that be a virtual cancer?

Ever heard of the blackberry thumb?

And this is interesting…talks about how social influence spread in social networks.

Joke apart, technology is so pervasive that it’s really easy nowadays to abuse it and when you cross an invisible limit, different for each of us, you may suffer.
It’s clear that we have to be able to disconnect. We have to accept that there’s way too much to read, way too much to share with others….and we can’t know it all. And that it’s ok. May be we should spend more time in our circle of influence!