How Social Media Impacts Profits in the Gaming Industry

As it stands, statistics reveal the online gaming and social media industries are among the top-ranked and fastest growing industries on the market. It’s not really difficult to see why these two industries are fast becoming the strongest in the world especially in terms of revenue figures both monthly and annually.

Looking at social media, there are three key factors that are behind its success. The first factor refers to the stickiness of social media as most social media users are quite loyal as they use their favourite social media platform on a daily basis.

The second key factor refers to the programmatic audience-buying tools where digital marketers look at advertising to key audiences via social media. This in turn, creates new revenue streams for advertisers and is one of the main reasons why social media is popular for businesses such as the online gaming industry as these two complement each other in many ways.

Social Media used as a tool to attract more customers

As alluded to above, social media paves the way to the success of several industries including the online gaming industry. There are three main ways in which social media is used to do achieve this.

Firstly, social media is used as a tool to attract more customers. As social media is sticky, a ton of social media users login to their favourite platforms almost on a daily basis, and for some, they login several times during a day. Due to the stickiness of social media, casino operators such as Novibet, and game developers know that once their ad campaigns are live, it will turn leads into sales as soon as they hit different social media platforms.

Furthermore, social media’s precise ad analytics ensure that all ads created do not just pop up on screens of users who are do not express an interest in online gaming, but will rather reach the intended audience i.e. social media users who are into online gaming or who are likely to be persuaded into purchasing different online gaming products.

Most businesses in the online gaming industry have realised the potential that lies with social media advertising and they are harnessing that potential by using social media ads as tools to attract more customers. Several top genuine online casinos run several ads on different platforms all with the aim of attracting more players. Ads created by such companies, meant at attracting new customers, come in different forms with most being welcome promotions. With these, casino operators entice players by sharing bits of information which outline the benefits that players receive upon registration such as no deposit bonuses, freerolls and free spins.

There is a general consensus in the online gaming industry on the massive positive impact done by mobile technology. While the dotcom boom at the turn of the millennium heralded the online gaming revolution, mobile technology brought about its own revolution in the online gaming industry several years later as the industry gained millions of customers in a relatively short space of time. At the forefront of this mobile tech revolution was social media advertising as it was the ‘foot soldier’ which turned many leads into sales.

Social media as a gaming platform

Apart from being used as a tool to attract new customers, social media also serves as a gaming platform. Gone are the days when players had to purchase consoles and the like, but these days, thanks to the power of social media, gamers can now play several games on different social media platforms.

The advent of social media as a gaming platform started with social games. Social games are those sorts of games like Farmville and Candy Crush. At first, the use of social media as a gaming platform was experimental as game developers such as Zynga released games that they were not sure would gain traction or not. However, the reception that social games received was quite impressive and what once started as an experiment became a fully-fledged business venture. In 2017, Zynga generated total revenue of $861 million, which is a testament to the massive success of social media as a gaming platform.

Recognising the potential that lies within social media when used as a gaming platform, casino operators soon joined the bandwagon and started rolling out their casino games on Facebook. Today, there are dozens of casino operators who use social media platforms as their gaming platforms.

In order to attract more customers and at the same time reap huge profits, game developers and casino operators are now largely focusing on rolling out freemium games.

Social media as a unifying platform

Social also serves to unite game developers and casino operators with its player base. Attracting customers is the first, but not the only step to be taken by game developers and casino operators if they want to be successful. In order to truly become household names, game developers and casino operators need to develop a relationship with their customers and social media is used as the unifying platform that brings players and online gaming businesses together.

Further to this, online advertisers may look at increasing engagement metrics with their customers via online chatrooms and the like. It is on these platforms where game advertisers show their human side through acknowledging the queries, questions, comments and suggestions of players, while at the same time, provide the necessary responses if need be. It is also via social media that game advertisers get to strengthen the bond that exists between them and the players. To do this, gaming ventures may introduce monthly bonuses and/or loyalty programs which reward players for their loyalty.

When the bond is strengthened, players are most likely to remain loyal to the game developer and casino operator, which means that more money is garnered through gaming product purchases, relationship building and ease of use. This then results in more profits for the gaming industry.