How Brands sHould use social GaminG to d r i v e e n G aG e m e n t:

insight and best Practices

by adam archer, general manager of vitrue games december 06, 2011

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introduction: Gaming is a Unique Engagement Vehicle for Fans and Brands Best Practices: Define Your Goals Best Practices: Dont Build Games From Scratch Best Practices: Understand The Power of Viral Connections Best Practices: Measure Best Practices: Simplify and Beautify Best Practices: Integrating Your Brand Within The Game Best Practices: Charitable Giving Best Practices: Market Your Game vitrues oBserved social GaminG results case study: Vitrue Games and Masterlock case study: Vitrue Games and Dial summary

table of contents

ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii. ix. x. xi. xii. xiii.

Beyond the visible popularity of online social games such as Zyngas FarmVille and Mafia Wars, social gaming while users are engaged with Facebook continues to grow as a tremendous engagement opportunity.

introduction

According to eMarketers July 2011 study on social gaming forecasts that there will be 73.6 million social gamers by 2013 with 44.8% of those players being social network users.

the Player audience exists and the engagement Potential is there, so why arent more brands using social gaming as a way to engage with their fans?
Facebook estimates that active monthly social gamers make up roughly 40% of their overall user base; that means approximately 320 million users are playing social games each month on Facebook alone. According to a study done by IGA-Nielsen* , Interpret and Hitwise, online gaming now surpasses email in terms of engagement time spent. In addition, the NPD Group has released research highlighting the fact that 53% of social gamers are women.

Sources: *IGA-Nielsen, Interpret, Hitwise: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/84807/iga-nielsen-in-game-ads-boost-positive-product-p.html?print

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Social gaming is no longer just for the hardcore male gamer with 61% being female casual social gamers (source: Kabam, Social Gamer Research Study conducted by Information Solutions Group, Sep 22, 2011). Lastly, one of the biggest findings in media right now is how engaged are social gamers compared to traditional television viewers. Well a 2010 study showed that on average, FarmVille had 33 million players engaged on a weekly basis compared to prime time television juggernauts Dancing With the Stars and NBCs Sunday Night Football, which engage with 21 million viewers and 20 million viewers, respectively.

clearly the time for marketers to fully understand the Power of social games is now.

We also know that the revenue potential is there as well. Estimates are that US social gaming revenue will hit $2.18 billion by the end of 2012, a 67% increase from 2009. Social gaming revenue is typically divided between advertisers and virtual currency purchases (either directly or indirectly through deals and offers). The majority of growth will come from virtual currency and micro-transactions, but advertising will also grow as US ad spending on social gaming is expected to increase to 33% by the end of the year, with non-US ad spending on social gaming growing by 160%. Here at Vitrue, we have recognized the potential of social games for quite some time, and with the market-leading Vitrue Games platform, have collected insight and best practices that every marketer should be aware of. With the continued growth of social games and the volume of Facebook users growing, it is time that marketers around the world build new engagement strategies to leverage this powerful medium.

Sources: **eMarketer, TV by the Numbers, App Data, Mindshare, The NPD Group: http://www.dreamgrow.com/social-media-gaming-infographic/

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best Practices: deFine your Goals

Like every other social strategy that marketers manage, success in social gaming engagement starts with defining your goal. Knowing what you want the gaming experience to be will go a long way in choosing the right game and right engagement. You need to build the type of game that will accomplish your goal and target your desired audience.

w He n d e Fi ni nG yo ur Goal s , co n sider tH e Follow i nG oP tio n s:

Fan Growth Fan EnGaGEmEnt Viral Growth rEVEnuE GEnEration Coupon or SalES promotion SiGn-upS CampaiGn ComponEnt part oF a BroadEr CampaiGn

When launching a social gaming campaign, there is no right or wrong goal. You must determine what is best for your brand and your overall marketing strategy at that time. Social games are naturally high in engagement with builtin viral components. They are the perfect vehicle for fan growth and building your community, but they are equally as successful at driving brand awareness, revenue and promotions.

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Remember that you are building a game to engage your social community; you are not building a game to become the next great video game publishing company. As marketers, we should focus on successful campaign development and in that vein remember that you do not need to have a team of game developers on staff to custom build a game. Building a game yourself, or having your agency build a game for you can cost well over $1M, and weve seen time and time again, these games can perform poorly because it often takes years to understand, build, do the necessary measurement and iterates to build a successful branded social game. It often takes a veteran game studio solely dedicated to this effort because the topic is quite complex.

best Practices: dont Build it From scratcH

instead, consider Partnering with a comPany that has a library of white label social games that your comPany can use to engage with your fans.

Start out using game styles or concepts that your fans already know and love. Once you gain traction with your fans, then start to look at expanding your social gaming strategy into original gaming concepts.

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Technically speaking, viral is an object or pattern that is able to induce some agents to replicate it, resulting in many copies being produced and spread around.

best Practices: understand tHe Power oF viral connections

Social games provide a terrific platform for the members of your social community to connect with their own friends through their word of mouth efforts..

vir al connections are imPortant, Primarily because they helP you achieve your goals, as well as make the game more social and therefore, more fun.

As it related to gaming, and still staying technical, the formula from kSuite Social Metrics tells us the 1-Day Virality on Monday is the number of users that Monday-installers influenced to install the application within one day, divided by the total number of Monday-installers. However, for a layman, the calculation can be much easier. Using a simplified example. If you drive 100 fans to your game on Monday, and those 100 fans bring in 10 additional fans through viral channels, your virality for Monday is 10%. Why is this important? Because it helps you achieve your marketing goals. As an example, if your goal is in-game sales, attain 20% virality in your game, and youve probably achieved 20% increase in your in-game sales numbers because of the additional visitors. In addition, Facebooks new Open Graph capabilities now allow the sharing of the fact you are playing a game to be automatic and frictionless (meaning there are few to no hoops a player has to go through to communicate to their friends that they are playing the game).

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m e tri c s to m oni tor i nclud e :

visits

total number

uniQue visits

averaGe Playtime Per visit

best Practices: measure

fans acQuired
Knowing how your game is performing on any number of criteria will help you evolve a more precise social gaming strategy. As you learn what does and does not appeal to make adjustments until you see the needle moving on the goal or metric you have set out to improve. your brands fans, you can

virality (SharinG %)

breakdown of your Goals

conversions and SiGn-upS downloads levels comPlete

couPon

in-GamE

clicks

1 2 3 4 5

iP t

conti nuously tr ack P erFo r man ce

Even if youve obtained your measurement goals, continue tracking metrics throughout the life of the game. In particular, you may start to notice different trends in engagement that you can turn into a learning for your next social game.

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If a game is confusing to understand, difficult to maneuver or just simply boring, players are likely to move on to other activities. The rule of thumb at Vitrue Games is that the first five seconds of the players gaming experience are the most crucial in keeping the player engaged. A player will be more drawn to a game and spend more time engaging with the game (and your brand), if you keep in the mind the following elements during development:

best Practices: simPliFy and BeautiFy

thE inVitation to play iS ClEar thE GamE iS EaSy to Start playinG thErE arE no rulES or hEaVy instructions to read thE GamE iS ViSually appEalinG any audio in thE GamE iS EnjoyaBlE and not annoying oFFEr inCEntiVES to play thE GamE

iP t

m i ni m i ze Bar r iers
Though fan-gating is a proven way to increase fan growth, make sure your game does not require any sort of Facebook install beyond Liking the page. In order to maximize the number of fans playing the game, try to minimize the number of barriers to getting started with the game as possible.

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Social games experience over 100x more clicks on buttons integrated into the game than do media posts, indicating that this is a great opportunity to organically connect your brand with your fans. Incorporate your brand into the game through elements such as:

best Practices: inteGrate your Brand witHin tHe Game

Fun FaCtS rEtail CallS-to-aCtion addEd-ValuE - ExiStinG CouponS - SwEEpStakES or GiVEawayS EVEnt traCkinG Fan-GatE (rEquirE SomEonE to likE your BrandS paGE BEForE thEy Can play)

Think beyond just branding a game with a logo and colors, and keep in mind how you can achieve the goals you have developed, be it increasing fan growth, revenue generation or otherwise. Be creative and strategic with brand integration into your social game through branded in-game elements.

iP t

Br and e d in cen tiv es

Sweepstakes and giveaways have long been a marketing staple, so it should come as no surprise they work just as well when incorporated into social gaming. Give your players something tangible to strive for or achieve. Or let them know that just playing the game gives them the chance to win something great. It will make the experience more fun and exciting for them, expose them to your brand on a more interactive level, and youll have helped them justify the time they spend playing.

Note: In order to stay within Facebook Guidelines on sweepstakes and giveaways, it is necessary to request sweepstakes entrants information via a popup window versus Facebooks own app install info.

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Incorporating charitable giving within a branded social game has the dual benefit of providing engagement and high profile exposure for a brands charitable giving foundation with a low cost game on Facebook. 75% of consumers say they would try a brand they normally would not if it supports a cause they care about.*** Based on Vitrues client data, social games that integrate charitable giving have also been proven to increase engagement and virality with your branded game by up-to 10x compared to games that have no charitable giving component.**** Social games with charitable giving are also an excellent way to introduce your brand to potential new customers and an efficient way to get those potential new customers to feel positive about your company, willing to be associated with it, and build a relationship with your brand.

best Practices: inteGrate cHaritaBle GivinG

iP t

P l ay lo n G e r . d o m ore G ood !
Set up charitable giving within your social game such that frequency of play and length of time played by your fans, the more money will be contributed to the charity. You can also give players an incentive to play to a certain point in the game, for example, get to level 3 and youll help to provide a meal for a hungry child. If there is one thing that might serve as even more of an incentive to play a social game than winning a prize, it is the feeling of being a do-gooder just by playing.

Sources: ***Cone Cause Evolution: http://www.coneinc.com/2010-cone-cause-evolution-study ****Metrics pulled from Vitrue client data, indicate that time on a Facebook page varies. Vitrue clients have experienced that charitable game applications exceed 30 minutes of time-on-page, and in-page charitable games exceed 17 minutes of gameplay per visit.

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Your social game might be the little engine that could, but to have it operating at peak efficiency, you have to add a little fuel to that engine. That fuel is paid media in the form of Facebook Ads, which can expose users to the game, whether theyre already fans of your brand or not, and provide them an easy link to immediately start playing and engaging. Beyond that, you can rest in the knowledge that if youve done your job right, fans who are playing the game will be doing a lot of your marketing for you, as their engagement with the game get sent out to friends News Feeds and placed on their own Timeline

best Practices: market your Game

iP t

k e e P i t B r i eF
Facebook Ads can drive targeted traffic to your game, if done right. Remember, you dont have a lot of room for copy in a Facebook ad, so youll have to fire up your creative powers to come up with text that will entice them to play in a simple way.

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vitrues oBserved social GaminG results

Companies specializing in social community management tools, such as Vitrue, are all too aware of the growing demand for branded social games, and have made it relatively quick and easy to choose a game, skin it for the brand, and launch it on Facebook. As mentioned earlier, provided the task is not to craft a completely original game from scratch, skinnable, traditional games are a very cost-effective way to offer this fun and interactive content to your fans. The analytics tools, such as the Vitrue Games metrics available via Vitrue Analytics, are readily available to chart the engagement your new social game is getting. With this data, you can make adjustments to make the game even more engaging, or you can quickly determine whether or not the strategy is meeting the goals you set out for it.

Here are top line results that Vitrue has observed through our customers social gaming efforts:

sH ar in G
Per the Vitrue Games and Masterlock case study, Vitrue has seen up to 50-100% of social game players sharing the brand through a combination of in-game sharing and Like-gating. (Please see full Vitrue Games and Masterlock case study on the following pages).

en GaGemen t
Vitrue has observed up to 10x more active engagement (time on page) with brands upon the launch of a social game. Weve also seen game revisit rates of 75%.

acQ uisitio n
Per overall data Vitrue pulled from clients using Vitrue Games, we have determined that when it comes to a brands average cost per Like, the investment of launching a branded social game represents up to a 60% savings.

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case study: vitrue Games and masterlock

Masterlock was interested in not only acquiring and engaging fans on their Facebook page, but also in promoting their new product, an innovative, touch-style combination lock, with a branded game. Vitrue Games recommended and executed a Facebook fan acquisition and engagement campaign with a custom branded and really fun, slick game based upon the Simon Says game engine for Masterlocks Facebook page.

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case study: vitrue Games and masterlock

virality in the first 10 days

65%

At 155 days live, Masterlock saw 28,599 absolute unique visitors and 18,260 new fans acquired post-launch, with 100% of players sharing with their friends. That is, for every 1000 people driven to the game, those 1000 brought in an additional 650 through viral channels.

28,599 absolute uniquE ViSitors new fanS aCquirEd 18,260 Post-launch

In addition, players spent an average of 2.5 minutes playing the game, deeply engaged with the brand, with more than 8% returning to the page again to play the game.

2:47

2 minute 47 second average time Per game engaged with masterlock brand

Masterlock donated $25,000 to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation through the game, during October 2011s National Breast Cancer Awareness month, with motivated players donating $1 per level.

$25,000

masterlock donated $25,000 to the breast cancer research foundation through the game

$
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case study: vitrue Games and dial

Dial was interested in not only acquiring and engaging fans on their Facebook page, but also in promoting their new product, their NutriSkin Lotions, with a branded game. Vitrue Games recommended and executed a Facebook fan acquisition and engagement campaign with a custom branded and really fun, slick game based upon the Memory Card game engine for Dials Facebook page.

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16%

7%
7% of Players Posted to their stream

case study: vitrue Games and dial

At 197 days live, Dial saw 161,415 new fans acquired post-launch (up 301% from the prior period) thanks in large part due to sharing from the game. For example, 7% of players shared the game with their friends, and every post from the game saw 1.3 feedbacks (a like or comment from a friend). In addition, players spent an average of 6.26 minutes playing the game, deeply engaged with the brand, with more than 16% of visits from returning players

16% of visits from returning visitors

161, 415 nEw FanS aCquirEd poSt-launCh FEEdBaCk (likE or CommEnt) 1.3 Per share
6 minute 26 second average time Per game engaged with dial brand
34%

6:26
9.4% 2.2% 55+ 0.72%

Gender and aGe

31%

The demographic breakdown of those playing the game was heavily Female with 65% of those on the leaderboard being Female 25 44.
male 5.8% Female 91% 1.4% 13-17

12%

18-24

25-34 1.4%

35-44 2.9%

45-54 0.72%

$500

Dial donated up to $500 per month to The Endometriosis Foundation for America through the game, motivating players by donating up to 10 cents for every minute they played.

dial donated uP to $500 Per month to the endometriosis foundation for america through the game

$
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the verdict is in; social games are one of the most engaging forms of content with which a brand can be involved.

summary

Given that recent Facebook changes have increased the overall importance of engagement in showing up in fans News Feeds, addictive, easy, interactive content such as social gaming may be a valuable part of a comprehensive strategy for securing that engagement.

tHe ke y takeaways on How you r B r an d s Hou ld u s e s oci al G ami nG to dri v e en G aG em en t are:

Develop your social gaming strategy around what is best for your brand and your overall marketing strategy at that time Analyze the performance of your social game throughout its run and evolve a more precise social gaming strategy accordingly to get the best results There is no need to spend the time or money building a game from scratch as there are companies who have white-labeled games available for you to brand quickly and easily Understand the power of viral connections and develop a branded social game with elements that encourage social users to share your game via their News Feeds A player will be more drawn to a game and spend more time engaging with the game (and your brand), if you keep it simple and pleasant to view and listen to Organically connect your brand with your fans by integrating branded added-value or other engaging elements within the game Quickly increase engagement and provide high profile exposure for your brands charitable giving platform by Incorporating charitable giving within a branded social game Market your branded social game to fans and other Facebook users via Facebook Adsthis will provide them an easy link to immediately start playing and engaging

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about vitrue
Vitrue (www.vitrue.com) is the leading social marketing platform, offering software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions to help brands and agencies harness the marketing potential of social and manage their expanding and sophisticated social communities on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and emerging platforms. Anchored by its industry-leading Vitrue Social Relationship Management (SRM) platform, Vitrue is collectively managing its clients more than 935 million social relationships in 47 countries across 4,000 Facebook and Twitter accounts. Vitrues stable of clients include many of the worlds leading global brands and agencies. Vitrue has been at the forefront of social media in terms of innovating, developing and intellectually leading the way. We want to use our platform knowledge and best practices to aggressively drive social media forward and continually strive for ways to help shape this ever-changing, ever-growing medium. We are committed to moving the industry forward and will continue to provide our findings to help shape discourse and debate. Headquartered in Atlanta with offices in New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, San Francisco and an international office in London, Vitrue is a Facebook Preferred Developer Consultant and has received numerous industry accolades including the Red Herring Global 100 and OnMedia 100. For more information, visit www.vitrue.com.

vitrue
@vitrue

facebook.com/vitrue info@vitrue.com

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@vitrue

adam archer
General Manager, Vitrue Games CEO and Co-Founder of GamesThatGive (Acquired by Vitrue), Adam Archer is now the General Manager of Vitrue Games. Previously, Adam served as a senior software engineer at Apple, working on many aspects of Mac OS X, and as a software engineer for Microsoft MSN. Adam is an experienced organic farmer and has backpacked extensively around the world. Adam holds a B.S.E. in Computer Engineering from Arizona State University.

adam@vitrue.com

i. ii.

introduction a. Methodology understandinG sPam

contents table of

iii. identiFyinG sPam iv. does unwanted user Generated content eFFect every PaGe? v. summary

vi. Best Practices: moderation a. Defining Your Brands Social Identity and Engagement Approach b. Establishing the Rules of Engagement c. Blocking and Tackling with Facebook Filters d. Facebook Filters Options e. Monitor Your Spam Activity f. Consider a Moderation Tool g. Understanding the Power of Word Lists h. Tips for Creating Word Lists/Blocklists

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