It is sometimes astonishing how poorly- and under-utilized social media still is by so many companies. This is in spite of the fact that social media is perhaps the primary marketing tool of choice today, with major platforms having leaned into it by including features such as shoppable posts amid other content. But even conservative organizations have figured out that social media is a vital part of a modern strategy.
One industry that is ahead of the curve is iGaming, which is huge in India and, in the next two years, is projected to be worth 2.5 times what it was globally in 2016. But by what methods does the industry use social media platforms to leverage its products and services toward these phenomenal gains? Those can be put into a few categories.
Affiliate Programs
One of the biggest trends in social media has been toward streaming services like Amazon-owned Twitch and Youtube Live. There are agencies like Viral Nation that have specialized in connecting influencers with companies for years now. At the time of writing, slots as a category is ranked 13th most popular on TwitchTracker— ahead of popular titles like Hearthstone and Call of Duty: Warzone — and has ranked even higher in the past. That’s no accident, but substantially thanks to efforts on the part of iGaming companies.
Showcasing New Games
Whether on streaming services like those mentioned above or on platforms that emphasize more tightly curated media like Instagram or Facebook, there are individuals that the iGaming industry encourages to affiliate and promote games. When an iGaming company has a new title it wants to show off, it needs to make an effort to get the message out there, and go further than using other platforms also to create live content on its own platforms. For example, Gala Bingo has live casino games such as Boom City and Sweet Bonanza Candyland Live, where a real host is there throughout the proceedings. There is then a whole secondary set of content creation on platforms like Youtube providing guides on how to play the new games.
Brand Awareness
As their major revenue stream, the major platforms are always keen to encourage companies to take out ads that typically feature as ‘sponsored content’ on feeds, and iGaming is certainly no stranger to this. While ‘click-throughs’ are a valuable source of revenue, often encouraged by free plays, simply viewing an advert will help social media users remember the company name and understand it to be a reputable brand. As for the use of official accounts to promote iGaming content, the demographics vary by age group, with at least one study in the UK showing that those following gambling company accounts tend to skew younger.
SEO
On the subject of brand awareness, search engine optimization (SEO) can be combined with social media content to attract eyeballs and therefore traffic. Said traffic in turn is an important factor in search engine rankings itself. It is considered important enough that companies often have SEO specialist roles within marketing departments, who help to engineer posts that maximize results. This means leveraging demographic information and user needs in the context of iGaming, which is precisely the sort of data that social media companies aim to provide as a service.
The explosion in gaming’s popularity has meant that more and more people today are looking to engage with it. There are a number of components to a social media landscape that keeps evolving to include more dynamic content over time. Companies in the iGaming space take advantage of every development, to great success.
