Games have been one of the biggest growth areas on social networks within the last few years and brands have had to consider if online games are a tool they can use to engage with their customers. These games are not those associated with the X-box and Playstation but those on social network sites such as Facebook.
Facebook is clearly the most popular place to partake in these games with over 83% of respondents to an Information Services Group survey undertaken on behalf of Popcap Games saying that this was a site they had played games on.
The survey found that 55% of social gamers are women and that they are also more regular gamers than men with 38% of women saying they played multiple times a day compared to only 29% of men. Women are also more likely to play with people they know (which will help in reaching personal networks which are easier to leverage). The average social gamer the research found is a 43 year old women.
Social games are varied with the best known and most highly played being Farmville, Fish World and Pet Society (animals are currently very popular) but there are also games enabling you to run your own business, fight trolls and orcs or just play simple challenge games in a short break such as Tetris.
How to use these to develop a brand needs to be considered in the same context as other social network marketing.
Firstly listen to what consumers are saying about your brand and understand how you can influence this either to reinforce the positive or refute the negative. Make sure that you are honest and clear in all communication which occurs throughout the game and be relevant, do not try and shoe horn yourself into where you do not belong. Ensure that you have clear goals and targets that you can measure performance against and include in these ways of creating dialogues and multilogues if at all possible.
It is possible to advertise on some games and there is also the possibility of building brand awareness by product placement within the games especially those that use virtual currency as a way of earning money. A simple mechanism of adding in a product to a game if it is relevant and linking this to a real world incentive can have a positive effect.
Games are forever evolving and developers of virtual reality games are frequently adding features due to gamer demand and brands can benefit from linking to these. Sorority Life gamers indicated that they wanted to drive cars round the campus so developers created a limited edition pink VW Beetle for the game and they sold over $250,000 worth of virtual cars in 2 days and brand awareness even in a virtual environment is still awareness and will result in viral spread as each of the gamers tells their gaming friends that they have bought a new VW Beetle! Remember a lot of gaming conversation goes on outside of the gaming environment.
So there are plenty of opportunities to advertise and influence, you could even commission your own game but more of that another time, first off have a strategy, use what is already there and test the arena to see if it can work for you.
In answer to the heading; social gaming can develop your brand but you need a strategic not a shotgun approach.
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