Social Gaming is huge, but even some of these stats blew me away in this social and mobile gaming infographic:

Source: Prism Casino (click here to get full mobile gaming statistics)

Situation:

Insert Gamer was looking to further penetrate into the social media arena and build their internet gaming network (IGN).  Facebook specifically, they were looking to significantly increase their fan base with qualified consumers.

Action:

They started by placing ads on their competitors Facebook pages, driving users to the Insert Gamer page.  The new visitors were then prompted to take an optional survey.  Insert Gamer was able to gather pertinent demographic information from their competitive conquests:  Age, HHI, gender, primary game counsels, and annual game purchases.  Of the 50,000 visitors, just under half took the survey.  They then whittled it down to 8,000 based on their target customer:  More than 5 game purchases annually.*

The next step was to figure out how they could most efficiently and effectively get more of their target customers to become fans of their Facebook page.  They focused on Facebook’s Edge Rank algorithm.  This algorithm essentially figures out the ‘top news’ that shows in each users Facebook page, analogous to showing up at the top of someone’s email or being placed in their spam folder.  You would think that the ideal target Facebook user is someone with tons of friends.  However, your messaging is most likely going to be lost in the myriad of posts those users must sift through.  Instead, Insert Gamer focused on their users with fewer than 300 friends and 30 pages to ensure there was ‘less noise’.  They also focused on their users that had good connectivity, as in they had shared at least 1 game page with friends.  Lastly, they focused on the user’s engagement (at least once a month) and their affinity for the brand (recently touched).

Based on the above criteria they were now down to a target segment of 2,500 from their original target group of 8,000.  They could now target ads more efficiently and effectively across Facebook based solely on the behaviors and similar actions of their new target group.  For example, they now knew that followers of Monster Energy and Portal 2 were roughly 20 times more likely to fall into their target consumer than other fan pages.*

Result:

They attracted an additional 509,000 fans in 120 days.  Over 60% of their fans buy more than 5 games per year; this is the inverse of the data they gathered from targeting their competitor’s fans. This increase in 509,000 fans represents roughly $76 million in buying power.** On top of that, their Facebook page gets 645% more engagement, an 811% higher comment rate per post, and 394% higher ‘like’ rate per post than the competition.*

**509,000 fans x 60% = 305,400 fans x $250 (rough estimate cost per game $50 x 5 games) = $76,350,000

Key Learnings:

• Include an optional survey to gather important demographic data from your visitors
• Identify the ideal customer based on their purchasing and user behavior:  Engagement, connectivity and brand affinity
• Targeting is important:  Message to where your ideal customers are.  Spending $20K in advertising will be the equivalent of spending $60K.

 *Metrics and information as presented at the iStrategy Atlanta Conference on 9/13/11, by Jeff French, LOUDDOOR Co-founder and CEO

I know when I saw all the social games coming out, such as Farmville and others, I thought they would have a minimal shelf life and the phase would pass…I thought wrong. Social gaming is not just another fad that would pass like overall pants…it is here, and is only growing bigger and bigger. Don’t believe me? Check out these stats…!

1. 41% of Gamers are playing on social media platforms

2. 60% of gamers play with friends 

3. 26 million play social games on their mobile devices 

4. Social Gaming Ad Spend increased from $183M in 2009 to $293M in 2011 

Sources:
Dream Grow Social Media
Pcmag.com