online strategy
Lessons from Social Gaming
Photo Credit: SobControllers
Social gaming has taken a life of its own. Companies like PlayFish and Zynga are creating massively popular social games that are attracting and capturing the attention of millions of users.
But what makes these social games so popular and successful?
Achievement
Why are people motivated to play, it’s just a game after all? If you try some of the social games available, many are built around the sense of achievement. Gaining levels, winning awards and being at the top of the leader board are examples of how social games are motivating users to play on a regular basis.
Frequent Updates
Many successful social games release new updates on a weekly basis. The updates are usually not major changes to the game experience, but are new items, designs or objectives that keep the game experience fresh and entertaining. Stale content becomes boring.
Friend Interactions
Social gaming is about the social experience. Many successful games seamlessly integrate friend/social interactions as part of the game experience. For example, you need your friend’s help to open a crate or you are encouraged to share items with your friends. These social interactions also help these games become popular because your actions in the game may be shared with friends who are not yet playing the game.
Revenue Model
Most social games are free to play, but provide users with the option of paying for premium content. Premium content may allow users to get exclusive items or give them a boost over other players. This revenue model helps attract a larger audience because it’s free to play, but it also has a profitable revenue stream because players who enjoy the game for free, may be enticed to pay for game upgrades.
Think of ways to apply these elements in your online strategy.
Victor
Tags: achievement, interactions, online strategy, playfish, revenue, social gaming, success, updates, zynga
Strangers Chose What I Ate for Dinner
I was at a friend’s place last night watching some Olympic Hockey. Eventually the group of us got hungry and decided to order in some Chinese food. Problem: none of us knew of any good and/or nearby Chinese restaurants.
This photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinkmoose/
Within seconds, two iPhones came out. We ‘UrbanSpooned’ a place nearby and then hopped online to read more reviews of the food. Within 10 minutes we had 6 dishes chosen based on favourable reviews. Without even consulting the restaurant’s menu, we went ahead and ordered based solely on the opinions of strangers.
Dinner arrived. Every dish was a winner.
After that, some of us contributed our own reviews, and added the restaurant to our mobile contact lists.
The irony is, if this restaurant had a website, we wouldn’t have easily found it. Yet, there were multiple sources in which to find information about it and its dishes. The point here is if you don’t take control of your online strategy, others will.
Swap out this restaurant for any other kind of business – say an airline, or a financial institution and you can quickly see how joining the online conversation already happening about your brand or product is critical. The goal isn’t to stop people from talking about you. (Quite the opposite in fact.) The goal is to listen. Be a part of the conversation. And be responsive.
Think of it not as being in the driver’s seat, but as drawing the map people follow.
What’s your experience?
Tags: chinese food, iPhone, mobile, online reviews, online strategy, peer reviews, urbanspoon
