Social Networking: Implications for Casinos

Marketing Results Inc. at Global Gaming Expo - G2E 2008

Moderator: Craig Border
Senior Account Executive (Updated: Vice President of Database Marketing)

Social media describes online technologies that people use to share insights, experiences, perspectives, and media. Collectively, they reach more people and shape more opinions than all other paid and unpaid media combined.

Social Media Reach:

• 578.5 million people in Asia
• 384.6 million people in Europe
• 284 million people in North America
• 139 million people in Latin America
• 51.1 million people in Africa
• 41 million people in the Middle East
• 20.2 million people in Oceania/Australia  

Key Findings:

• There is no significant demographic difference between offline population and the online population in the U.S., except one. (Harris Poll/2007).
• The online population in the U.S. is passively engaged in social media, with 25 percent actively creating content.  (Universal McCann/2008).
• The online population consumes 21 hours per week of online content, up from 15 hours six months ago. (Jupiter Media Metrix/2008).

Media Migration:

• 2.5 million fewer viewers are watching live network programs on television. Almost every program is available online.
• Newspaper readership is down, with major newspapers like the Boston Globe, Miami Herald, and Houston Chronicle down 10-12 percent. 
• Radio ad revenue is down 6.5 percent; ad spending is down 7.4 percent.

Social Media Application:

• Assess the business, considering any value propositions and communication assets.
• Differentiate the communication, providing an emphasis on original content that no one else provides.
• Choose outcome-specific measurements, and not those typically employed by social media.

What is facebook? In addition to being one of the top five websites in the world, facebook is a social utility that facilitates communication with friends, family and coworkers.

• More than 120 million monthly active users
• More than 6 million active user groups
• More than 30 million photos uploaded daily
• More than 10 billion photos uploaded in total

The “Places I’ve Played” Application:

• Record and share with your friends what casinos and other gaming facilities you have visited.
• Indicate planned casino trips, whether you had a big win, tell your story about what happened.
• Information is shared with your friends on facebook:I’m going to Foxwoods this weekendI won $45K playing keno (a true story from a friend).
• The location of land-based casinos is shown on a map.
• Favorites can be shown plus which places you recommend and don’t recommend, where you’ve stayed, dined, or saw a show.

Support for Casinos and Gaming Properties

• Promotion of the “Places I’ve Played” application to loyal players both improves ratings and spreads positive comments about a property to friends of existing players through Facebook. 
• New facebook applications for a casino will display selected stories about the casino.
• Awards for casinos based on feedback from facebook users using attributes such as number of visitors to the property and frequency with which it is labeled a “favorite” or “recommended.”
• Competitive intelligence about how casinos compare with one another from a facebook user perspective.

Feedback from "Places I’ve Played" Users

• “Oh my god!  This is really fantastic.  It will be a revolution, the most ideal way to integrate casino fans into a social network.”
• “Very good idea!!! Honestly, I had such thoughts, but I couldn't develop such an application alone.”
• “I'm very excited about this application. I see a bright future for it.”
• “Now that’s pretty cool!  My local casino is so small, about the size of my bedroom and you have it listed, I even managed to find a couple of casinos I could visit near the office…there is definitely lots of potential here…good work guys!”

YouTube – Free Video Sharing

• Over 80 million viewers monthly
• Over 3 billion videos watched monthly
• Over 6 million videos uploaded monthly
• YouTube used more more bandwidth in 2007 than the entire internet did in 2000