Social networks and change of paradigm in casino communications analyzed in Yogonet’s conference

At the second day of the series of conferencesEy! 2012 Encuentro Yogonet, Romina Freijomil (Marketing Manager of City CenterRosario), Valeria Lagomarsino (Digital Director of Fisher América), OscarSciesa (Online Commercial Manager of Fox Latin American Channels) and MarianoMolina Zavalia (Marketing Manager of Trilenium Casino) analyzed the issue“Social Networks: the new Challenge for marketing of casinos”.

During the conference, experts on the issuedebated on how Facebook, Twitter and other social Networks have stronglypenetrated in the whole society, and on how gambling venues find in this mediuma new promotion channel to achieve customer royalty.

Mariano Molina Zavalia, started the talkexplaining that “social media are a new medium that breaks the paradigm:consumers are the same content producers, are the new “prosumers”, a conceptthat breaks with the hegemonic dominance of the media by generating information.The penetration of the networks iss very important it would not be smart notto introduce it in our industry”.

“The fact of not being in this hyperconnectedworld is giving an advantage that I think we should not give. At this momentFacebook, which I think is the most emblematic case, has what we know as socialgaming: people play but do not gamble. The next step, once it can be regulated,will be social gambling,” he affirmed. Then, Oscar Sciesa gave an overview onthe new social networks.

“The concept of social media is generating andsharing content. Users are identifiable and we can share our information, basicallyby affinity with another use which generates a relationship that goes beyondthe brand each one chooses which user, or which brand do you want to have as afriend. Obtaining the information I want and how I share it, that is socialmedia,” the executive affirmed.

Sciesa explained that Facebook has more than 1billion profiles that can be divided up by age, taste, country, etc.“Segmentation is the base of Facebook”, he affirmed, and added that the networkreaches more than 200 countries, in 70 languages, which make it a very powerfulcommunication tool

“The average user has 135 friends, and usesthe network around 5 and 10 hours a day. In Latin America there are 120 millionprofiles, whcih boosts this tool even more. In Argentina, Facebook is used between10 and 11 hours a day in average. People is attentive to this medium,”, hespecified.

Besides, Valeria Lagomarsino explained some ofthe most important concepts in the social networks world:

Blogging: It generates content and everyonecan exchange information.

Crowd sourcing: A combination of words  that defines a great Group of people thatcollaborates in the content generation, as it occurs, for example, with popularWikipedia.

Gamification: A context of game isincorporated to a concept that was not recreational. People can have fun andremains more time in the page, associating his content with a more entertainingactivity than just reading.

Mobile world: The access to be alwaysconnected from the cell phone changes the environment of communication. Thesocial network has a feedback with mobile world. There are application storesfor Android and Apple, for example, and a virtuous circle is given, which isboosted in both ways.

Online video: It is the sticking point inCommunications nowadays: innovative and original content. It is what people islooking for, otherwise, we will not attract its attention. Visual content isvery important, but every time is more and more difficult to be original.

Finally, Romina Freijomil commented herexperience with the casino Fan Page. “We achieve to have much more coveragethat with advertising, but at a much lower cost,” she assured. “At thebeginning, when we started with Facebook, we had several questions whenlaunching a new communication channel because we are an exposed industry, andof course, we always fear the lack of awareness. However, for our surprise,people joined us very well and relations are generated people respond,” shecommented.

“The evolution was very intense since westarted promotion the shows and drags through different promotional tools andexclusive benefits for the followers of the page,” she continued. “Key aspectsare the need of a team dedicated to the channel, a clear strategy, monitoringand using the measurement Tools in order to improbé performance and theintegration of the physical channel with the online channel is key to choosethe communication strategy: online and offline have to be connected”.