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Social media for casino marketing in theory is quite simple—we take your existing content in the form of events, promotions and tournaments and seed it out to the virtual world where the fans do the rest. Take, for example, monthly tournaments, drawings or prizes. CREATING A SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY FOR YOUR CASINO. There are a few casino properties that have not taken the time to create a social media policy. Some, not all, casino properties that have created a social media policy have written a social media policy that is poor. Casino marketers agree that social media is a powerful marketing tool to reach our players. We create content and advertisements to enhance our brand awareness and share information with our guests, but we need to do a better job of treating social media as an opportunity to provide excellent guest service.
February 13, 2014
SUMMARY: Social media marketing thrives on great content. But what separates flat and boring posts from the ones that spark sharing? The Aria Resort & Casino worked storytelling into its updates on social networks and saw sharing jump 310%. Find out how the effort grew from the shadow of another less-than-stellar campaign. |
CHALLENGE
Everything in Las Vegas is competing for attention. Standing out can be difficult, especially for a new casino.The Aria Resort & Casino opened in 2009 and Derek Schoen, Director of Interactive Marketing, helped kick off the first marketing campaign.
The campaign 'The Center of Vegas. Shifted.' emphasized that the Aria was new and that people should visit.
'We noticed that the campaign created a question in the minds of guests: 'why?' Schoen said.
Many marketers would start wringing their hands at this point, but the Aria's team saw an opportunity.
CAMPAIGN
The Aria's team answered with a technique Schoen called 'storytelling.' Instead of saying that people should come to the Aria, the team showed why they should come and hoped the reasons were interesting enough to share.Step #1. Find something unique
The marketing team listed more than a dozen parts of the Aria that helped make it unique. The list included:- barMASA — A top quality Japanese restaurant.
- Gold Lounge — A lounge devoted to Elvis Presley (the theme has since changed).
- Blossom — A Chinese restaurant with quiet, intimate booths.
Step #2. Describe why it is unique
The team went a level deeper, listing why these parts of the Aria were unique. For example, the team identified the following four details that made barMASA stand out:- Chef — Head Chef Masa Takayama owns the first-ever Japanese restaurant in the U.S. to receive a three-star Michelin rating.
'If you were to eat at his restaurant in New York, you'd be on a two-month waiting list,' Schoen said. - Super fresh — 'Our fish is not out of the water more than 24 hours before it is on your plate.'
- Cocktails — High-end Japanese liquors, as well as whiskeys, scotches and sakes are sold. They are offered in minimalist settings that emphasize the spirits 'as they are,' Schoen said.
- Plating — The restaurant follows a Japanese custom of plating and serves patrons 'what can only be described as works of art.'
More than unique
These points were more than quirky details about barMASA; they were differentiators that helped the Aria stand out from the competition.'These cool little stories showed that we were superior in these areas,' Schoen said.
Step #3. Create imagery (images and video)
The team felt that these details, or 'mini stories,' would make great content for their audiences on Facebook and Twitter.Wanting to 'show' instead of merely 'tell,' the marketing team grabbed a digital camera from the office and shot what Schoen called 'cool, fun, quick photos.'
The photos were illustrations for the mini stories. They included photos of:
- Several types of fresh sushi
- Slot machines with monitors that resembled curved 40-inch televisions (the only ones in Vegas)
- Private, quiet booths at Blossom, a Chinese restaurant at the resort
The team even made several video clips of:
- Lumina — 'The only fountain in the world lit by colors that you can even see in direct sunlight.'
- Crystals at CityCenter — An art display combining clear cylinders of bubbling liquid and 'high-tech electronics that create a fascinating water show you can’t miss when you visit Las Vegas.'
Step #4. Share the story
The Aria's team began sharing the mini stories with their audiences on Facebook (678,000 followers at the time of this writing) and Twitter (134,000 followers).The team's initial campaign stated 'The Center of Vegas has Shifted.' Now, each mini story had a new twist on the tagline, such as:
- barMASA — '#TheCenter of Cuisine. Shifted'
- Blossom — '#TheCenter of Intimacy has Shifted'
- Crystals at CityCenter — '#TheCenter of Fascination has Shifted'
The team included these taglines in the updates, and also included the initial campaign's hashtag, #TheCenter.
Step #5. Don't push for bookings
'In Las Vegas, it's very hard to get people to book ahead of time. Normally, people will pick one thing they really want to do and then they're going to play it by ear,' Schoen said.That's why the Aria didn't intend the mini stories to drive bookings online. Instead, the team sought to raise awareness of the Aria's differentiators and create a positive experience.
'We want to leave you with happy feelings and a lot of great knowledge,' Schoen said. 'It's all about getting into that consideration set, so the next time they come to Vegas, they can say, 'Hey, I heard about barMASA and I really have to go check out that sushi.'
RESULTS
The Aria's team expected the images, videos and mini stories would attract interest from their audience and spark sharing.'Our share rate on this content was four times higher than our average … The most-shared content we ever created was around 'The Center' campaign,' Schoen said.
Posts created for the campaign increased several metrics above the Aria's average:
- 310% increase in share rate on posts with '#TheCenter'
- 200% increase in interaction rate
- 320% increase in impressions
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'I always love talking about storytelling,' Schoen said, 'because I think it's what every company should be doing, but isn't. I think it's what marketing today is all about.'
Editor's Note: While the Aria Resort & Casino is the location for MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2014, this case study came to us from the reporter as sheer coincidence.
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Source
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Social media is one of the most effective ways for casinos to get more customers in their doors, but it takes more than a little luck to succeed in the long run. To get the results you want, you need a social media strategy that will deliver.
Keep reading, and contact us online or at 888-601-5359 to learn more!
Why is social media important for casinos?
Social media gets you in touch with the people who want to become your customers. That means you can talk directly to your potential customers, listen to their suggestions, and address any complaints. It also lets you promote events and your website to your followers who act as a steady customer base.
When you start a social media strategy, you should create accounts on these five major networks:
Social Media Casino Marketing Platforms
- YouTube
These social media platforms connect you with your audience like never before. You can share news, graphics, videos, blog posts, employee profiles, and more to make your followers feel closer to you. Best of all, it also lets you have a two-way conversation with your customers so you can interact with them directly.
How to use different social networks
Different networks appeal to different audiences. To maximize your returns for your social media strategy, you need to use each different network to its fullest.
1. Facebook
Facebook is the king of social networks. It has billions of users, and almost everyone with an Internet connection has a Facebook profile in the United States.
Facebook works really well for showing people behind-the-scenes views of your casino. It’s also a great way to publicize any company updates, like building additions or upcoming events, and it provides one of the easiest and most intuitive ways to talk to your followers.
Beyond that, you can try posting about different topics to see what kind of posts get the best results. You could try promoting blog posts, running contests, or even asking simple questions, like “what’s your favorite kind of poker?”
Regardless of your choice, you can gauge the success of your posts by the shares, likes, and comments that each one gets. It’s one of the simplest ways to quantify success on social media.
2. Twitter
Twitter is an exceptionally good social network for promoting anything related to your site and talking directly to your customers. Like Facebook, Twitter gives you direct contact with your customer base. Unlike Facebook, you have to be concise, quick, and informative all at the same time.
This makes Twitter a great place for promoting links back to your website for blog posts, scheduled events, and more.
It’s also perfect for talking to customers who have complaints. You can publicly message them by mentioning them in your tweet, or you can direct message them to talk in private. Either way, you have a chance to solve a customer issue before it turns into a bigger problem.
When you’re measuring success on Twitter, you can look at the number of retweets and favorites that each of your tweets receives. Retweets are great because they get your message out to your followers’ followers, so your audience can increase explosively with every share. Plus, once other Twitter users see those retweets, they can follow you to increase your primary customer base.
3. Instagram
Instagram is all about photos. It’s also one of the most-used social media networks among millennials, who are collectively all old enough to gamble. That means you can appeal to a young audience with a disposable income simply by sharing photos.
You have a ton of potential choices for material on Instagram, including pictures of your facilities, photos of people who win big at your tables, and even short videos. All of this comes together to create a smart, simple way that you can communicate with a young generation of thrill-seeking, fun-loving people — the exact customers you want in your casino.
You can measure Instagram’s success similarly to how to you measure Facebook’s. The number of likes, comments, and shares all reflect the popularity of your post. The more you get, the better you’ve done!
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Case StudyWe measure our success by how much we WOW our clients.
4. Pinterest
Pinterest is a unique social network in that it’s almost exclusively designed to share graphics. This makes it great for promoting image-based content like infographics and other data-based visuals.
It also works well for promoting content, particularly list-based blog posts. Content like that is the kind of bite-sized, easy-to-read material that thrives on Pinteret’s audience, and it can help you engage new customers that otherwise wouldn’t know about you.
Success on Pinterest is measured by pins and likes. Pins are basically shares, and they work similarly to retweets. Likes just show that people enjoyed what you posted. Both are excellent ways of telling whether or not something you created was successful.
5. YouTube
YouTube is the biggest video-based social network in the world, and it’s a thriving community of content producers and consumers that all interact together.
You can use YouTube to your advantage by showing customer-shot videos of winning, tours of your facilities, or commercial-like videos that encourage people to go to your casino. And while YouTube may have initially had a reputation for low-quality entertainment and production value, that’s no longer the case. If you want to make a good YouTube video, you need to make it right.
You can gauge your success on YouTube by views and subscribers. Views are the number of times people have watched your video, and subscribers are the number of unique accounts that actively follow you for new content. Like the previous social networks, the more you have of them, the better you’ve done.
WebFX knows social media
Social Media Marketing Jobs
At WebFX, we have an entire social media team that works with these networks (and more) every day. We know what it takes to get businesses recognized online, and we know how to engage your customers to make them visit your casino.
How To Do Social Media Marketing
Do you want more customers at your tables and slots? Contact us today to create your unique social media strategy!