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

During the conference, experts on the issue debated on how Facebook, Twitter and other social Networks have strongly penetrated in the whole society, and on how gambling venues find in this medium a new promotion channel to achieve customer royalty.

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

“The fact of not being in this hyperconnected world is giving an advantage that I think we should not give. At this moment Facebook, which I think is the most emblematic case, has what we know as social gaming: 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 on the new social networks.

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

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

“The average user has 135 friends, and uses the network around 5 and 10 hours a day. In Latin America there are 120 million profiles, whcih boosts this tool even more. In Argentina, Facebook is used between 10 and 11 hours a day in average. People is attentive to this medium,”, he specified.

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

Blogging: It generates content and everyone can exchange information.
Crowd sourcing: A combination of words  that defines a great Group of people that collaborates in the content generation, as it occurs, for example, with popular Wikipedia.

Gamification: A context of game is incorporated to a concept that was not recreational. People can have fun and remains more time in the page, associating his content with a more entertaining activity than just reading.

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

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

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

“The evolution was very intense; since we started promotion the shows and drags through different promotional tools and exclusive benefits for the followers of the page,” she continued. “Key aspects are the need of a team dedicated to the channel, a clear strategy, monitoring and using the measurement Tools in order to improbé performance and the integration of the physical channel with the online channel is key to choose the communication strategy: online and offline have to be connected”.