Game-based mechanics—a collection of activities and technologies that add up to define a user experience—can heavily influence social media marketing/content marketing campaign strategy — a specialty of DigitalEYE Media.

Common interactive gameplay features of most gamified applications or services for customer loyalty programs include the awarding of “badges” for achievements, players ranked by “level,” public “leaderboards” showing who’s scoring the most points, feedback (progress bars, points toward next level, etc.) that lets players know how they’re doing, a point system or other virtual currency for purchasing upgrades or prizes, and the ability to challenge or talk trash with other users.

Incetivize Customers, Build Loyalty

The gamification movement seeks to take these kinds of common video game elements and apply them to the “real world” in an effort to incentivize customers, build loyalty and introduce some fun into what might otherwise be mundane, everyday activities (like getting coffee, shopping and exercising) when the games are played.

The game flow of the games may be either “turn-based,” in which players are given a number of turns to execute their actions. or “real-time,” in which player actions take a real amount of time to complete.

Online gaming is a technology rather than a genre, a mechanism for connecting players together rather than a particular pattern of gameplay.

All online games are played over some form of computer network (which almost always means the Internet). One advantage of online gaming is the ability to connect to multiplayer games, although single-player online games are quite common as well.

Online games can range from simple text-based games to games incorporating complex graphics and virtual worlds populated by many players simultaneously. Many online games have associated online communities, making online games a form of social activity beyond single-player games.

The rising popularity of Adobe Flash and Java led to an Internet revolution where websites could utilize streaming video, audio, and a whole new set of user interactivity.

Flash, a multimedia platform used to add animation, video and interactivity to web pages, is frequently used for advertisements and games.

The Java software platform refers to a number of software products and specifications from Sun Microsystems. Java’s suitability for games programming is based on features like direct access to graphics hardware and external devices. As a result, there exists a growing number of excellent, fun Java games on the market.

On-demand Entertainment

When Microsoft began packaging Flash as a pre-installed component of IE, the Internet began to shift from a data/information spectrum to also offering on-demand entertainment. This revolution paved the way for sites to offer web surfers online multiplayer games like the mighty World of Warcraft.

More humble online browser games are played over the Internet using a web browser like Internet Explorer, Foxfire, Google Chrome or Bing. Browser games are often free-to-play and do not require any client software to be installed apart from a web browser. Browser games are also portable and can be played on multiple different devices. They can be created and run using standard web technologies or browser plug-ins like Flash.

Browser games come in many genres and themes that appeal to both core players and casual players.

They can be single-player (e.g., Robot Unicorn Attack, Castle of Heroes, The Room) or multiplayer (e.g., Domain of Heroes, Fallen Empire: Legions, Virtonomics).

Virtonomics is a business simulation, simulating economics, that enables users to study the basics of management. The game is turn-based and the conversion of a game situation occurs once a day.  The main purpose of Virtonomics, which resembles the game Capitalism 2 designed by Trevor Chan, is to build a successful business in a tough competitive struggle.

Multiplayer browser games have an additional focus on social interaction, often on a massive scale. Due to the accessibility of browser games, they are often played in more frequent, shorter sessions compared to traditional computer games.

This makes them ideal for the short social games so appealing to both marketers and consumers alike.

For brand marketers, their ultimate functional goal remains, as always, customer engagement leading to repeat purchases of products and services.  The name of the social gaming game is more eyeballs and longer brand engagement. Gaming can be used socially to reach a vast array of customers who may have little to nothing in common outside of the gaming networks in which they choose to participate.

Fortunately, social gaming is simply a variation on quite familiar (and centuries old) customer loyalty programs—in this case just updated and pixelated to deepen brand involvement and create online buzz.

Social games are popular because they cover a range of genres, including RPGs, strategy games, virtual worlds and action. What they all share in common is that they can be played in 5-10 minutes, making them perfect for coffee breaks (or discrete loafing). Many games can also be played between and among friends and replicate the fellowship of sitting around a board game, while the quest for top scores plugs into the human competitive edge.

With 62 million U.S. Internet users (or 27 percent of total users in the U.S.) playing at least one game on a social network per month, advertisers are spending lots of money hoping to cash in on all those eyeballs. Users are obliging by increasingly spending their money to buy virtual goods like “ammunition,” “crops” and “new levels” as they get deeper into their gaming habit.

According to research from eMarketer, users are expected to spend $653 million in virtual goods in 2011, 28 percent more than last year with $248 million coming from lead generation and $192 million from advertising.  eMarketer says virtual goods will continue to lead the way in generating revenue for the industry with a 60 percent share in 2011 and 2012.

Marketers are also spending money on “lead generation” campaigns – or the exchange of a user signing up for their newsletter or special offer in exchange for free virtual goods for a favorite game – with the hopes of enticing the user to sample or test their products.

According to a Feb. 2010 survey from game publisher PopCap, men make up 45 percent of the total social players. But the person most likely spending time tending virtual farms (and maybe even whacking rival wise guys in Mafia Wars), is a 43-year-old woman who plays several times a day, even though she holds a full-time job (and most likely has kids). She’s also most likely to be playing FarmVille, Bejeweled Blitz, Texas Hold’em Poker, Cafe World, and Mafia Wars, and has likely played an average of six games — many of which were recommended by friends. Facebook is her preferred gaming destination of choice. In fact, 83 percent of those surveyed say they choose to play on Facebook over other social networks. That’s not exactly a surprise, though, given the dominance of Facebook and the fact that most social games land on Facebook first.  As for spending dollars on playing these games, over 50 percent say they’ve earned and spent virtual currency in these games (but only 28 percent have bought virtual currency using real-world money).

MSN Games reports 40 percent of their casual games customers are college graduates or higher, 25 percent are in a professional or managerial role at work, and 55 percent have a household income of $50,000 or more.

“Social gaming has a business model,” Jonathan Miller, Zynga’s head of digital media, told the Abu Dhabi Media Summit in March 2011. “People who play FarmVille actually spend real money to buy virtual food or whatever it may be for their pig.  Most people don’t but enough do so that it’s a real business.”

In an online world hyper-sensitive to advertiser intrusion, brands have experimented via social engagement and branded content with ways to make their messages not an interruption but desirable in their own right.  The challenge to brands is to capture customer attention and then make themselves a part of the rhythm of their customers’ lives, sort of scratching the itch to play games that reinforce a relationship with a brand.

The true skill lies in combining brand messaging and game player desires in a coherent way.

Gabe Zicherman, the author of the book Game-Based Marketing, notes that brands have lost the ability to tell consumers what their preference is—instead, consumers defining that preference are now relying on the opinions and calls to actions of their peers.  Social utility has allowed consumers to cooperate and compete with others in their social graph (the map and database of who is connected to whom) and their neighborhood, driving deeper engagement.

Brands can use game mechanics as a system through which they can inspire a call to action.

But, if a game-based marketing program is not properly executed, things can go horribly wrong.

“Video-gamification” of social media marketing has exploded onto the global business scene so fast that brand marketers are scrambling just to separate hype from truth and grasp the basics of this onrushing mega-trend that has turned an industry on its head.

Current media headlines are reminiscent of the ‘90s dot-com bubble.  Venture investors are placing colossal valuations on consumer Internet companies like Facebook, the Web’s largest social networking service turned largest online gaming website, and Zynga, the top social network game developer.

Social gaming is barely three years old, but Zynga and Facebook led a 51 percent surge in the private market valuations of top Web companies in this year’s first quarter, according to Nyppex, a New York-based research and advisory services firm.

Zynga, maker of the Cityville and FarmVille online games, rose 81 percent in value from the fourth quarter to about $8 billion (other sources put that valuation closer to $10 billion). Facebook climbed 57 percent to about $65 billion. Even though other sources put Facebook’s valuation somewhere in the neighborhood of $52 billion—that’s still more than 25 times revenues.  The valuations are based on transactions among institutional investors.

The Wall Street Journal reported in February 2011 that Zynga had revenue of $850 million in 2010, just its third full year, more than triple the year before.  Facebook’s revenue went as high as $2 billion in 2010, its sixth full year.

Not only is revenue exploding, but profits are, too. Through the first nine months of 2010, Facebook made $355 million, meaning it likely made a profit well over $400 million, if not $500 million, for the year. (In contrast, Google’s net income in its sixth year—2003—was $399 million.)  Zynga’s profit was also about $400 million in 2010, only its third full year.

Facebook has become the largest online gaming website on the Internet because, of the 500 million users registered with the service, nearly three-quarters of them play at least one game on a regular basis. Moreover, a majority of the applications on Facebook are games, both small and big.

According to the latest App Data report released April 4, 2011, Zynga dominates the social gaming market with more than 269 million monthly active users across its 55 apps, most of which are gaming properties. Gaming publisher Electronic Arts, with a market capitalization of $6.3 billion, is far behind with 36.4 million monthly active users across its 39 gaming apps. Self-funded CrowdStar follows with its 32.3 million monthly active users across 20 gaming properties.

All the green in the water is attracting some pretty big sharks.

For example, in March 2011, media giant News Corp announced plans to build its own social-gaming business—and it won’t be on the carcass of its social entertainment site MySpace (whose sale or spin-off the company has begun exploring).  Instead, News Corp’s social-games drive would center on Making Fun and IGN, two small companies it bought in the past few years.

It gets even more interesting when you consider that social gaming is part of a larger gamification trend in which businesses of all kinds weave elements of games into applications that otherwise have little to do with typical game playing.  Earlier this month, Bloomberg’s Business Week reported how huge companies like Siemens, SAP, Nissan and Mattel are using game technology to improve how they train workers and design and market products.

The market for all this gamification will grow to $1.6 billion in 2015, from $100 million in 2011, says Wanda Meloni, founder of M2 Research, a consulting firm that researches the gaming industry.  According to a new report from Parks Associates, revenues in the social gaming market will increase to $5 billion between now and 2015.

That’s just a small part of the $28 billion U.S. video game industry, but social gaming is moving up the charts with a bullet, while the rest of the video game industry struggles with its own monetization problems.

All of this begs the question, what does all this online video gaming foment in the social media marketing space mean to brand marketers?  Check back next week as I delve into the implications for brand marketers.

Specifically, 2011 is being predicated as the breakout year for 2D coding. Although the technology was invented in Japan in 1994, it has just recently been updated and applied to mobile phone applications, making it easier to use on both the consumer side, as well as the business side.

Microsoft Tags is leading the way in 2D barcodes that are customizable, easy to use and free. Businesses can create a Tag that links to their webpage, or other online resources, and can attach the Tags to posters, flyers, marketing materials…the list goes on and on. People can then scan the Tag directly from their phone which will instantly direct the user to the destination businesses set their Tag to go to.

While 2D coding is great for large businesses like USA Today who added a Tag to their newspaper that takes readers directly to their online version, or Allure Magazine’s annual Free Stuff Giveaway that enlisted 444,572 barcode scans, the largest barcode campaign to-date, I think 2D coding can be just as beneficial, if not more, to small businesses.

Small businesses can add Tags to their ads in local publications, flyers left at other businesses, or business cards handed out to potential contacts. With 2D coding technology, businesses are no longer at the mercy of someone remembering to pull out their card or flyer and enter their long URL, but can access information online instantly. Microsoft Tag also provides businesses with advanced analytics to measure campaign effectiveness with enhanced reporting, such as the number of scans of a particular Tag over time and by geographic location. Whether you’re a photographer with a Tag linking to your online portfolio or a restaurant with a Tag offering a discount, EVERYONE should take advantage of 2D coding.

One last piece of advice: Though it may be its breakout year, 2D coding is still widely unknown to consumers. Be sure to add a quick line of copy explaining what it is and where they can download the code reader.

It’s only February, so join the 2011 mobile marketing bandwagon with 2D coding, and look for more ways to integrate mobile marketing into your 2011 strategy in the very near future.

As a consumer, there’s little risk or reason not to participate. Buy the deal for a fraction of the price, and when ready, redeem it. The only downfall is that they do eventually expire, and some, especially the exercise deals, will go unused. Beyond that, group buying is safe and extremely beneficial to consumers looking to save money, as well as people looking for new things to do and new places to try.

The real risk comes on the business’s side. A business offers a service or a product at a fraction of the price, usually at least more than 50 percent off. For example, “Pay $10.00 and get $20.00 of food” at a local restaurant. The deal is posted on the collective buying website and mass blasted to their enormous email list. Consumers now have a limited amount of time to purchase this deal before it expires. By the end of the deal’s time, “X” amount of people have purchased the deal, and then comes the split with the group buying platform that ran the deal. Many site’s split is as large as 50 percent, so businesses are now giving consumers their product or service at 50 percent off, but only received around 25 percent of the value.

Broken down in this manner, this may not sound like a very good deal for the business, but the upsides are that the business now has a large chuck of cash upfront that may be much needed at this time, as well as the exposure and the goal of generating new business. There are definitely pros to participating in a group buying deal, but many business owners are failing to look at the cons, and ending up with negative, unexpected ramifications. Here is the list of things to consider before participating in a group buying deal:

• Do the math. Figure out the entire equation of how much your product or service actually costs you and how much you are coming out ahead, even, or under after the split with the company. Make sure you are not coming out too far under.
• Assess the amount of deals your business can really handle. Each group buying site will allow you to put a cap on the number you want to offer. If you are a small, one-man show, selling 5,000 deals could be impossible to honor before it expires. Businesses have experienced negative backlash on online review sites and lost future customers because coupon buyers were unable to use their deal due in a timely manner because the business was booked solid. Don’t be greedy.
• Decide which company to partner with. There are literally hundreds of options of which company you can run a group buying deal with. If you are a business that can handle high volume, as well as can handle a larger split, one of the big guys such as Groupon or Livingsocial may be the way to go. Amazon recently ran a nationwide deal for $10.00 for $20.00 of products on its site and sold 1,378,938 vouchers. Amazon can handle this kind of volume, your local hair salon cannot. While these large businesses may look tempting, choosing a local, smaller group buying site has its benefits as well. Working with smaller companies means you’ll have a more personal experience and probably a lot more say in the formatting, copy, and delivery of your deal. For instance, Groupon doesn’t show businesses their coupon copy before it is runs. It may also be a great way to run a lower volume deal. Maybe you’re just looking for a little boost and would be happy with 100 deals sold; the smaller guys are a great place to start. Smaller companies will generally also take a smaller split and leave room to negotiate. If you can’t afford a 50/50 split, working with a local site that could go as low as 70/30 may be a better alternative.

Collective buying is one of the biggest trends in the market right now, especially in an economy where 50-70 percent off deals is much needed and appreciated. But as a business you cannot allow yourself to be sucked in without doing the proper research and consideration. Running a group buying deal could be life changing for your business, but it could also be the final nail in the coffin for a struggling business greedily looking to make some quick cash. Remember these tips when considering a group buying deal and you just might see the positive surge in business that you’ve needed.

Using discretion on what you post on the Internet has been widely written and warned about, yet, people continue to Tweet, blog and Facebook post inappropriate content that lands them in hot water. People know by now, that you should not post things about your job, boss, fellow employees, or clients. But while there will always be people who don’t understand discretion, or will take the idea of free speech too far, there is an issue that appears hard to pin down because of its relativity: humor.

Earlier this month, American Fashion designer, Kenneth Cole, took the riots in Egypt as a shameless way to promote his new spring line:

“Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KC”

Needless to say, this did not go over well. Most of Cole’s campaigns seem to titter on the edge, but this one was clearly over the line.

The problem with humor is that it’s relative. If you’ve ever told a joke to one person and got a huge laugh, but then told the same joke to another, only to receive blank stares, you know what we’re talking about. Playing with edgy humor is always risky.  Usually, it will either go over very well, or completely bomb. Here are a few things to avoid when playing with edgy humor:

-Avoid making fun or light of large disasters: As seen in the Kenneth Cole example and Groupon’s Superbowl commercials about Tibet, making light of large scale disasters, both recent, or in the past, is more likely than not, going to be viewed as insensitive and shameless.

-Avoid making jokes about race: No business, brand, or person benefits from being considered a racist, and there is no faster way to gain this title than to make race related jokes. Leave this type of humor to the stand-up comedians.

-Avoid monetizing at the expense of others: Back in September when the San Bruno explosion and fire destroyed dozens of homes, killed four people, and left many injured, a local café, Onyx Café, put out a tweet offering a place to come and cool off from the fire with a drink. Anything where people were killed or hurt is not something to joke about and will likely cause backlash and negative attention.

While humor is one of the most effective ways to promote a product, brand or business, it can also be very risky. Keep these tips in mind and you are more likely to have a success like the Old Spice campaign and less likely to experience public ridicule like Kenneth Cole.

There’s No Social Media

If you don’t have share buttons or social media integration, it’s time for a new site. Why, you may be asking, would Social Media integration warrant a complete site overhaul? Design consistency from Facebook avatars Twitter backgrounds and branding will make sure your new site and Social Media strategy doesn’t fall flat on its face.

It Has Never Been Updated

A site that has never been updated is in desperate need of an overhaul. New technologies quickly become available on the web. Not taking advantage of the latest and greatest on the web is the internet equivalent of having a closet full of summer clothes during January in Philly. Even content should be changed regularly and weekly if you have a Blog. Updating your content shows Google you care about your site.

You Can’t Find It In Google

Google is the first site people turn for info. If the people you want coming to your site can’t find it, does your site even exist? Using a combination of keyword rich content and Search Engine Optimization, your site can rise in the ranks on Google or any search engine. But, what point is an old, archaic website showing up as the first result on Google for a keyword? That’s when you know you need a redesign.

A High Bounce Rate

It’s human nature to indulge in great things, website are no different. If you notice your bounce rate is high, or a lot of people are leaving as soon as they leave, it’s time for a redesign. Bounce rates can be quelled in many different ways such as a site redesign.

It’s Slow To Load

A slow loading site is a huge indicator for a major site redesign. The issue could be poorly optimized code that adds bloat to your site. Massive images that are the result of bad design could cause a site to load slowly. An aging server could cause your site to load at a glacial pace

Why Navigation Is Critical For User Interaction

It’s often the small details that make the biggest impact on your design and not implementing even the smallest change to increase usability can be fatal during the conversion process. Being able to navigate through a site and not be bombarded by links that don’t work or being presented with useless will make your online business more effective.

Many people don’t take the small details in to account or forget about the big picture just because their site looks great and is in a digital environment. You wouldn’t choose a cookie cutter layout for your office or storefront despite the convenience in selecting it, would you? You wouldn’t because your needs are unique. The same goes for your site – users need to navigate outside of the navigation methods imposed by generic layouts.

What Is Good Design?

Tackling the issue of website usability and how it can be implemented effectively, Tanner, our resident blogger at DigitalEYE Media wrote a very extensive post titled “Designing With Usability: How To Make Navigation Easier For Users”. In the post, you can learn what web usability is and how it plays a critical role in how visitors interact with your site along with tips for improving visibility.

There is a reason why great interface designers exist: the need for usable and effective layouts is not only in demand but their work can help your bottom line. If you have a website that is very easy to use, features interactive elements that guide visitors to their destination and is visually appeasing, your website will be the best generator of cash.

The team of Graphic Designers and Web Programmers I work with at DigitalEYE Media take site usability very seriously. Their experience in crafting sites that are very easy to use and effective conversion points sets them apart from the competition. Even more so, my team’s work speaks for itself.

Why Your Site Needs effective Copy

Creating a great website requires useful navigation elements, a visually appealing design and interesting content. Unfortunately, most websites don’t focus on the later which is one of the most effective tools in a web marketing expert’s toolkit. Effective copy is the silent sales pitch of your website. It’s the marketing man that never sleeps and should always captivate users to take an action. It also influences visitors to further explore the site or leave and never come back – It’s that powerful.

Bad Copy

A brand’s website is your presence online and the first place potential clients and visitors will see. While the visual design may be effective and be filled to the brim with features that wow, they’re useless if the copy that supports it is weak. Imagine reading a comic book and the dialogue was poor – it would detract from the action then make you board. Instead, images of super heroes fighting super villains are drawn by words and dialogue. You should treat your website the same way as great copy can be more effective than most marketing services.

Weak copy will turn off visitors, dilute your brand’s image and water down the impact of your latest product. But copy, as short as it may be, is a necessity in today’s keyword driven world. The worst kind of copy consists of words that have no purpose and do not help visitors in any way.

How effective Copy Can Generate Results

Having effective copy complimented by effective call to actions will generate results. When done right, it will guide visitors through your site leading them to an objective you want completed. One such example is completing a contact form which could generate a business lead.

Effective copy puts visitors in control. Navigation should be made easier through call to actions that lead visitors to a final goal such as checking out during the purchase process or downloading media. Call to actions and effective copy will not only captivate users but persuade them .

Have you been turned off by a website that had horrible copy? It’s a common problem some designers fail to recognize. Tell me which website made you hit the back button as soon as you started reading it.