Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Being Social in the Gaming Industry


By Holly Wetzel, Vice President of Communications, American Gaming Association (AGA)

This past weekend, I took some time to check out the September issue of Fast Company magazine, which is all about social media— how businesses can leverage the technology to boost their brands, as well as the reality that there are still a lot of questions about just how to maximize benefits from the ever-expanding array of social platforms. Rarely do I read a magazine cover to cover, but this one had me hooked.

It got me thinking about how social media has transformed marketing and communication in the gaming industry. Ours has always been a service-oriented business, and social media helps take our customer relationships to the next level. It gives us a direct 24-7 connectionallowing us to promote our products, respond to feedback and solicit customer input in real time like never before. 

The promise of social media holds endless potential, but to make it work for us, we have to work at it. Customer expectations have risen right along with our new opportunities to reach them. Authenticity and responsiveness are keys to the success of any social media endeavor, as is providing something of value to our customers, whether that’s information, special offers or something else they can’t get anywhere else. Developing strong relationships through social media can turn good customers into a community of influential advocates for our brands.

At the AGA, we use social media to share industry news and accomplishments, promote our position on key issues, announce new resources and programs, and develop relationships with those who care about our business. Our social media team will be out in force at G2E, live-tweeting key conference sessions and posting photos on Facebook from various events. We’ll be featuring exclusive content from G2E via AGA Smartbrief, our daily e-mail news brief. And, we’ll be checking out G2E’s Social Media Bootcamp , which is sure to give us (and you!) even more ideas about how to successfully leverage the latest social media tools.

Every day I’m inspired by the creativity and insight on display through industry social media efforts, and it’s exciting to think about all the new places this technology has yet to take us. I look forward to seeing you at G2E!

For all the latest industry news at the show and beyond, be sure to follow the AGA on Twitter and Facebook.


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