Creative Traction

Tipster Thursdays is a monthly feature covering technology and how you can incorporate it as part of your marketing plan. We’re going to look at different pieces of technology like Twitter, Pingie, Prologue, SmugMug, Qik and delicious and show you 5 different uses for the technology. This weeks column is going to look at Facebook Pages.

..,Facebook Page is a unique experience where users can become more deeply connected with your business or brand. Users can express their support by adding themselves as a fan, writing on your Wall, uploading photos, and joining other fans in discussion groups. You can send updates to your fans regularly — or just with special news or offers. Add applications to your Page and engage your users with videos, reviews, flash content, and more.

Facebook is becoming a larger part of everyone’s marketing plan as we move forward. With their efforts put towards localization (here, here and here) of Facebook outside of the US. Having global brands for video games on Facebook makes sense with 60+ million active uses around the world and 60% living outside of the US.

Imagine if Microsoft’s Xbox team setup its own Facebook Pages to send out updates to its fans on new screens, game news and trailers. It could just include a link back to the studio’s site or your other Facebook pages on Facebook. Or what if you were EA and used Facebook Pages and other social networks to launch mini-versions of your game… EA is planning something like this. The key to using Facebook Pages from a marketing perspective is to think about it as a two way communication platform. The question you need to ask yourself is “How can I let the fans of my game keep up to date on the latest information”, which could be the following:

Use Facebook Pages to help launch mini-versions of your game. Check out what EA is doing.
If you run an MMO or virtual world. Use Facebook Pages to launch a Second life herald type publication.
Launch a re-mix competition for one of your game trials with Facebook Pages.
Engage your fans & customers with a place they can get the latest trailers, screens and information about your game.
Launch a video series focusing on one of the side stories in your game.

Keep in mind that everyone on Facebook may not like your brand, company or game… and you’ll need to be prepared to react to negative statement on your Facebook Pages. If things do go wrong you can read my Gamasutra column, Online PR For Games: There Is No Going Back Now, and learn how to react. However, I think the positives far out weight the negatives when it comes to using social media as a marketing tool.

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