Data: Bingo failing to capitalise on social media
Some of the UK's top bingo brands are having little trouble building volume on social media, but engaging those audiences is proving to be a challenge
One of the key selling points for most online bingo brands is the community experience that they deliver to their site members. Bingo brands make a huge point about their chat communities and continue to play heavily on the social element of the games.
It is one of the reasons why social media plays a key role in the marketing strategies for bingo brands. With the organic search market largely dominated by a small number of brands and the proliferation of bonus offers making paid search much more challenging, social media has become a key channel for attracting new customers and keeping existing players.
But what we have found is that whilst some of the major brands in the market have little trouble in building a volume of audience, they are having trouble in engaging with that audience. This threatens to undermine their investment in social media marketing and could potentially result in customers becoming disengaged from the brand.
Gala Bingo is one such example of this. As one of only two bricks and mortarâ brands in our index, it has been able to successfully build a critical volume of audience across its social media channels and is communicating with the biggest audience volume in our index.
Gala Bingo’s volume is largely down to strong audience volumes on Facebook and Google+, while it also performs well on Twitter, where it is the second-most followed brand in our index. In total, Gala Bingo scores 72.61 out of a possible 100 points in our index, ahead of Jackpotjoy, the second most visible brand, with 67.66.
Quality not quantity
However, social media marketing is predominantly about how an organisation is engaging with an audience, rather than how large that audience is. This is particularly pertinent in an era where social networks are increasingly introducing algorithms that will control the distribution of content and reward those brands that create and publish consistently engaging content.
In the case of Gala Bingo, there is evidence to suggest that it is failing to make its social media volume count in terms of engagement, as it is only the fourth most engaging brand in our index.
Facebook performance is typical of the lack of engagement the brand is experiencing from its audiences. Despite having the largest volume, the brand struggles to get its content shared across the platform being seventh place on our index for Facebook shares. This is perhaps an indication that the brand needs to rethink the way it uses Facebook to utilise the audience it has created. Similarly, Twitter represents a missed opportunity, with the brand having the second-highest audience but only the fifth most engaged.
Even the most engaging brand in the bingo sector, Jackpotjoy, is arguably missing an opportunity on YouTube, with only the fourth-highest number of views despite having the largest volume of subscribers.
Tombola bingo appears to be the most successful brand at engaging with its audience group. The brand is fifth on our index for volume but second on our engagement index. This is largely due to very strong levels of engagement on Facebook and Twitter.
Our analysis also reveals that Sun Bingo and Bingostars have neglected certain social media channels entirely. In the case of Sun Bingo, there is no presence on YouTube, while Bingostars has neglected Google+. This may not seem to be a huge problem for Bingostars, given that Google+ doesn’t have a particularly active user base. However, despite some refuting the suggestion, there is evidence to suggest that Google “+1s” do correlate with higher organic search rankings. It is therefore prudent to ensure a presence on this social media channel.