MAGAZINE OF THE EUROPEAN LOTTERIES, 2011, SEPTEMBER ...

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CASE STUDY tions and the place for engagement with our brands. - YouTube is a management centre for our image, servicing Social Media and Search platforms. When players talk about us or our campaigns, their search might not bring them to our videos if we do not have an official presence on YouTube, but to those made about similar products by amateurs or foreign Lotteries and when this contact has not been considered, it becomes a lost opportunity. - Twitter is a new link in media influence that requires, at the very least, a daily monitoring. While its audience is more confidential than Facebook, its public is nonetheless extremely critical with an equally important potential impact (politicians, geeks, journalists, entrepreneurs). - Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook Places, etc.: Digital tools servicing‘Real Life’ interests (events, points of sale and more). CREATING PLAYERS’ COMMUNITIES: KEY STEPS Our starting point: a Facebook corporate page created in the summer of 2010, linked to a campaign for the instant scratch-card game, Win For Life. By giving away tickets for music festivals via simple contests, the page attracts more than 5,000 fans. In December 2010, this presence is structured, and most of all animated in a lasting manner. Besides a campaign, with a regular involvement on the Facebook page (a regular communication is key to ensure the page visibility among the newsfeed for its fans), activities dedicated to its fans are created in a regular manner (a tab for contests, polls, applications with various themes, etc.), supported by targeted campaigns within Facebook (acquisition of new fans and reminders for others). Finally, the creation of a YouTube channel allows the centralization and reinforcement of the visibility of all video assets of the National Lottery. In these footsteps, the Facebook corporate page is experiencing a quick expansion going from 5,000 fans to almost 20,000 in just one year. Even though the page recruits a lot of fans, its potential for engagement is limited to the National Lottery brand, more serious than entertaining – but also an institution that we enjoy to call to account. It is not a brand fans would mostly use to define their digital identity, unlike the game brands that are strongly anchored in the daily life of our players. Since May 2011, emblematic brands have been working progressively on building their players’ communities, with their own objectives, visual identity and content tone, that are managed on a daily basis by an external Community Manager. Everything is being thought out to achieve maximum synergy with the audiovisual productions, our sites, our newsletters and campaigns, the various media, the different departments as well as the events. It’s a success: more than 9,000 fans for the Euro Millions after three months, near 13,000 fans for Win For Life after one month… A total of almost 40,000 fans for the National Lottery and its brands after one year of presence and 8 months of active management, largely surpassing the initial objectives. That result should get even better with the impending arrival of the Lotto brand and has positioned the National Lottery among the most active brands on Social Media in Belgium. LOTTERY & TECHNOLOGY 1 YEAR. 40,000 FANS. ADDED VALUE AND KEY LEARNINGS? Establishing a dialogue space on Social Media means that you accept to be challenged and pushed around by your most attentive audience on all the changes in progress, the dreams they have and that do not yet exist, the problems too and most of all our timeliness. Social Media rhyme with extreme reactivity: It’s a dialogue in real time that never stops, including evenings and Sundays. A true challenge that requires us to get organised. But accepting such a challenge means that we have to question our interests and priorities in order to reposition even more consumers’ expectations in the centre of our dynamics. It also incurs to accept moving faster, even if it means pushing aside some of the processes. To question oneself, be flexible and adopt a new rhythm will no doubt be a warrant for modernity. Also it is about bringing along a new dimension to the brands, the same ones that provide the most loyal players with information and exclusive privileges, that will gain from their advice and initiate a regular dialogue between players and will see the emergence among them of the most loyal players – their ambassadors. This will also en- 14 NEWS 37 SEPTEMBER 2011
ich the experiences with the brands going from passive to interactive, becoming more entertaining and more inclusive. Played daily, they are connected to the intimate space of our players, their Social Graph, their friends. A Fan page that is well thought out and nicely animated consolidates the image of the brand, increases its sympathy asset, creates a daily link with its fans and reveals its natural ambassadors. But a presence on Social Media is also a very fast and efficient way to manage consumers’ satisfaction. Very often, during moments of preoccupation, Social Media are the first platform to release the information either through our channels or not. Ensuring an attentive and reactive management of the comments allows us to detect any incident and handle it very quickly. It’s like creating an abridgment between our brands and our players, which emphasises the positive feelings of our players. It is presenting numerous public “thank you” and pushing the players’ satisfaction out of the confined individual space to produce a public, viral and repetitive expression of enthusiasm. The last months have been filled with success and have been a learning experience. - Social Media are no magic bullets to reach younger players. These media work across generations, connecting our games to our audiences both young and mature. Forget about any miracle to rejuvenate an audience but dare imagine a clear success with the 30-50 years old age group too. - Fans do not find us by themselves. A fan base is built upon a targeted communication and results in unprecedented interactive experiences (e.g. create a “Dream List” through an e-shopping interface for the launch of the Euro Millions page) and/or nice incentives (e.g. win a romantic trip, festivals tickets, donations to a charity, etc.). Facebook members are intensely courted. Gaining their attention must be earned and the same goes when it comes to retention. - Is your agency handling the advertising campaigns on Facebook perfectly? They are key factors for visibility and success on Facebook. And per Facebook’s own recognition, the digital agencies’ lack of experience in this field often compromises the results of the brands. Mastering the commercial environment of Facebook warrants in turn a precious response by Facebook’s teams (local antenna or Facebook Europe) when you fall victim to a bug. - Social Media, global media, strictly local opportunities. If access to Facebook, Twitter and other social media works for most of the brands without any restriction per countries, the Lotteries face challenges due to their territoriality, in a context where their brand names are often and paradoxically local namesakes in other countries. Thus beware of the tempting promises of the latest commercial opportunities tied to Facebook : Some are not implementable when a country filter is mandatory for a Fan page, as it is for all Lotteries. Getting to know the specific Facebook policies for Lotteries allows avoiding mishaps into impossible projects. Also, it is extremely difficult to track down many of the conversations on the local brands, when their names are slightly similar to those in neighbouring countries or when they are marketed in other countries. To find out what is said in a specific territory about well-known brands LOTTERY & TECHNOLOGY such as Lotto or Euro Millions is a definite challenge. And today’s online watch or e-reputation solutions are rarely successful at doing so. These are the limitations not to be ignored. - Social Media are never turned off. Insulting comments on a Sunday, a bug one evening at 10 pm … For certain brands, Sunday is even the day where fans are the most active. It is impossible to think of a Facebook page without an alert system and a manned management that is operational 7 days a week and after office hours. - Do you really know what they say about you? Managing Social Media is a whole application that cannot be comprehended without a careful daily listening and a reaction to players’ conversations when necessary. The listening effort must become more refined to find the proper tools, the correct key words adapted to the linguistic peculiarities we face (e.g. an efficient tool in French might not sound the same way in Dutch) and needs to be wide spread (Twitter, blogs, Facebook, forums, Google+ and more…), with the knowledge of the limitation that a monitoring may never be totally complete. Once under control, Social Media can deliver formidable opportunities. 15 NEWS 37 SEPTEMBER 2011
Page 1 and 2: NEWS 37 MAGAZINE OF THE EUROPEAN LO
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