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

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