GDC 2010 Social Networks: The New Marketplace for Mobile Games?

Social Networks: The New Marketplace for Mobile Games?   Michael Powers Founder CEO

About Us   Web-Based Social Discovery for Mobile Apps

The Gold Rush is Over   Going live on the App Store is not a marketing strategy.   You are going to have to take your marketing into your own hands.

The Problem: Long Tail isn’t long enough   Physical limitations to discovery.   Screen size, bandwidth, patience.   Feature phones.   95% of game sales to Top 20   iPhone is better (but not by much)   Top 200 is the new Top 20

The Problem: Long Tail isn’t long enough

The Opportunity: Huge Untapped Market

The Opportunity: Cross Platform Demand iPhone Android BlackBerry Game Interest 3X 2X Audience 2X Register 2X 2X Revisit 3X 2X Apps per Visit 2X Share per App 2X Download Rate 2X

The Target: Casual Online Gamers   Mobile Games = Casual Games   This isn’t news.   Casual Demographics   More female than male; 20s/30s/40s.   Plurality: married women.   Hassle adverse   Not going to work hard to get content

The Target: Casual Online Gamers   They’ve seen the prime time ads:   Their next phone will be a smartphone

The Solution? Three Ways to Go   Schmooze   Cozy up to Apple, Google, et al   Spend   Drop ~$50K on Admob   Sweat   Goguerrilla to maximize exposure using web and social marketing.

Solution: Web Discovery   It’s where the users are   7 out of 10 casual gamers go on the web at least once a day   They’re wasting time already   Notchecking Facebook ten times a day to stay productive   Frictionless discovery   Highbandwidth, low latency, no hassle

Web Discovery   Frictionless Discovery   66% of our traffic is outside Top 50.   Allows great content to bubble-up. Android BlackBerry iPhone Top 10 14% 12% 19% 11 to 50 21% 21% 15% The Rest 65% 67% 66%

Web Discovery   Playable Discovery   More than 50% click to play a video   More than 50% watch the whole thing Most Played Top Performing The Sims 3 Photoshop.com 73% 5.1x T T iPeePee Finger Physics 69% 3.0x Pocket God Cooking Mama 60% 2.5x

Solution: Social Discovery   Peer-to-peer is powerful   53% of app discovery is via online buzz or word-of-mouth (AdMob)   Vectors   Link sharing via Facebook, Twitter, and Email   Transmitters   Bloggers and reviews, Organic, and In-Game traffic

Social Discovery   What it looks like

Social Discovery   Targeting the Casual Demographic   Mission Accomplished!

Step One: Web Landing Page   Make it Easy   Easy to share, cross-promote apps,   Easy to find, search engine optimized   Optimize for Desktop and Mobile   Web means both; and users clicking social links are increasingly on device   Measure, Measure, Measure   Track the analytics and Optimize for conversion

Step Two: Embrace Video   “Playable discovery”   50%+ of page views play the video,   2X conversion on average.   Do It Yourself   Hire a firm if you can afford, otherwise DIY is better than nothing.   Video Review Sites   Ifyou can get them to review, and if the review is good, use it.

Step Three: Learn to love PR   Hire some PR if you can afford it   Alot of PR firms now have budget-minded app launch programs.   Or, Do It Yourself   Cheap to release on PR Web et. al., Keep it short and sweet.   Build an SEO Trail   Each release increases the value of all the releases that came before it.

Step Four: Chase the Review Blogs   Make a List   Dothe work and build a contact list and work it aggressively.   Promo Codes   Nosurprise, but promo codes are the currency of choice.   Make Friends   Personaltouch matters with these guys; no site is too small.

Step Five: Connect Your Users   Integrate Social Network APIs   Implement Facebook Connect, Twitter, et. al; more the better.   Use Community Frameworks   OpenFeint,Score Loop, Playhaven, and others make the hard stuff easy.   Make sure you Drive Traffic   Driveeverything back to your web landing pages.

Questions?   Michael Powers Founder CEO http://mplayit.com

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GDC 2010 Social Networks: The New Marketplace for Mobile Games?

by Craig Dalton on Mar 15, 2010

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GDC 2010 Social Networks: The New Marketplace for Mobile Games? — Presentation Transcript