Industry News
European Gaming Q3 Meetup: B2B Social Media Strategy & Future-proofing Casino Products
Social media success – Creating a successful B2B Strategy
Social media is now a key channel for brand visibility. But what makes a social media strategy successful for a B2B company in the iGaming sector? Which platforms are essential? Should your approach be strictly corporate, or is there room for a lighter touch? Who’s leading the way?
These and more were the burning questions that the panelists discussed in the European Gaming Q3 Virtual Meetup 2024, debating content, style, and channels for the optimal iGaming B2B social media strategy.
Moderator and HIPTHER Co-founder, Zoltán Tűndik, welcomed experts Dorota Gruszka – Marketing Manager at Booming Games, Tereza Melicharkova – Head of Marketing at Swintt, and Katya Machuganova – Gaming Product & Partnership Manager at Silverback Gaming, to discuss social media strategies for B2B companies, focusing on engagement, brand exposure, and the potential impact of emerging technologies.
Social Media Strategies for B2B iGaming Companies
The panelists highlighted the importance of engagement, brand exposure, clear objectives, and meaningful success metrics beyond vanity metrics.
Dorota Gruszka emphasized the importance of setting clear goals from the start to measure success. While engagement is key, the real magic happens when you evoke emotions that make your audience remember you.
For Tereza Melicharkova, the success of a campaign is reflected in the Word-of-Mouth factor – when people talk about it even beyond social media.
Katya Machuganova explained that a winning campaign is more than just likes & shares; it’s about building brand awareness and reaching new audiences. In the B2B space, seeing ROI and clearly expressing your company’s values are crucial.
Exploring Social Media Strategies and Challenges
Our experts discussed all aspects of social media marketing and communications: Tereza mentioned examples of campaigns and praised the successful Swinttopia campaign. Dorota emphasized evoking emotions and reminded us of the value of a dedicated website to lead your audience to. Katya discussed key content types for building brand awareness: promotional, personality, educational, and conversational. The team stressed consistency, authenticity, targeting the right audience, and attracting talent.
Social Media Channels: No ‘One Size Fits All’
Regarding the growing popularity of alternative channels like Telegram and fitness apps such as Strava for branding and socializing, the panel agreed that discretion is crucial. Companies should be cautious about adding yet another notification to the already busy devices of modern professionals. The team also discussed the challenges and potential solutions for managing communication across multiple social media platforms, with a focus on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. Evidently, LinkedIn, as the primary professional medium/network, is the place to be for iGaming companies; however, targeting should be taken into consideration when selecting a company’s social media channels. The discussion also touched on the importance of tailoring content to each platform and the changes to the LinkedIn user experience.
Balancing Professionalism and Personality in Social Media
Katya, Dorota, Tereza, and Zoltan explored the matter of the right balance between professionalism and personality in social media presence for companies. How “human” and “light-hearted” companies are allowed to be nowadays? It’s becoming clear that authentic and human-centric content elicits engagement, attracts interest, showcases the values and purpose of a company and helps attract talent. The panel emphasized the importance of a variety of content, authenticity, and tracking KPIs to maintain engagement and relevance. The group also discussed the potential impact of emerging technologies like AI, augmented reality, and extended reality on social media campaigns.
AI, Reality, and Future Casino Products
But what about artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential impact?. Dorota expressed her enthusiasm for AI and its potential benefits, while Tereza and Katya showed some apprehension about its potential to replace human workers. The team also discussed the potential of augmented and extended reality, with Tereza expressing uncertainty about its practical applications.
Designing Casino Products for the Future Player
The second panel of the Meetup saw Zoltan welcoming Brandt Page – CEO at Bitblox, Keith Goddard – CEO at Blaze Gaming, Nemanja Živić – Head of Games at Booming Games, Anthony Oh – Co-Founder at Red Desert Games, to discuss the best ways to future-proof casino products in the contemporary iGaming industry.
Brandt introduced Bitblox Games’ focus on creating unique games that combine skill and chance, with a particular emphasis on the crypto and web 3.0 markets. Keith from Blaze Gaming, a company with a 15+ year history in the gaming industry, highlighted their studio’s primary focus on building casino products and their strategy of distributing these games to a global market. Anthony from Red Desert Games, a relatively young studio, shared their intention to differentiate themselves from typical slot companies by offering something unique. Nemanja from Booming Games, a provider of online slot content, mentioned their plan to expand towards instant win games and other products.
Creating Engaging Content for Regional Markets
The panelists unanimously stressed the importance of crafting engaging and localized content tailored to different regional markets. Keith emphasized the need to understand cultural preferences and to adapt game mechanics, artwork, and features accordingly. Anthony underscored the value of analyzing player data, tracking popular games, and experimenting with new concepts. Nemanja advocated for a blend of internal data, market research, and team expertise to develop captivating games. On the topic of innovation, Keith recommended striking a balance between integrating new features and maintaining the success of existing games, while Brandt proposed incorporating interactive elements and exploring emerging technologies like Web3 for future growth.
Balancing Innovation and Core Elements in Games
The panel delved into the challenge of balancing innovation with core elements in game development. Keith, Anthony, Nemanja, and Brandt agreed that while new technology and mechanics are important, they should be built upon existing successful titles and player feedback. They also highlighted the significance of player experience and the need to solve problems with new technology. The team emphasized the importance of future-proofing their titles and products, with a focus on incremental innovation and doubling down on successful mechanics.
Entertainment Value, Innovations, and Future-Proofing of Casino Products
Keith emphasized the importance of entertainment value in their products and the role of operators as their clients. He highlighted the need for technical innovations to drive entertainment and the significance of considering regulation and market changes. Anthony added that future-proofing a game is challenging due to changing player preferences, market environments, and regulations. He suggested focusing on game mechanics and player feedback as crucial factors in future-proofing. Both agreed on the necessity of having a diversified portfolio to mitigate risks.
iGaming Industry Trends and Regulations
The panelists also discussed current trends impacting product development in the gaming industry. Brandt mentioned the need for off-chain processing due to scalability issues with blockchain platforms like Solana. Keith highlighted the rise of lightweight, customizable games, sweepstakes models, and new genres like trading games. Anthony pointed to the increasing number of new studios entering the market, especially in newly regulated jurisdictions. Nemanja expects a mix of established products alongside lighter, faster-loading games and an influence from changing regulations.
Watch the European Gaming Q3 Meetup recording on YouTube and HIPTHER TV!
Take note of these insights and get ready to upgrade our social media and game development strategies! Up Next: The European Gaming Q4 Virtual Meetup will be hitting your screens in November 2024 with even more valuable insights and updates.
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Industry News
New KSA Campaign: Get Your Life Back on Track, Take a Gambling Break
The Dutch Gaming Authority (KSA) launched a new awareness campaign to draw attention to the gambling stop. With the campaign “Pick up your life again, take a gambling stop,” KSA is aiming to increase attention to the risks of gambling and make the Cruks register more well-known.
Insights
The campaign is a follow-up to the pilot campaign from 2023. This pilot yielded many valuable insights, for example that more people are attracted to the word gambling stop. This name is therefore used in the new campaign.
Positive effect
The campaign focuses primarily on young adults who (possibly) no longer have their gambling under control. That is one of the reasons why the campaign is largely running via social media instead of traditional (mass) media. The focus is on the positive effect that a gambling stop has on the life of a person with gambling problems. The powerful moments of young people who pick up their lives again can be seen in online videos, social ads and social posts (Google, YouTube, Meta and Snapchat).
The post New KSA Campaign: Get Your Life Back on Track, Take a Gambling Break appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
Industry News
EGBA: Record Participation As European Safer Gambling Week Expands to 26 Countries
The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) announced record-breaking results from its fourth annual European Safer Gambling Week, held 18-24 November. The initiative – which included a social media campaign and events programme – demonstrated the broader European sector’s strengthening commitment to safer gambling through new levels of participation and expanded geographic reach.
The campaign saw record engagement with 195 partners actively participating – a 20% increase from 2023. Eight national gambling authorities participated, more than double the previous year, by either joining the social media campaign or speaking at the various events.
The campaign’s reach also expanded significantly to 26 countries – a 30% increase from 2023 – with partners in Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine joining for the first time, reflecting the growing pan-European dimension of the campaign. This was helped by social media graphics being made available in the local languages of 27 countries.
The social media campaign reached 3.1 million users across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X platforms, generating 1169 social media posts – a 67% increase from the previous year.
A cornerstone of this year’s campaign was its comprehensive events programme, featuring 20 specialised events – an 11% increase from 2023. The events attracted record participation with 4500 registrations and 3000 attendees. Key discussions explored trends in AI, problem gambling prevalence reporting and innovations in safer gambling tools and messaging. The events featured 105 speakers, including senior representatives from gambling authorities in Belgium, Denmark, France and the UK.
The initiative builds on EGBA members’ year-round commitment to safer gambling, which in 2023 resulted in 67 million safety messages sent to their European customers. This dedicated week amplifies these ongoing efforts while encouraging greater collaboration between operators, regulators and harm prevention organisations.
“The success of this year’s edition reflects the sector’s deepening commitment to player protection. The significant increase in participation, especially from health organisations and regulatory authorities, demonstrates the common purpose and growing unity in our approach to safer gambling. Through this collaboration, we’ve reached a record number of Europeans with crucial safety messages during the campaign. Together, we’re making gambling safer and we already look forward to building on this success in next year’s edition,” said Maarten Haijer, Secretary General of EGBA.
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Industry News
CT Gaming to Participate in ICE Barcelona 2025
CT Gaming is going to participate in ICE Barcelona 2025, which will take place from 20 to 22 Jan 2025.
“It is always a pleasure to kick off the year at ICE. This year is particularly special as we explore a new location, which we anticipate will bring fresh connections and exciting opportunities,” said Biser Bozhanov, Director of Business Development and Strategies at CT Gaming.
Positioned at stand #3C56, CT Gaming will present an impressive lineup of its signature products alongside exciting new additions, including the multigame Diamond King 4.
“We are eager to showcase our latest offerings and engage with clients, colleagues, and industry professionals to gather their valuable feedback. This year’s selection is a strong testament to CT Gaming’s enduring legacy and commitment to excellence,” added Bozhanov.
Among the products displayed at stand #3C56 will be the slot cabinet NEXT, known for its ultimate comfort and functionality. This cabinet comes with 27″ or 32″ high-definition screens, an optional premium stand, a USB phone charger, a bill validator with a stacker and an enlarged CMS panel for seamless operation. Other representatives from the slot cabinet family are EZ Modulo 32/32/32 and EZ Tower. Both of these cabinets combine sleek designs with advanced technology set to deliver an unparalleled gaming experience.
Alongside the slot cabinets, the company will showcase its staple multigame titles, such as Diamond King 3, Mermaid’s Quest, Tower Link and the newest addition to the multigame portfolio – Diamond King 4. With 40 exciting games, 20 of which are linked to a progressive jackpot, the multigame takes player engagement to new heights. Unlike previous versions, players can now win any of the three jackpot levels directly from the base game, while the cascading white and pink diamonds promise thrilling rewards at every turn. Designed with the next generation of players in mind, Diamond King 4 features enhanced graphics, modern themes and an immersive experience that’s perfectly in sync with today’s gaming landscape. The newly conceptualized linked progressive jackpot, Diamond Tree Deluxe, presents an elevated reward experience with its upgraded features.
Last but not least, CT Gaming will unveil the latest updates to its Casino Management System – Rhino, designed to enhance operator functionality and player engagement.
The post CT Gaming to Participate in ICE Barcelona 2025 appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
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