After announcing that 41% of its revenue was due to mobile advertising, Facebook took the next logical step of mobile advertising by announcing it will now assist developers in publishing their mobile games.
I am NOT surprised by this move.
Facebook can offer its entire social network for distribution, which is already fine-tuned for advertising.
Not only that, but the hashtags Facebook now provides makes it easy for gamers to share their gaming achievements, invite others and more (read more about my comments on E-Commerce Times here).
This presents an excellent opportunity for businesses to build their brand via the mobile gaming platform. However, if they have yet to explore mobile game development, they might be at a loss where to begin. Luckily, Facebook provides a strategic analysis starting point businesses can use today.
This technique utilizes Facebook’s Open Graph Search.
Open Graph Search allows businesses search for people who:
* Like their brand’s page AND
* Play games (or a specific game).
The data gathered from this search can provide insights into the type of games brand followers favor (and thus help guide new mobile game development).
Facebook’s Open Graph Search is very easy to use. When typing in a query, Facebook provides suggestions on what you’d like to find. For example, typing:
“People who like”
will result in suggested pages appearing. Select the business brand page and then refine the query by adding:
“and play”
The final query might be
People who like CNN and play games
The results are quite eye-opening indeed.
It can be fine-tuned even more by specifying the game:
People who like Forbes and play Angry Birds
or the genre:
People who like Beachbody and play adventure games
Game gendres include:
* Action
* Adventure
* Arcade
* Board
* Card
* Casino
* Dice
* Educational
* Family
* Kids
* Music
* Puzzle
* Racing
* Role Playing
* Simulation
* Sports
* Strategy
* Trivia
* Word
These searches can be even further refined by location (thus helping local business mobile game development), gender, relationships and family and more. By strategic use of Facebook’s Open Graph Search, businesses can get a jumpstart on the types of mobile games that would appeal to their brand followers.
Facebook’s official developers blog revealed this innovation is “designed to reach people who already play games on Facebook with new games,” Almost 1/3 of Facebook’s overall 800 million monthly users (260 million), play games on the network’s desktop and mobile sites. Facebook will also give developers access to analytics tools as well.
This is an innovative way for businesses to take advantage of the new mobile gaming publishing platform. Knowing what your brand advocates enjoy playing can give an excellent starting point for future business game development.
Grow strong,
Barbara Ling
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You’ll love what you learn… Promise!