Whether it’s branding their own content or partnering with celebrities, many of the major brands spend big on providing material for their social platforms, aiming to retain current customers and attract new ones.
But not everything they’re throwing at social platforms is sticking. It’s easy to do too much or too little content, and it’s also easy to do content that doesn’t have value and delivers poor returns. It’s important that these companies consider if the content they’re delivering here is gaining any traction and, if it is, if they’re serving up enough of it.
Brands start to socialise
Sports is a very natural fit for content, much more so than the rest of the gaming sector. The turbulence, the rivalries and the personalities generate fuel for stories, and we can see that gaming brands have jumped on this as an opportunity to craft content.
Paddy Power have performed very well in this sector – they’re number one in our volume index – and much of this is down to the time and money they’ve invested in a brand image and voice that translates perfectly to social marketing. They’ve cornered that approach so well that some competitors have defined themselves by trying to deliver the opposite, and Bet Victor in particular have taken care to eschew a ‘laddish’ approach.
In terms of volume, Paddy Power are number one across Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, with Bet365 a somewhat distant second. Betfair are also in the reckoning, but are hamstrung by a weak effort on Twitter, especially compared to their strong YouTube activity.
But you can’t put all your eggs in the volume basket. Engagement is vital, and an analysis of that gives us a different overall picture.
Hitting the engagement sweet spot
Paddy Power retain their number one slot here, with strong engagement on their Twitter and YouTube channels, although they’re not getting the most out of their Facebook content. But the devil is in the detail, and once we dig into the rest of the index we can tease out some interesting trends.
Bet365, who boasted second place on the volume index, slip to fifth here, with their Facebook content getting little traction. YouTube and Twitter, in particular, remain strong for them, so it might not be merely that they’re getting it wrong on Facebook. Instead, it could be how they distribute that content, in the face of the algorithms in place that limit organic content distribution. Ideally they need to address both elements.
Ladbrokes, who didn’t fare particularly well in terms of volume, are clearly delivering content that engages their audience, particularly on Facebook. They are second only to SkyBet on that particular platform, another brand whose content seems to be working well. Again, it’s not just production of content that’s important here, but distribution as well. Having found that customers like their content, can they find the sweet spot of delivering more but retaining the engagement? We’ll be keeping an eye on it.
