It has impact on many business and companies, injecting gamification to many aspects of daily life. So who are these people?

The following infographics by Flotown gives a better understanding, who are the social gamers, what is their background and their behavior. And of course much more.

Do you use gamification for your business or are thinking about implementing it? And are you also a social gamer or just a “regular one”?

Source: Flowtown.com

A comic book called Anarchy, the newest ad campaign for AXE/LYNX starts on 10th of January. Is it something to be looking forward to?

AXE/LYNX bets on the sexy curves (still) as convinced that sex sells – or as trying to convince guys that with a simple spray they’ll simply pick up the hottest girl(s). Fair enough, they are clear about it and I doubt their target audience takes the promises for granted, maybe except for this unlucky one.

OK, what’s the “big idea” behind? Become a fan, pick up the chicks (for the novel, not for date), choose the setting, pick up the plot and action, future development. Original?
Not sure.

However, taking into account the target audience, it’s probably a good hook – to simply pick up Anarchy Girls by a simple click, make them do what they want and…well, the best is to quote from Adweek: “It’s the first crowd-sourced soft-porn fantasy adventure in comic format!” But fingers crossed, curious about the plot development and kind of “community management” as this project definitively needs it.

Check the teaser trailer with a pretty hot policewoman stripping down while chasing the robber. Already thought of AXE (pepper) spray closing the scene…

The first issue is going live on January 10, to take part in the plot and characters, check AXE’s YouTube Channel, I already voted for Julie…

Sources: AdFreak, Adrants, Adverblog

As a result, when entrepreneurs finally manage to crack the code, so to speak, and get their first couple of viral campaigns to really take off, they can sometimes forget that there’s still work to be done.

See, for all of viral marketing’s potential, there exists a dark side: Once you send something out into cyberspace, it’s out there for keeps. If you screw up the planning, the execution will fail, and fail in a big way.

If you want to avoid such nasty consequences, then check out this handy guide from our experience on how to avoid viral marketing regrets.

Fact Check

This rule is as simple and as basic as they come, yet there are still people who overlook it. When preparing to execute a viral marketing campaign, always, always, ALWAYS make sure your research & statements of fact are legitimate!

Not only will you as a business owner or entity be made to look foolish if you misrepresent facts which can be verified through a simple Google search (which, by the way, you can rest assured that the people seeing your material will perform), but if you stray too far outside the realm of veracity, you can find yourself in serious legal trouble.

Unity is the Answer

No, you haven’t bumped your head and woken up in 1967. It’s just that in marketing, as with plenty of other things, the presentation of a solid, unified front is best. For example, everyone knows about Angry Birds. It’s a viral sensation, and that’s what you want to be, right? If so, then take a tip from them and always keep your campaigns to as few URLs as possible.

Think of it this way: When something goes viral on YouTube, people share a YouTube link. They don’t show each other 50,000 different URLs! Everyone knows that the hilarious cat-playing-piano video zinging around the office like wildfire is on YouTube, and thus, is easy to find, share, and, for the originators of the video, to measure.

This is also true for media outlets, at least until you’re very well established. Fragmented media not only makes media virulence more difficult to achieve, it also makes meaningful data analysis very hard to undertake.

You always want to be better the next time out, and if you don’t know what worked – and what didn’t – from your last campaign, then you’ve wasted your time and money, and you’re back at square one.

Son of a Glitch

Look, this one’s another no-brainer. You can have the best, most awesome, most life-changing viral campaign ever crafted by the hands of Man, but if your technology can’t handle the traffic, all your visitors will see is an error page. This will leave them disgusted, and it’ll leave your wallet empty.

These are not conditions you want to find yourself in, so to avoid this particular viral marketing regret, you simply need to ensure that your servers and other elements of your technical framework are updated and ready to take on the upswing in traffic your viral campaign will bring.

Use Protection

For your source files, that is. If the source material that makes up your campaign materials is left unprotected, people can steal it, change it, and stand on all your hard work to make money that should be yours.

Therefore, to save wads of cash, as well as the time & headache of rooting out material that looks suspiciously like your own, you should make sure that the only thing about your campaign that goes viral is the stuff that you WANT to go viral – viral YouTube spot or Reddit bit? Good.

Raw MP4s & Word documents just bursting with sensitive / proprietary info spread all over the web for anyone to read, copy, or manipulate as and when they see fit? Not so good. The quickest way for your viral campaign to fail is by not taking the time to protect the foundation it’s built upon. Take precautions.

And there you have it. Despite the somewhat lighthearted delivery method, the message behind this article is serious: Use caution and forethought when planning your viral marketing campaigns and you can avoid the viral marketing regrets that plague so many.

Guest post written by Alex Petrovic – Dejan SEO company – Advanced SEO strategist and Link building team leader.

And did both JibJab and OfficeMax managed to keep their Elf Yourself campaign fresh? Read along!

Elf Yourself
For the people not familiar with Elf Yourself, here’s a small wrap-up. Elf Yourself is a Christmas holiday application where people can transform themselves and other ‘victims’ into elves.

With that they are able to participate in the most wicked dance moves, which is obviously quite hilarious! The application makes nifty use of upload opportunities. You can use photos in any range, as long as it has a face in it.

You can use photos stored on your computer, make a new one by using your webcam or just by logging in to Facebook to get that perfect face.

 
In terms of usability, the creators did a very good job. Select a photo, enhance it and position the mouth area for some serious mouth movement and the quality time can begin. After these seconds lasting procedure you are ready to see yourself (and others) in dances, varying from Funk, Hip Hop, Country, Classic and 5 other brilliant settings.

To keep the Elf experience alive, the mostly brilliant results can be shared through email, Facebook, Twitter or with an embed on your owned media. Was your creation that brilliant, then you might want to download it (costs $4.99), since online versions will be erased starting in January.

Did you made a creation close to epic? Elf Yourself makes it tangible for you with their online store.

Gift items include ceramic mugs, mousepads, playing cards, puzzles in tins, magnets, posters, collectable ornaments, DVDs and print greeting cards – each personalized with your ElfYourself photos.

Elf Effect
CMOs should be tuned in right now. What can a non-business connected campaign do for your brand, in terms of awareness, preference and purchase intent?

Well, earlier editions reported at least 180 Million visits and 123 Million faces were used for the actual application.

So that made Elf Yourself no longer a stack of gold but much more the mother load. OfficeMax saw a 190% increase to its web-traffic and a sustained a steady increase in online and walk-in sales.

In 2010, Julie Krueger, senior vice president of e-commerce and direct marketing at OfficeMax, titled Elf Yourself as a “gift from OfficeMax to their consumer”. 

David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media and innovation at interactive marketing firm 360i, said that even if there’s no logical connection to anything OfficeMax sells, the program works from a name-recognition standpoint. “It gets their name out there.” And with more than 180 million visits, you definitely can be sure of that.

OfficeMax

OfficeMax Incorporated (NYSE: OMX) is a leader in both business-to-business office products solutions and retail office products.

The company provides office supplies and paper, in-store print and document services through OfficeMax ImPress, technology products and solutions, and furniture to consumers and to large, medium and small businesses.

OfficeMax customers are served by approximately 35,000 associates through direct sales, catalogues, e-commerce and more than 900 stores across the USA.

JibJab

JibJab is a digital media company dedicated to making funny things worth sharing since 1999. The company consists of the best artists, comedians, writers, musicians, performers, technologists and business people to produce world-class original entertainment on the Internet.

Want to get started and make a Elf Yourself creation yourself? Click here!

What was your experience with ElfYourself? Let us know!

Today it’s a concept that is among the biggest game play mechanics. And amazingly, it works just perfect.

One of the best examples of taking advantage of this is definitively Zynga and the figures speak for themselves – $91 million in net income last year on $597 million in revenue. The market is there, the demand as well – people just like to relax and play. And with new users joining various social networks and more smart-phones, it has to work.

The infographics below from oBizMedia shows some interesting stats about the social gaming in the USA and curious about one for Europe or the whole world.

And how may the future of gaming, including social, look like? A recent study by Latitude Research claims that the new gamers are looking forward to see games and applications go beyond the screen and easily combine “online” with their “offline” lives.

• 95% of surveyed players are enjoying games that put together digital content with the real,
• 92% of these gamers hope to see more “life games” — the sort that help them achieve also personal goals – like eating healthy, working out or learning about science. There are already some games like this, for example GymFu and Epic Win.
• 96% of those surveyed are interested in seeing games that help impact the world in a positive way, or involving themselves in social experiences that make activities more “game-like”.

What are your expectations and what would you like to see in the gaming industry? Will let you know mine, just need to go to check my farm.

Sources: technologyreview.com, latd.com, dnadpk.com, obizmedia.com, thenextweb.com

The game will be competitive to the Zynga games in many ways. EA now teamed up with their people behind Playfish to get the best out of this most successful game in a new online version.

The Sims Social

Disregarding the fact that the original game had millions of addicted players, EA already has a gigantic fan-base on Facebook on its own. So introducing this online variant of the success story to their own crowd is almost like feeding the beast its favorite meal.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The game itself is quite nifty designed as well. It parallels the requirements of a game which casual gamers have: Easy to play, no hick-ups or long loading times and entertaining for hours and hours or seconds and seconds, depending on the time window somebody has.

So will this mean the end of Zynga dominating Social Gaming on Facebook? With The Sims Social this question is justified to be asked!

A fair 4.8 million Facebook users subscribed, did you?

Well, you can now become a 360 degrees viral and social video expert 365 days of the year, by participating in our Viral Quiz.

So play now, link, like, love it and claim your eternal fame. And win a free license from our sponsor ViralTracker.

ViralTracker is the powerful videolytics and full social metrics company that tracks your viral and social videos across millions of blogs, social sites, YouTube and +500 other video sharing portals. Request the full fact sheet here, to discover all the benefits.

The Viral Quiz was developed with Netgamix – the collaborative network for trivia & online games. Enjoy playing and meet the winners here…

Mc Donalds Product Placement in FarmVille on Facebook

Off course I could throw some dazzling social gaming numbers at CMO’s, about Zynga and Facebook, but I assume you have read them before. So why not focus at some actionable insights and examples this time?

I hope that you agree with this statement: Without good content, there is no engagement. And without engagement, there is no social and no community. Well, social games can turn your brand or products into experiences that truly matter to consumers.

And you have too understood that most consumers want to be entertained. Not just hammered again and again with lame ads or lousy content…

Off course Retail CMO’s have already started with social media. With i.e. content, contests, promotions and coupons through Twitter, Foursquare, Groupon or added to their Facebook Fanpage. In a ‘Fan First’ world, special offers are provided to fans and followers first.

Once Retail CMO’s have discovered their social VSPOTS, they will mostly immediately engage with influencers and fans, pulling them gently through their funnel towards preference, loyalty and advocacy.

And smart Retail CMO’s will not chose to do that hit and run, but they will also embrace social CRM and create architecture to ignite continuity doing it over and over again.

Retail CMO’s that have not even started their own opt-in e-mail database yet, because they do not have time, FTE’s or content to create and send a monthly newsletter to clients, stop blaming your company’s culture and order the start asap.

There’s only two persons in the company that will be able to change your company DNA: your CEO and you.

CMO’s in CPG companies can tap into social media and social gaming in equally intriguing ways. For example, get your toe in social gaming by launching a product placement in hugely popular social games like FarmVille on Facebook.

McDonalds saw seized success and massive free PR with its Farmville campaign, where users had the opportunity to visit a McDonalds branded farm for only a day. They could plant mustard seed and tomato crops and be rewarded with McDonalds branded products to aid their own farm.

Bing Product Placement in FarmVille on Facebook

Bing by Microsoft was able to get 400,000 new fans in a day with their advertisement through Farmville. The campaign only lasted 24 hours, but in that short time it was able to harness Farmville’s popularity to offer something people want (Farm Cash) while enhancing Bing’s own social strategy.

Okay, I lied. Throwing some numbers. Just for your relevancy.

Social gaming has seen explosive growth in recent years, with 250 million people playing social games every month. Zynga leads the pack with its hugely successful CityVille and FarmVille games on Facebook.

Zynga has just released CityVille, which may attract product placements and advertising from more urban companies like Starbucks or major hotel chains. Zynga has an additional revenue stream which might be very relevant to CMO´s: The sale of add-ons in the game, that enhance the experience of playing the game.

Add-ons facilitate CMO’s. With add-ons CMO’s can easily offer great entertaining social gaming experiences to their targets, without building an expensive social game themselves.

Wouldn’t it be a great incentive if you offered your opt-in database or community some great extra’s in a social game? Probably they will love you for it and tell their friends how great it is to be a customer of your brand: Great energy. Builds excitement. Very light on branding.

The second element of embracing social games, community-based marketing, is driven by keen insights into your customers behaviors on Retail and CPG created social platforms. The better you know your clients, the better you can engage them with personalized offers, campaigns, products and promotions, that will drive both your brand and business objectives.

Short term campaign approach (1-3 month social media flights):
To be able to monetize your social VSPOTS, we suggest you first take a good look at your approach. For successful social media campaigns you just need social experts with great creativity. This short term approach, similar to campaigns or flights just need great creativity.

Social DNA versus Social Campaigns

Long term program approach (1-3 year social marketing programs):
For long term social marketing programs you will need social experts fuelled not only by creativity but by a smart long term strategy. Long term demands a different DNA from CMO’s and engagement architects at your social marketing agency.

Social Campaigns Versus Social Programs

To fuel social programs these engagement architects will create your strategy programs, including the needed information architectures, systems and processes that will make your long term program (1-3 years) really successful.

Examples of long term programs are i.e.: communities by Coca Cola, Starbucks, Nike or Adidas. These leading brands go way beyond short term campaigns by adding continuity into their programs.

Thirdly and finally, tailored branded social media games or applications. They will help brands to attract and engage people for a long period, by offering easy-to-use entertaining social environment.

It can be a great branded iPhone & iPad App. Or a great social game integrated in Facebook. Some examples of branded social games on several platforms.

Waterslide Extreme on iPhone by Barclaycard

How about ‘Waterslide Extreme‘? This branded iPhone game by Barclaycard recorded over 10 million downloads from the iTunes App Store in about a year.

Or all the smart and fun branded social games consumers can play on Facebook.

Advertizers are more often becoming facilitators as well. But the best toe in the social waters for CMO’s is, when you would ask me: start listening first!

Start your social media monitoring program and gain insights. Listen to what consumers are saying about your brand, products, service and competitors.

The campaign is called “LinkedUit” (LinkedOut) and gives anyone who challenges a friend on LinkedIn to the competition a chance to win a Volkswagen Passat. The objective is simple, all you have to do is have the strongest LinkedIn profile in The Netherlands.

This campaign is one of the very first branded experiences utilizing the new LinkedIn API, which is an smart choice as comScore mentioned that in no other country in the world LinkedIn (and Twitter) have such a high reach: 26,1%

The game is simple. After signing in using your LinkedIn profile, the app lets you choose others in your network to challenge. You win each round (education, experience, recommendations and connections) by having more of each. The more points you get, the bigger your head gets.

Curious to see how it works? Check out the demo video here:

So it’s great to see that finally a brand takes great advantage of the LinkedIn API, the result is a fun game with definitely viral potential. I wonder if this campaign results in a lot of test-drives. I believe this will gain more buzz as being one of the first real LinkedIn games, which overshadows the fact what this game is really all about: the new Volkswagen Passat. What do you think?

You can play the game here.

In this digital interactive experience you are a beautiful, slim woman and you are running, jumping and flying through 20 various well known websites like Spotify, YouTube and Dove, as you chase Bon Bons, the special ingredient in the new ice-cream. The idea is based around the fact that internet is a treasure full of pleasures and you have to capture all 100 Bon Bons. You dive into pools, use elevators, land in Africa, swing in jewelry, drive in a sportscar and change your clothes in the fitting room of a webshop.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When the Pleasurehunt is finished you can challenge your Facebook friends. We wonder how all these partnerships work with the other brands that are present in this game!