Loved Brands Go Social Without Any Effort
I love my iPhone. I love the concept of the App store and I love FlightControl. And I’m not the only one. FlightControl is an App that has gone social without any real effort. The crowd did it.
How did FlightControl gets to be a social app in my opinion and how can they improve their app by enabling social media? In this post my opinion on mobile Apps and how they can be social.
FlightControl is a game in which the player has to direct airplanes to the landing strip.
The most remarkable thing is, Firemint (the producer of FlightControl) didn’t do anything to enable social media in the game itself. But still, people love to spread the word about the game in social spaces. For example, on Twitter. Every hour, at least 4 people Twitter about the game. How much addicted they are to the game, how they improved their high score and how much they love the gameplay. Its obvious, the game is truly addictive and makes you want to play it over and over again.
However, there are some points that can be improved if they want to energize their fans even more and make it easier to spread the word about FlightControl in social media spaces.
Tell a friend
The tell a friend function is one of the oldest tricks in the book. However, it can be so powerful in social media as well! Tap Tap Revenge knows how to spread and enhance as well with a mail-your-friend-your-awesome-score function. When I received the mail below I started playing again and again to beat Frank’s score!
Tell a friend can go further then just emails. Enable the app to send a message to Twitter, to your Facebook account or any other popular social network. Make it possible to share your scores with screenshots on Flickr or create the possibility to game against your friends in your own little competition. Not only does this enhance the competition, its also free publicity for your brand on social networks. People will continue the conversation about your product. It couldn’t be better!
Firemint also talks with its audience on Twitter. A nice way to join the conversation, listen to feedback and talk about improvements and updates.
Whats your opinion on social gaming? Do you know any other games that join the conversation and have a social element in gaming asides from its own platform? Discuss it in the comments!
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going social? like any relationship sometimes you just cant force it… http://is.gd/sOZl
I just read your post and it reminded me of a site that ranks loved brands. To support your point, its interesting that 3 of the top 10 loved brands (Google, YouTube, Wiki) are virally based (www.brandmojo.org). There may be a lot to the fact that if I spread a brand/application, I have more commitment to it- and I “love it more”.