How to Use Social Media for Your Lottery Business
When social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter first appeared on the scene, everyone thought that their job was to connect like-minded people. Instead, these platforms evolved into one great big marketplace. Brands realized the potential of social media and it became a simple, cost-effective instrument to reach the right customers.
Digital marketers recommend a few basics to manage social media presence of a business. These are:
- Always have an experienced marketing communications professional at the helm
- Think before you post
- Pace your posts – avoid too little or too much content
- Avoid over promoting your business
- Respond promptly to the audience requests
All of these points are as valid for promoting an online lottery business on social media just as any other. And social media marketing is not a difficult task; all it demands is some amount of creativity and attention to detail. Let’s take a look at two of the big online lottery operators in the United States, California Lottery and Texas Lottery to see how social media can be leveraged for lottery business strategies.
California Lottery vs. Texas Lottery
CA Lottery joined Twitter in March 2009, while Texas Lottery joined three years later in March 2012. During this period, CA Lottery paid a lot of attention to posting engaging content on their Twitter feed. As a result, while CA Lottery has more than 25,000 followers on Twitter, Texas has just a little over 13,000.
CA Lottery has wisely used hash tags, images and videos over time, to enhance the consumer experience on Twitter. Their timeline regularly features lottery winners, jackpot prizes, and promotions. However, the rate of promotional posts is kept to a minimum to ensure priority for organic content. Apart from that, they maintain their responsibility and integrity by ensuring that only those above 18 years of age can participate in online lottery games.
While Texas Lottery checks on being responsible, their Twitter strategy is lagging in content variety and engagement index by a big margin.
With more than 410,000 users, CA Lottery is miles ahead of Texas Lottery (with a little over 1100 users) on Facebook. CA Lottery has maintained a clear vision for their Facebook newsfeed. Their content regularly talks about lottery winners, upcoming promotions, jackpot prizes etc. Funny videos are a regular feature on the page, along with an occasional post about current affairs and the charitable and social responsibility side of the lottery business. All of this content is presented in a way that is not intrusive for the users and is designed to entice them to communicate with the page.
Compared to Texas, CA Lottery’s clear focus on maintaining the quality of their content and engaging their users has resulted in very high ratings from their users (4.4 out of 5).
Image Source: California Lottery
Image Source: Texas Lottery
Not many would consider LinkedIn as an ideal platform for online lottery promotions. However, CA Lottery demonstrates what can be done with a little innovation.
CA Lottery’s LinkedIn page is very well maintained with regular updates from their other social media channels. Most of their content is focused on the serious side of affairs of running a successful lottery business and fulfilling the corporate responsibilities towards society. This has helped CA Lottery build a very strong presence as a great place to work among job aspirants.
On the other hand, Texas Lottery’s LinkedIn page seems bereft of any information about the company, which also defeats the purpose of having a LinkedIn page in the first place.
YouTube
Videos are the biggest resource in the social media world. Consumers prefer videos over words any time of the day. While CA Lottery has paid a lot of attention to their YouTube content, Texas fails to replicate the same model.
CA Lottery’s YouTube channel has organized videos in various playlists, allowing users to search for relevant content on every visit. The content mix revolves around lottery winners, prizes, promotions, jackpots and even fun videos. A huge part of CA Lottery’s earnings go into the California Education System, and CA Lottery showcases that in their videos quite well. Along with that, CA Lottery has a good amount of user-generated content on their YouTube channel as well.
Instagram is the channel of the youngsters. In spite of the restrictions on under-18 players, both CA Lottery and Texas Lottery are quite close competitors on Instagram. Their content strategy however, is poles apart.
CA Lottery’s resolve in ensuring that only the best content is posted on their social media channels is shown very clearly in their Instagram feed as well. Images and videos that talk about varied topics – from the winning lottery, to everyday inspirational posts – make it a fun channel to follow. And all this while, CA Lottery keeps on registering a strong presence in their consumers’ minds.
Conclusion
Social media has proven its worth for the online lottery industry. It is supposed to be an informal, fun, engaging and supportive side of any marketing strategy. Using it to create awareness and gaining a strong position in the consumer’s recall is the best way to unlock its potential. Blindly trying to emulate the competition can land you in serious trouble, as seems to be the case with Texas Lottery. But when done right, like CA Lottery, you move one step closer to becoming a part of your customers’ lives and your entire social media community.
About Dusane Infotech
Dusane Infotech is an expert in technology solutions for the online gaming industry from India with 12+ experience. We provide comprehensive, robust and integrated consultancy services to our clients for lottery operational setup and roll out.
Send us your queries or requirements at solutions@dusaneinfotech.com