Welcome back for week five in our “Learn From the Pros” Blog Series! We launched this series as a way to share insights on Social Marketing across our customer base, with the ultimate goal being to learn from each other as we navigate the various ways contests and sweepstakes can be leveraged for brand success.
This week we’re chatting with Colette Murphy from Daybreak Games. We’ve been working with Colette and her team for just about five years now, and we’re excited to share her thoughts on how contests & sweepstakes have helped her achieve Daybreak Games’ brand objectives. Colette brings some terrific insights to the table, so we hope you enjoy!
Votigo: How long have you been with Daybreak Games?
Colette: I’ve been working with the company since 2012 (though we didn’t officially become Daybreak Games until 2015).
Votigo: What is your role there? How did you get started in Marketing? What were you doing before that?
Colette: My title is Communications Manager. I oversee our social media channels, our web blog content, and our promotions and giveaways. I’m also the resident grammar fanatic, and help with copyediting whenever the need arises. In 2012, a position opened up on the Community team, and I became a Community Manager. While in that position, I found a great deal of cross-department mentors in Marketing, who helped foster my interest in social media practices. Eventually, I moved in to the position I’m in now. I took a very non-traditional route to get here. After getting my Master’s Degree in Mass Communications and Media Studies at San Diego State University, I spent a number of years teaching at local community colleges. In that time, I also took an interest in social media and community management, doing so on a volunteer basis for wedding and event planning services, local theatre groups, and student organizations on college campuses. I actually never considered doing it as a career until I learned about the position that led me to this company!
Votigo: What are your biggest goals & initiatives for Daybreak Games this year?
Colette: Our company is incredibly community-focused. Our goals are always to provide new, interesting ways for our players to interact with our games and our development teams. We love gathering user-generated content and highlighting the creativity and passion of the people who play our games.
Votigo: How often do you run contests or sweepstakes currently? What is the strategy behind your chosen frequency? And what platforms do you run them on?
Colette: Contests are an additional way we celebrate our players. From screenshot capture contests for virtual items to a chance to win a trip to our H1Z1 invitational, we really like the ability to highlight our players’ talents and excitement for our games. Some months have less, and some have a lot more, but we typically run at least one larger scale contest per month. We primarily run contests and sweepstakes on Twitter and through the Votigo microsites, which we promote on Facebook, our websites, and our game forums.
Votigo: Can you share your thoughts on these social platforms in regards to your business? Do you tend to engage with one more than the others? Why?
Colette: We go where the conversations are, which usually depends on the audience demographics for the product. Some of our older games have much larger audiences on Facebook, because the games came out before Twitter even existed! Our newer products have very active Twitter followings, but aren’t as big on website traffic. So, it really varies. The key is seeing where you get the highest engagement, and making sure you stay involved there as much as possible.
Votigo: Is there a type of campaign that you would like to run but haven’t yet? Why not?
Colette: We tend to run a variety of campaigns, so this is a tough question! I don’t think we’ve tried an “Instant Win” one yet, but it’s definitely something we’ll consider this year.
Votigo: What solution do you use for your contests & sweepstakes? Do you prefer a full-service offering or a self-service platform?
Colette: We enjoy the flexibility offered by the Votigo self-serve Enterprise tool. We use our in-house legal team for rules drafting and our in-house creative teams to help build out the headers and visual look and feel of our microsites, but we like having the analytics and management portion handled by the platform itself.
Votigo: What piece of advice would you share with someone who is just starting out with social contests & sweepstakes?
Colette: Try lots of different things, and don’t be discouraged if one doesn’t work out the first time. If you try an essay contest and only get a few replies, switch to photo or video the next time – your audience might be more interested in visual mediums!
Votigo: What are your favorite blogs or books on Marketing or your other interests?
Colette: How much time do you have? Haha. Since my focus is on social media, I tend to stick to blogs. Social Media Examiner is a big favorite of mine. There’s often a lot of good information to be found in any blog from an Enterprise Platform service, like Hootsuite or Buffer or Sprout. RazorSocial is also a good resource, with lots of topics covered.
Thanks for participating in “Learn From the Pros”, Colette!
-The Votigo Team
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Promotional content is a great way to extend your audience, drive more traffic to your site, and engage with your existing clients. Your value is increased as you are offering them something, maybe for free, and they will like you more for it.
March Madness is right around the corner! But don’t worry – there’s still plenty of time to launch an engaging social promotion to celebrate! And more importantly, a brand doesn’t have to be directly associated with basketball (or sports in general) in order to be able to capitalize on the buzz surrounding the tournament.