It’s not about the information being correct, it’s about whether your audience wants to give you 30 seconds of their time.
At no time in human history was it ever more difficult to grab your audience’s attention. Never ever. And it’s getting worse. By the minute. Oops, my previous sentences are now out-of-date. 50,000 more TikTok videos have been uploaded since you read that first sentence. And actually, NOW it’s even more difficult than 10 seconds ago. Man, so hard to keep up.
And yet, as marketers we must persist. We must push our messaging out, we must try to connect, we must drive guest revenue. TikTok be damned.
The work of advertising – whether it’s a TV commercial or a social media post – has always been about figuring out how to make people look in your direction, see your product for what it is and then actually care about it. Seems simple, right? But it’s really, really hard to do. Unless you have tons of money, then you can buy your audience’s attention through volume purchases. For lots and lots of money. But who likes that idea? Especially now, post-pandemic. Our budgets are all smaller than we are used to.
So how do we make them pay attention, make them care, on a budget? A smaller budget in 2021 even.
Here are a few ideas that you might consider to help make your social media messaging work a little harder, for a little less.
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Like other forms of messaging, the trick is to be interesting.
Hey, this is just a human truth – if you are interesting, different, unexpected, honest, charming, then your messaging will work harder. People will read it, engage with it more. That’s just how humans work. We like to be surprised, and we don’t want to be bored. If you bore us, we will even resent it a little. So don’t be boring. LOL.
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Being interesting and fun and charming on social media requires talent.
And intelligence. And a good strategy in hand. So don’t hire any random young kid and assume they can do it because kids are on social media all the time. This is an important job, and you need the right person in this spot. If they are doing their jobs right, they will be talking to many, many of your guests and speaking with the voice of the casino. These are important conversations. Don’t just let anyone speak for you.
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Social media isn’t a bulletin board for your promotional flyers.
Yes, you can put that information up sometimes. But only sometimes. Most of the time (five out of six posts) you need to be trying to charm your audience. Don’t just feed them dates and drawing times. Be interesting, fun, charming. Make them like you. Think of it this way: Dating is a lot like the social media messaging work we are discussing here. You need to bring interesting conversation to the date, be funny, unexpected, charming. Ask lots of questions. Listen when the other person talks and react to what they say. Listening is so important. If you are talking more than they are, then you aren’t doing it right. Really. You need to introduce funny conversation ideas, and then let them talk. Laugh at their jokes. Smile and look them in the eye. And let them talk more. All of which is absolutely true of casino social media messaging, too. Open the floor with questions and funny thoughts, and LET THE GUESTS TALK. And then you react accordingly.
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Don’t let questions hang there unanswered.
You must answer them. And quickly. It’s rude not to. And do you want to be rude to your guests? No, never, not ever. Are some of those questions difficult? Yeah, of course. Which is why you need a plan, and you need to map out some of the tricky stuff ahead of time. Sit down with your public relations people and list out all the scary or weird or stupid or funny or uncomfortable questions that guests regularly ask and write them on the whiteboard, along with any potential future questions that you think might be asked someday. Then compose stock answers, get everyone’s approval and then make sure that anyone answering on social media has those stock answers.
There’s one more point, which is probably super obvious, but I’ll say it anyway. Your casino brand should have a personality. A voice, even. And that voice should echo in all the messaging you create – including your social media messaging. For sure in your social media messaging. Because your voice on social media is an actual voice that talks WITH the guests. So, whatever that brand voice is like, make sure that your social media voice is an echo of it.
When it comes to social media, as the saying goes, “Be social, don’t just do social.” There is no shortcut to cultivating a relationship between your brand and your audience. With the right amount of effort and on-point messaging, you will see growth in audience engagement, as you drive top-of-mind awareness, consideration and ultimately revenue.
