The community is an invaluable force today. Recommendations, user-generated content, exchange of opinions – all of this can foster conversion in the sales of games on a board game platform. However, you need to know how to channel this power to harness the sales potential of properly managed communication and interaction with the community of gamers, i.e. potential customers. However, these activities should be based on interaction, encouraging users to engage, and they will create a positive experience with your brand. You can certainly combine these two areas smoothly and effectively to boost visits, conversions and sales of your e-commerce platform.
In case of information portals, it is true to say that content is the King. In case of board game e-commerce , social content is especially important! There is nothing more valuable than content validated by the power of the community, flowing straight from the most engaged users to users interested in the subject matter, products, and ultimately purchases.
Supplementing the platform with a content part is a value added for users who may be interested in games offered by the publisher. On the one hand, news, information about games, photos and reviews can be posted on the blog. On the other hand, it gives the opportunity to establish cooperation with game developers themselves so that their content can be published on the platform’s blog. As a result, we combine content from the blog, community-generated or social media content with the product website, with specific products available on the platform. By harnessing the power of the community and the advantages of the content (including content from social media), you will sell more of your games!
For feedback to work, content from the blog must be distributed externally, while content and contributions from users’ social media should be published within the platform. In this way, you ensure the redistribution of content, because users are just as likely to create content with your games in the lead role in other places on the web! So, not only you have your own content on the platform, but the value and quality of your products increases with content related to your games, but generated by the users of those games themselves. This creates an ideal win-win situation. Your platform benefits, your gamers benefit and at the end of this exchange there is a conversion on your platform.
The best example of this is the solution we offered to one of the most popular board game publishers in the world – Gamelyn Games. While building a platform with games of this publisher, we created a content layer in the form of a news courier called Gamelyn Gazette. It publishes reviews from the gamers themselves, redistributed from other places on the web, from blogs, Social Media and even in the form of YouTube videos. Content from the newsletter can of course be shared on the two most popular social media platforms among gamers, i. e. Facebook and Twitter.
However, the content served in this way, is not just reviews. Here, the platform owner can publish solutions prepared by gamers themselves, discussions, news, announcements about conventions and fairs, tutorials and much, much more. The content of this user-generated content layer of the platform depends solely on the creativity of creators, and the possibilities here are very wide indeed, such as: videos, social posts (e.g. from the aforementioned Instagram), photo galleries of games, cosplay sessions, etc.
Content generated by social media inspires trust among recipients because it is generated by gamers, for gamers. As it is treated as verified information, it becomes proof of the credibility of a brand or product. Additionally, sales can be boosted by a system of recommendations and reviews. When users can see your products used in a specific context, when they can see positive feedback from the gaming world and, above all, recommendations from other gamers, they are more likely to buy and use games sold through your platform. Recommendations by other users, especially from the same circle of interest in board games, are more authentic, natural and encourage purchases as effectively as commercial advertising.
Boosting the popularity of a platform through the power of community is a promising and very exciting trend in sales strategy. The value of this can be so great and important that people are even talking about social selling. It is worth noting that this is also a low-cost strategy. However, the time input is important here, social media activities must not only be accurate, but above all regular. This is the only way to build a strong group of users, fans and influencers around your platform. It is also important to support users who create content related to your products. They are the ones who provide information to the circle of people who are most interested. Their content is treated with the utmost trust, as information passed on from gamers to other gamers. The translation of these efforts into business can be really surprising.
Sources:
https://www.moengage.com/blog/8-ways-to-use-social-media-and-boost-your-e-commerce-conversions/
https://www.dreamgrow.com/top-15-most-popular-social-networking-sites/#1_Facebook_-_274_Billion_Active_Users
