In Casino Enterprise Management’s 2013 Gaming Industry Forecast, three major gaming industry trends were identified by Jim Dennedy, CEO of Agilsys. One of the three trends was social media, which offers tremendous and often untapped potential as a newer data source to integrate into Business Intelligence efforts. While many casinos are already using it to respond to customer comments or to post promotions, those who go deeper with analytics can gain a competitive advantage. So how does one turn tweets, likes, and comments into profitable insights and actions?
TechNet Magazine’s Niten Malik describes how Twitter posts can be integrated into demand forecasts. By using Twitter data such as city with keywords indicating future conferences or events, casinos can target potential customers visiting the area. Identifying hotels where people are staying for a major event allows the marketing team to design transportation and other offers and enables management to schedule staff appropriately. By ensuring adequate staffing levels, improved demand forecasting helps to create a more positive customer experience. Customer experience, good or bad, is likely to end up on social media channels as well. Malik also notes that “the fastest-growing segment of Facebook users, according to The Neilsen Company, is the 35 to 40 year old age group. This is also the most important demographic for casinos.” The vast majority of customers age 24 and under check face book daily- as much as 82 percent. Malik does not anticipate that this group’s social media usage will change much as they age into the next group.
A thorough discussion of social media specific analytics can be found in Kelly McGuire’s article in Casino Enterprise Management. In addition to basic social media activity summaries and promotion response measurement, McGuire champions social network analysis as a way to target individual “influencers” who can promote the brand. Finding “micro-segments” of customers is another potentially profitable outcome of social network analysis. McGuire discusses the possibilities of text mining as a way for casinos to identify and group emotions in customer free text such as survey comments and social media postings. By gathering this data over time, predictive analytics can be employed to head off the detrimental impact of negative events. The discovery of unknown links between topics in discussions can also provide valuable customer insights. The data to be gleaned from social media text mining can tell casino management what customers value, aid in player development all which can be used to reinforce brand loyalty in a cost effective manner.
Social media also adds more data to business intelligence efforts to deter fraud. For years, the industry has looked for common neighborhoods, phone numbers, and other links between cheaters and casino employees. Facebook and other social media can augment efforts to identify problem associations.
Like business intelligence in general, social media analytics is dynamic, requiring constant monitoring and refinement. One way casinos can gain a competitive advantage and enhanced profits while minimizing the costs associated is consider cloud based solutions. They are cost-effective ways to take your business to the next level.
2013 Gaming Industry Forecast: Part 2. Casino Enterprise Management. http://www.casinoenterprisemanagement.com/articles/january-2013/2013-gaming-industry-forecast-part-2
McGuire, K. (2010). Social Media Analysis and Gaming. Casino Enterprise Management. http://www.casinoenterprisemanagement.com/articles/november-2010/social-media-analysis-and-gaming
Malik, N. (2013). Microsoft Dynamics CRM: Big Data Drives Gaming Industry CRM. TechNet Magazine. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/hh966703.aspx
5 / 5 stars