SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY AND BRANDING: THE USE OF A VIDEO GAME CAN BE AN INCREDIBLE BRANDING TOOL

Powerful brands can be created through a creative video game. Some brands that have been doing this is the U. S. Army and BMW. The creation of brand in social media must be engaging, it must be fun, it must be visual.  In social media, customers want to involve themselves in your brand. They want to take content that is prepared or created by themselves and then share it with their friends

A powerful medium for creating brand is video. A video game is a powerful, interesting, engaging, immersive means by which customers interact with the brand. You cannot play a video game unless you engage with it.  In most games, collaboration is almost built in.  Video games are very popular and one reason they are so popular is the players have an intrinsic need to collaborate.

The creation of the video game can take on two methods.  Either the game can be created as a stand alone game----or the game can become a “mod”.  Your brand video game may actually become the modification of a commercialized game. Modifications are major part of the video game industry. A video game is created, and the players take the game and modify it to their interests.  Many video games are created with open source software for this very purpose. Game makers have discovered that mods are a great way to expand their brand.

A bench mark game might be “Civilization”.  In this game, players are encouraged to take a civilization and guide it from the Bronze Age right through the present age. A game like this could be created around a brand. Players could give their insights on how the brand should develop.  If done in this way, then customers would own the brand. This game would be a help to both the customers and the brand itself. There would be a large group involved in the game. There is wisdom in crowds. The crowd would figure out an infinite number of brand strategies. The marketers could watch this game unfold and adjust their brand strategies based on the information of the game.  Through the use of an interesting game, that truly engages customers, a marketer could brand in real time.