I give the online poker world a lot of grief for not quite getting what social media is about so I think it’s only fair to point out when I see someone heading in the right direction.
Now, Party Poker isn’t perfect but they’re at least headed in the right direction. Here’s a social media campaign that tries to marry together the social media world and the online poker room. If you follow the link to a webpage and input your username and then earn 10 points on PartyPoker before midnight you will get an entry into a freeroll.
That’s a huge step forward from what most online poker rooms do which is announce that everyone who reads their Facebook page gets a freeroll entry. Party makes them take and action in order to receive a reward. So what if it’s nothing more than inputting your screen name. It’s still something.
But anybody who knows me knows that I can’t be completely complimentary so let me point out some problems. First off, why is it an iPhone alert? The message was posted to Facebook which is not some special format that is only available to iPhone users. In fact, I saw the message using TweetDeck on my iMac. Maybe the prize is an iPhone? Not sure and I didn’t have the time to check it out so all I know is that it sounds like a very confused marketing message.
Second issue is not necessarily a criticism but a pointer. Why not partner with a advertiser to finance the freeroll? Let’s say that you signed up Coca Cola as an advertising partner and you put up a message that said, “Go to the Coca Cola site and find out how many bottles of Coca Cola are sold every day. That is the password for the tournament.” Coca Cola might be willing to pay for that traffic and you add a level of challenge and entertainment to the campaign that isn’t there right now.
All in all though, I like to see that Party is experimenting with social media and that it’s not the same old “Hey, freeroll for all Facebook users. Sign up using the password FACEBOOK.” Keep on keeping on.