The gaming market has exploded over the past decade. According to Statista, The worldwide gaming industry is projected to reach a value of $268.8 billion per year by 2025, increasing from $178 billion in 2021. This exponential growth is celebrated by gaming companies, but remember: every user is a potential threat to reputation if things go wrong. With the power of social media at our fingertips, anyone can raise concerns or complaints that can harm the reputation of gaming brands.
In all industries, but especially highly competitive ones like gaming, brand reputation is everything. It is defined as how a brand is perceived by various parties, including customers (first and foremost) as well as employees, partners, stakeholders, and even competitors. Brand reputation determines the extent to which those parties trust the brand and recognize it as one associated with positive or negative qualities.
In our online world, opinions proliferate wildly, and word of mouth has taken on a whole new meaning and scope. Gaming especially is a highly social endeavor where opinions are widely shared as clients hang out together for hours. Gaming companies thus cannot take their eye off the ball for a second because reputational damage happens so quickly, and damage control is often too little too late if not managed properly. Brand reputation management should be done proactively.
Smart gaming studios don't leave reputation management to chance. Instead, they apply proven best practices to create a positive sentiment in the marketplace.
Providing customer support to gamers does not only build brand loyalty. It also prevents a potentially frustrating experience in its tracks before a gamer amplifies their dissatisfaction among other gamers. This is a proactive way to manage reputation. It also means companies can gauge user satisfaction in real time and employ those insights to improve the gaming experience.
Social media is where brand reputations are made or broken. It's essential for brands to track what's said about them on social media and use the platforms to build a responsive, interactive community of which the brand itself is part. Brands should not only react to social media but proactively guide the conversations on social media platforms through effective moderation.
Proactive reputation management means being one step ahead of the story when a crisis strikes. Gaming brands should have flexible strategies in place and plan ahead on how they will involve customers rather than seeing them as passive respondents to whatever information they are fed. Staying ahead means creating and spreading positive content and ensuring those working for the brand take a united stand.
While it takes a long time to build a positive reputation in the competitive world of gaming, it takes far shorter for it to get damaged. Gamers consistently share information about positive and negative experiences. This means brand reputation management should be seen as a critical task in a fast-growing industry, and should be tackled proactively with solid customer support, round-the-clock social media management, and timeous crisis planning.
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