Game On – Energise your business with social media games, by Jon Radoff
Review by Murray Carmichael-Smith, director, bcsAgency
I put myself forward to review this book as the subject matter itself, social media games, is of zilch interest to me personally, however with one of my teenage sons being increasingly more engaged with these games and a mindful eye on how social media is becoming such a powerful and engaging tool I think, like many of you reading this review, it’s a subject matter high on the “to do list” of things to gain a clear insight on.
Once you consider how the broadcast media now utilises Twitter and Facebook to engage audiences with their output and various storylines are often discussed through, for example, blogs and forums anything that augments this powerful medium is worthy of discovery.
I reviewed this book whilst on holiday in Spain with the family, so it had to contend with dispensing Euros to the children, the lure of the swimming pool and the new James Bond novel, and to be honest it did it rather well.
Attractive to me was that the author, Jon Radoff, had clearly spent time considering the various reader-types and how they would wish to interact with the book. For me with my goldfish like attention span he had crafted it in such a way that it was very simplistic to dip in and out off. At the beginning of the book he has created simplistic icons with associated graphics for various reader types. These range in types from “what makes a game tick” through to “information for business people” and aid in giving the reader the ability to scan read the book at a fast pace gaining an top level view of each subject matter but then, at a point of interest, to be able drill down into some deeply researched, granular detail.
In addition at the end of each chapter is an excellent “choose your path” review section which highlight that if certain point in that chapter really resonated you could skip to another specified further chapter to gain additional insights.
Without wishing to give away any of the content of the book, as I’m recommending you purchase it in this review, I believe a quick overview of one key point may aid in that decision process.
The success of the majority of the more engaging and successful social media games is the need, the author states, for humans to want to collect things and to be seen as successful at doing so. He claims this is the underlying reason why these games generate so much revenue and eyeballs. As I read it I questioned this statement and to be honest dismissed it. However the author then went on to point out how in a social media platform such as LinkedIn, we are encouraged to get to having a 100% profile, and as you increase your contacts, recommendations and join groups this percentage increases prove this theory – and that’s where Jon Radoff had me!
