Making the most of social media marketing  

While 2023 has seen a lot of major changes in the social media industry, its popularity and importance within the igaming and online sportsbook industry is expected to continue its upward trajectory into 2024 and beyond.

TikTok’s growth, TikTok’s hearing in Congress, Elon Musk’s first year in charge at Twitter and its rebranding to X, 2023 has managed to compact a decade’s worth of drama into 12 months. But while behind the scenes social media has seemed to be erratic, at the coalface, it has been business as usual.

With a range of sports affiliate brands that have grown predominantly through our social media strategy, at Checkd Group we can see that trends are shifting in marketing towards social, as the newer generations dominate the platforms and reach their peak spending potential. 

Changing faces and trends of new audiences

In an industry where targeting the right age groups is essential, Checkd Group ensures we’re at the forefront of understanding where our target audience is consuming and what they’re engaging with. 

Millennials have incredible buying power, and this is only going to continue as well as passing on the baton to Gen Z. The collective annual income of the roughly 1.8 billion millennials worldwide is around $2.5tn and is expected to exceed $4tn dollars by 2030.

With our focus and engagement at Checkd targeting those aged 25 and over, millennials are our main audience, but that age range also includes Gen Z, with some of the generation born in 1997. We are incredibly careful to adopt safer gambling messaging around this generation, but we are also very aware of how Gen Z are having a massive influence on the social media landscape and its direction.

According to a survey from consumer analytics platform CivicScience this year, adult Gen Z-ers are more likely to pay attention to social media ads than to TV, print, or other digital ads, which should paint a picture of where budgets should be utilized.

And with the savvier, more enthusiastic generations turning to social media, total users across all platforms are expected to reach almost six billion by 2027, according to data provider Statista. The opportunity is obvious for all to see: social is where the majority of people are on a daily basis and that majority is only going to grow, so without social it’ll become virtually impossible to reach an audience without it ­­– unless you have millions in the bank for TV ads – that millennials and Gen Z still won’t see.

X still marks the spot, despite drama

The ongoing soap opera at X has been played out in a very public forum over the last 12 months and, despite all the negative press around the company, X is still in a very strong position, especially in the sportsbook arena.

Findings from market researchers Insider Intelligence show that X users who fall into the Gen Z demographic are very loyal to the platform, despite being seen as the more socially conscious generation. Predictions from the same source believe that Gen Z will only see a 2.4% drop in users next year compared with decreases of more than 9% among other generations. This is apparently because Gen Z-ers view the platform as entertainment and are fluent in “Twitter humor”, with X continuing to be at the forefront of viral memes and content.

This resurgence of X has been huge and will continue to be vital for sports betting as we head into 2024. What was once a niche corner of the platform, in the last 12 months the sportsbook audience has grown into a bona fide subculture that engages millions of people every day. 

What is especially brilliant about the sports betting audience is that it taps into what our target audience finds authentic: a truly grassroots community, which is a true meritocracy. The sportsbooks aren’t at the center of it, instead it’s often lone-ranger content creators who’ve built a loyal following from scratch, and there’s no sign of this slowing down, especially with the platform developments set to take place on X to make it even more of a one-stop shop. 

Getting the most bang for your buck on social media

Ultimately, you have to respect and cherish your audience if you want them to engage with you; it’s the same social contract that applies to anything else. If you can provide genuine value to your followers when posting an offer or bet, then use your judgment, but make sure you’re speaking to your target audience regularly. Avoid posting the same thing over and over again, with no angle or reason as to why someone should be interested in it. Otherwise, people will drop off, and rightly so. 

The winning formula is to build your engagement to be focused on the bets, then the offers look after themselves. Build interest and anticipation, keep people on their toes so, as soon as you drop it, there’s instant engagement. That way you have a compelling reason to post the offer baked into your strategy, and the audience will be far more likely to click your links or share your content.

What we do at Checkd Group with brands like FlashPicks in the US and Footy Accumulators in the UK is look at our followers’ peak usage across the week. That can be as simple as looking into analytics on X and Facebook and seeing where your followers are most active during the day and week. This allows us to be able to pick the best times to promote our tips and offers and potentially build hype days before a forthcoming event. 

The last thing is knowing when there is ‘downtime’ on the demand for betting content as that’s where you can try and get quality original/viral content posted, which will help the page’s growth and engagement. You must accept that not every follower will click the follow button for betting – but the key is to provide extra reasons for someone to follow the page. It all goes towards the goal of growth and appearing as ‘the’ account to follow. 

A lot of what is successful with sports betting on social media comes down to common sense and trial and error. The states with multiple pro teams are the loudest on social media and finding that sweet spot is a case of A/B testing. The big opportunity, though, is through targeted ads and leveraging those into either followers or FTDs [first-time depositors]. If you can nail the ad copy and creative, you can fast forward growth by reaching people right now that may have come across you organically a couple of months later. 

About Checkd Group:

Our love of sport is the heart of the Checkd Group team and culture. We’re passionate about sports and love to improve the betting experience both in conversation and product. With brands FlashPicks in the US and a number of household names in the UK such as Footy Accumulators and The Winners Enclosure, we subscribe to the view of the sports betting industry as an integral part of the wider entertainment industry, so we ensure we make it fun.

Alex Beecham is managing director of Checkd Media. With an extensive sports betting background, he previously held senior roles at Mr Green, William Hill, and Sky Bet. Beecham currently leads the overall strategy and team at Checkd Media, which operates the brands Footy Accumulators, The Winners Enclosure, and FlashPicks in North America.