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So while we saw that few of the top 20 Facebook game applications were actively using their Fan Pages (or Application Pages) to reach their fans in their homepage stream, of those that have been starting to engage their users in this way, I wanted to look at how users are responding. There are two primary ways in which a marketer gets feedback, either by the end-user “Like”-ing your post, or by commenting on the post. I looked at the posts made to date by those Top 20 Game Applications that have started posting and came up with the average number of Likes and Comments, and then look at those engagements collectively to see who is engaging their users the best:

For this sampling, the average percentage of engaged fans (excluding the anomaly of Mob Wars which I’ll touch on below) is about 0.94%. But just like we explored the engagement from Twitter Tweets the number of Fans probably needs to be adjusted for Facebook churn (around 40%), which would make the adjusted engagement level at about 1.6% on average.

There are additional caveats as well. The number of fans is taken at a particular point in time, June 15th, and some of these sites have grown dramatically (Zynga’s Mafia Wars grew 10% in just two weeks after it hit 2 million), so the older posts are going to look lower because the denominators are higher. Also, you would expect some of the games with substantially larger fan bases to have lower click through rates (similar to this example about Twitter click-through rates) as within the smaller group there is probably a tighter affinity to the game. In addition, posts generally are less effective over time (the initial post for Pet Society saw over 20,000 engagements, whereas only one of the following posts exceeded 10,000).

Finally, this is too small a sample to make concrete conclusions, as much of the data is based on games with only one or two posts. Mob Wars has an incredible number of comments on their single post, but it is an “add me” thread where users highlight their user name to create a mob larger than their own circle of friends, not really the act of the developer engaging with its fans. Chain Rxn has a strong following, but it was a post about how they had to change the Flash to work with changes in Facebook.

What Fan Page Posts are Working, Not Working

So while not conclusive, the posts that seem to receive the most “Likes” or Comments can directionally show what types of comments are resonating (and not) with users. I broke down and tried to categories the posts for these top games and came to the following general content guidelines:

Generally Strong Topics to Post About

• Contests are strong – Zynga’s Texas Hold’em Poker has seen 2x the average engagement around the initial posts for their World Series of Poker challenge and drawing to win $100K (in-game currency) in chips
• New Items (available for sale or redemptions) generally performed slightly above average (for Mafia Wars)
• Insider posts , like getting to be in on a beta of new features or providing input, tended to do well

Be Wary, Tread Lightly When Considering These

• Sales tended to be slightly above average as done by Playfish titles, but they were also some of the initial posts.
• Videos of promotional ads generally performed lower, though more insider-focused ads about the developers were about average
• Cross promotion to other platforms (iphone version, twitter) generally gathered lower numbers than other posts (gaining less than half the average post for MafiaWars)

What All These Games Seem to Be Missing

On some Walls, where the applications have allowed the users to post as well, there is an out-pouring of love (or scorn depending on the game) for the developer, but often little response, even in a broad way. What’s missing is a connection to the users.

While the marketer inside you is looking at the opportunities to push and cross-promote, you have to step back and think like a user engaging in personal relationships – what do they look at, what do they respond to? What do they comment on and “like” when they login to their Facebook homepage and peruse the stream?

One clue can be seen in one of the Texas Hold’em Poker posts, which was simply a quote: “Aces are larger than life and greater than mountains” – Mike Caro. This received some of the highest “likes” of any post, right up there with new feature announcements and the chance to win chips.

Another casual gaming portal, OMGPOP (not a game application on Facebook, but a social community phenomenally designed for high-school-aged gamers), has seemed to really tap into their audience on Facebook, seeing above average responses from Fan Page questions like “How many friends do you have on OMGPOP?” and “What’s your favorite drink?” and what music do you listen to or what food do you snack on while playing? Questions that actually solicit a response and find the community sharing amongst itself what they like and don’t like.

Just like Zappos doesn’t tweet about products or sales on Twitter, game developers have the opportunity to reach out to their fans and leverage the personality of their brands to intersperse the promotions with plenty of character. The ability to talk like and share thoughts with fans like a high-roller (Texas Hold’em Poker), an OMG-that’s-so-cute friend (Pet Society), or a wise-cracking hit man (Mafia Wars) might just resonate more and keep the games alive just a bit longer.

Content Strategy for Engaging Game Application Fans

As a game developer, your content strategy starts and ends with the game. Is there a product roadmap with a series of new features you are continually releasing? Or a series of new items you are introducing (or are you stuck like Word Challenge and only able to talk about the high-scores refreshing)? Is your production level quick (monthly releases) so you have enough to work with or is it once every six months? If you have the ability to add new features or items quickly, is there a way to include/involve your users in shaping some of that release?

Bottom line, layering in personality, some contests, or behind-the-scenes insight on top of core product updates is easy – the product is the hard part. The next wave of game applications that succeed on Facebook are going to be designed from the start to be continually optimized, upgraded, and shaped by input from their fans. And at that point, Facebook Fan Page/Application Page posts will write themselves.