Betfair to Boost Facebook Presence

Sep 08, 2011
Relaxed rules-more marketing investments Not long after social network giant Facebook announced that it is relaxing its rules on gambling brands, a statement came from online gambling group Betfair that it will increase its marketing spending on the social network in order to boost its presence and attract its desired demographics. In the UK, Facebook now allows limitless posts, which require no prior approval, whereas before, brands had only four posts a week and needed Facebook approval on updates. At the moment, Betfair is pursuing its expanded brand campaign, in which it engaged former England cricketer Michael Vaughn and ex-footballer and pundit Lee Dixon, who ran a take-over of the Betfair Facebook page alongside a paid-ad campaign, and thereby collected an impressive number of 'Likes'. According to Ben Carter, head of central online marketing services for Betfair, “There is loads of opportunity for us and it is what we have been waiting for [for a] long time. We had a page for a while but we have been limited by not being able to build the engagement or content. We will certainly increase spend but we will work with Facebook to understand what it means for gambling brands. The way to use advertising cleverly is influenced by social data, but these are disconnected at the moment.” As for the permission given to brands by Facebook, to run free-to-play apps, Carter said Betfair plans to launch apps that “will aim to be a utility for customers in order to add value to the Facebook presence.”
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