Social Media Gaming Survey: Players Likely to Continue This Year

Social gaming has emerged as a new but fairly successful niche industry over the last several years. Big names like Candy Crush and Bejeweled Blitz have taken over on sites like Facebook and even spawned mobile apps and standalone versions. And according to Statista, the industry could be poised for even more growth over the next few years. So just how big could social media gaming get? We asked 1,000 respondents on September 11-13 about their thoughts and habits surrounding social gaming.

Social Media Users

In Ask Your Target Market’s latest survey, 45% of respondents said that they currently use multiple social media platforms. And 35% use one. Facebook was by far the most popular, with 92% of social media users saying they have an account. 46% use Twitter. 34% use Pinterest. 32% use Instagram. 26% use Google+. 20% use LinkedIn. 15% use Snapchat. And 6% use other social media platforms like Tumblr and Reddit.

Social Media Gaming

Of those who use at least one social media platform, 25% said that they regularly play games on those sites or apps. 22% said that they play social media games on occasion. 14% have done so at least once in the past. And 40% of social media users said they have never played games on those platforms. Candy Crush was the most popular social media game mentioned by those respondents. Farmville, Casino, Bingo and Poker were also popular.Of those who have played social media games at least once, 96% use Facebook. There were also small increases for users on Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. But those social media gamers were also more likely to say that they use more than one social media site.

Gaining Users

Looking forward, 50% of respondents said they are at least somewhat likely to play games on social media in the next year. Of those who have already played social media games, 64% said they are at least somewhat likely to play in the next year.Of those who have already played social media games, 54% said they learned about those games through invitations from connections on those platforms. 33% received recommendations from friends outside of social media. 27% learned about social media games from ads or updates on social media platforms. 13% learned about them from other ads. 8% heard about them from news articles. And 6% found them from other sources, like simply browsing or searching for games online.

Key Takeaways

Those who have already tried out social media games like Candy Crush are fairly likely to continue playing, which is a good sign for social media gaming companies since word of mouth has proven to be a powerful tool for them to gain users. Incentivizing the sending of invitations to other users is already a pretty popular strategy for those gaming companies, especially on Facebook where social media gaming is most popular. But since social media gamers are also likely to use multiple social platforms, there could be room for companies to post or promote their games on those other platforms where there’s less saturation in terms of gaming.You can view the complete survey results in the widget below and be sure to click “Open Full Report” to take advantage of all the chart and filter options.Photo Credit: Playing Candy Crush on ipad by m01229 under CC BY 2.0What do you want to know? If you need some consumer insights on a particular topic, let us know in the comments below and we’ll consider it for an upcoming survey post.

Results were collected on September 11-13 via AYTM’s online survey panel.