Analysis of Sportsbet's Social Media Marketing Strategies

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Sportsbet's social media marketing strategies. It begins with a brief overview of the company, its operations, and its position as a leading online betting and entertainment website in Australia. The report then delves into Sportsbet's social media presence, evaluating its use of platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. It assesses content views, subscriber engagement, and the effectiveness of promotional materials. The analysis further explores brand engagement and enhancement, examining how Sportsbet leverages social media for promotion and the potential issues and controversies arising from gambling advertising. The report highlights the impact of social media on brand engagement. The report also references several academic sources to support its findings and conclusions.

Running Head: Social Media and Marketing
social media and marketing
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Social Media and Marketing 1
Sports Bet
Brief overview of organization
One of the Australia’s premier internet betting as well as entertainment website is
sportsbet.com.au and was established for past fifteen years. The site is headed by the Chief
Executive Cormac Barry and is the Australia’s first licensed bookmaker. The site has been
operated since the year 1993 in Australia and also holds the license in the Northern Territory. In
the year 2009, Ireland's biggest as well as the most successful bookmaker, Paddy Power had
invested in the company and acquired a good percentage of the same. Later, in the year 2010, the
sole owner of the business was the Irish bookmaker. One of the largest online gaming
organization in the countries of United Kingdom and Ireland with around three hundred retail
outlets approximately operating. The partners have been provided with a broad range of bet
types, markets as well as new initiatives as being the members of sportsbet.com.au.
The company provides with many offers along with varied wagering options on a vast range of
Australian as well as International racing and the sporting events along with these offers the
company also provides the members who are eligible for few of the special offers along with the
free competitions. The company also provides with personalized service for the benefit of the
members so that they expect the fair go along with the special betting promotions. They can also
take advantage of the generous bonus offers so provided and can enter the competitions in
Australia.
The value of the organization is through the products along with the competitions such as
Million Dollar Tipping as they strive to give the punters great value.

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The organization aims to keep the members entertained so that they have a fresh approach
towards racing, sports, and products of the entertainment. The members are provided with
entertainment by way of the novelty markets, entertaining of the bet types as well as stacks of
constant promotion. The company holds the highly trained staff with an aim of providing an
excellent, active as well as speedy clientele. The company also provides with an extension as
well as diverse range of the types of bet on the International sports along with racing,
entertainment, and the political events.
Overview of social media presence along with the evaluation of the presence
The platform which is primarily used for the promotion of the services, as well as the products, is
Social media. There has been very little evidence concerning the extent as well as the nature of
marketing of the wagering goods and / or services. The industry of sports betting is highly
dependent on mobile internet devices to engage customers in the services provided by them and
has recently turned to these platforms for the promotion as well. Although, there has been no
research on the wagering companies for the mapping of the marketing techniques used by them
neither any template has been provided so that these methods can be monitored from time to
time. The platform of social media is relatively a new platform.
Every user engages himself with the channel by way of video views, and in the scenario,
YouTube had the least active subscribers so far. The content view of the sportsbet.com.au has
been around 441,768 out of the six videos posted so far in two months. In a way, it could be said
that there has been posting of more advertisement content than promotional by the company.
There have been more than two lakh accounts of the wagering sports on Twitter, and the number
of followers for sportsbet.com.au ranged around one lakh. The postings of the valuable content

Social Media and Marketing 3
for the company is around fifty-three tweets per day, and the company accounts for the highest
retweets amongst the other wagering organizations.
The Facebook page dedicated for such sports wagering is considered with the likes it has, and the
sportsbet.com.au had likes ranging around five lakh twelve thousand. The user engagement of
the company is estimated to be the highest among the other sports wagering companies as the
number of shares for the post account for thirteen thousand.
Many promotional materials are also used by the sportsbet.com.au which include postings of the
advertisements from television, videos with the content of comedy as well as the videos with the
stunts. The video of the stunts has been a part of the corporate social responsibility initiative by
the company. For raising the awareness regarding testicular cancer has been the aim for the
corporate social responsibility and includes the financial donations for a particular charity. This,
in turn, promotes the brand as well.
Brand engagement/enhancement
There has been a historical restrict regarding the advertisements of the gambling products
primarily due to the potential for normalizing the betting and gambling as well as contribution
towards the gambling behaviors prevalent among the most vulnerable populations. Gambling
operators have emerged for a promotion of the products as well as the brands with not much
restrictions and have been enabled largely by social media. The outcome has been that Facebook
along with Twitter has largely been the dominant platforms which are used by the online
operators of wagering. It has been observed that the content of gambling was in conjunction with
the events as well as the news, so related and the content that was unrelated was jointly with the
normalization of gambling which was within a wider social context. The responsible information
about gambling did not feature in the post and profiles of the operator, unlike the gambling

Social Media and Marketing 4
which is land based. For the encouragement of the usage of gambling by way of cross-
promotional tactics for emphasizing the winning aspect of gambling, the promotion of social
media gambling was framed positively. The engagement rise for Sportsbet Twitter channel
would have never succeeded if the integrated market approach wouldn't be there and has
triggered around four hundred percent. The commitment was necessary for better tackle the
multi-channel strategy, and hence ample of changes as well as investments were made for
Sportsbet. The social program delivered Sportsbet’s biggest-ever month on Twitter, serving up
400 per cent more engagement in June than the company’s previous record month.
Issues and controversies and Events
The drug cheat Ben Johnson got into a dispute regarding the commercial gambling from the
media, politicians as well as the members of the public. It has been believed that the Sportsbet
had been caught in the vicinity of around two lakh dollars for disgracing the Canadian sprinter
for the promotion of its mobile betting application for the Android devices.
It also did come into picture when the company urged the government of Australia for allowing
the local bookmakers with the right of promotion of a controversial form of the gambling to be
played online so that it could dissuade the punters from betting with those players who are
offshore, as would amount to promoting of ‘Black marketing’.

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References
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gambling operators' use of social media and the latent messages conveyed. Journal of gambling
research, 32(1), 125-141.
Thomas, S. L., Bestman, A., Pitt, H., Deans, E., Randle, M. J., Stoneham, M., & Daube, M.
(2015). The marketing of wagering on social media: An analysis of promotional content on
YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.
Stonehamc, P. M. D. (2015). The marketing of wagering on social media: An analysis of
promotional content on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook (Doctoral dissertation, Faculty of
Business, University of Wollongong).
Gordon, R., & Chapman, M. (2014). Brand community and sports betting in Australia.
Melbourne, Australia: Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation.
Gainsbury, S. M., Delfabbro, P., King, D. L., & Hing, N. (2016). An exploratory study of
gambling operators’ use of social media and the latent messages conveyed. Journal of gambling
studies, 32(1), 125-141.
Deans, E. G., Thomas, S. L., Daube, M., Derevensky, J., & Gordon, R. (2016). Creating
symbolic cultures of consumption: an analysis of the content of sports wagering advertisements
in Australia. BMC public health, 16(1), 208.