Pokémon Go takes social media to a whole new level of awesome
I was one of the hundreds of people who converged at the Sydney Opera House on the weekend in the hopes of catching a Pikachu. My partner and I are self-confessed Poké-nerds, and last weekend we were on a mission to “Catch ‘Em All”.
I am of course talking about Pokémon Go, which at its core, is an AR gamification of Google maps with user-generated points of interest produced by Niantic Labs. Oh and you can catch Pokémon in the wild. If you haven’t heard of it then you must have been living under a rock – in the space of just over a week it has surpassed user numbers for social platforms that have been around for years. The implications of this new mobile game could be mammoth, for advertisers, consumers and technology providers alike. In particular, the game heralds a new age of social media.
The highly social nature of Pokémon Go and the opportunity for people to go on a real life Pokémon nostalgia trip is a real executional win for co-collaborators of the game Nintendo, The Pokémon Company and Niantic Labs. In fact, Nintendo stocks have jumped by as much as 25%. Methinks a global phenomenon has just kicked off.
Fellow Pokémon trainers were quite easy to find with many of them positioned on the side of footpaths alongside virtual “Pokéstops”. In reality Pokéstops are points of interest such as statues, murals or museums. Pokéstops drop in-game items and serve as social hubs where people can meet in real life to trade stories of their recent Pokémon captures, making the game highly social both offline and on.
people were using thePokémon Go app on average for 43 minutes a day
This is evident with total active user data released by SimilarWeb – Pokémon Go already has more daily users than Twitter and Tinder. SimilarWeb data also uncovered that people were using the app on average for 43 minutes a day (as of 8 July), which is higher than Instagram or Snapchat. To put that into perspective, people generally use Facebook for approximately 50 minutes a day. That’s a lot of time for people to be wandering around catching mythical monsters and engaging with an app.
Also, from personal experience my feeds across Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram have been filled with Pokémon Go content, mainly screenshots of Pokémon appearing in unusual locations. This morning the office was abuzz with people sharing stories of their expeditions of catching Pokémon in the wild, aka their backyard or at gatherings at local parks. Through word of mouth, the game has had a huge amount of downloads, reaching the number 1 position on the iTunes app store.
Guy Blomberg, a content manager for gaming festivals Oz Comic-Con & PAX Australia, capitalised on the hype of Pokémon Go by organising a Pokémon Go walk. Although the walk was not an official event endorsed by Oz Comic-Con or PAX Australia, I have been receiving increased invitations to Comic-Con-like events and sponsored advertisements from pop-culture, PC and gaming stores.
As many social platforms offer targeting down to the nearest meter of a person’s location, Pokémon Go’s gamification starts to make sense as a tool for enticement to brand events and specials. One entrepreneur we encountered on our Poké-walk capitalised on the increased and active social activity among Pokéstops in the Royal Botanical Gardens, selling battery chargers and Pokémon paraphernalia to fans.
With investment into augmented and virtual reality from tech giants Microsoft (Hololens) and Facebook (Oculus Rift), it is easy to see the potential rewards for well executed gamification of apps, and what marketing opportunities this will bring into the future. For now, though, I’m quite happy to sit by the harbor and catch Magikarp.