What do most people do on Facebook? Chat to people, add friends to our friends list, join groups, add applications, play solo games, compete against each other in multi player games, send each other private messages and network, yes, us business users, network! This is exactly what most gamers do every day whilst playing their favourite online games.
As a closet gamer (keep this under your hat though, I don’t want everyone to know……what do you mean it’s a bit late now? 
) I run my World of Warcraft account rather like I would any social media or social networking site. I have made a lot of good quality business contacts through gaming, these contacts have not only brought me business but also a new window into my marketing.
Gaming, these days, is not only for adolescent teenagers who spend hours locked away in their rooms, a wide variety of people and ages play online interactive games just for the sheer relaxation of it. There are vast number (and ever growing number!) of chief execs, directors and high end business people who now play games such as WoW in their lunch hour or spare time, just to relax. Why not harness this? I do!
So to prove my point I wanted to show you my comparison between both Facebook and World Of Warcraft. You’ll see that it really isn’t that different and in fact it could work wonders for your network.
Friends List
Of course the famous ‘add friends’ aspect to Facebook is known throughout the land, you also have a friends’ list on World of Warcraft that works in a similar way. It lets you know when the are offline/online and tells you where they are in the game.
Groups
Facebook has literally thousands of groups on a wide variety of topics ranging from the serious to the stupid. World of Warcraft has guilds. Guilds work in the same way, you can chat and discuss things in your guild or work together to obtain a goal. Through guild websites such as GuildOMatic you can even have forums, photo albums, calendars and more, just like a Facebook group. Just like Facebook groups, there are serious and stupid guilds.
There are guilds that are adult only and even business breakfast guilds where business people play for an hour at breakfast time before going to work to get themselves ready for the day, share new ideas about their business and make contacts, and before you think that is very odd, our local business advice centre offers the same type of business breakfast meeting in real life. (Obviously not playing games, but it’s still networking!)
Adding Applications
With Facebook you can add applications to enhance your personal profile and how you use the site itself. The same is true of World of Warcraft, you have ‘add-ons’ that enhance how you play, chat and connect.
Private Messaging
Both Facebook and World of Warcraft have a private messaging system for all those networking discussions.
Playing Games
A lot of people add games to their profiles, whether it is to play solo or to compete with their friends. World of Warcraft – I don’t really need to explain this one do I?
So there you have it, not such a big difference after all, however some of you more serious social media and social networking types may snub this post as a gamer having a ramble. I’ll let you into a secret: when you play games you have fun and you relax, so it’s the perfect time to network, as believe me most people playing the game are feeling the same way and they open up = easier to network with. The true test of a good marketeer and networker is to connect with people no matter where you are or what you are doing, not so silly after all, eh?
