Chapter 1: Taking Spectacular Escape Room Group Photos and Leveraging them for Social Media Fame and Marketing Glory

As mentioned in the Introduction post, the group photo is both part of the overall experience and a way to capture it for those involved.

From a corporate team-building perspective, the Escape Room exercise is a remarkably “Snack-Size” portion of excitement that fits in a small amount of time for a very reasonable price point.  This doesn’t require a big travel budget or a whole day of lunches and coffee breaks offsite at a hotel.

For many, it’s a gathering of family or friends for a birthday celebration or a reunion of college classmates getting together for some fun.

Capturing the energy, excitement and enthusiasm that comes from completing that group photo is a very important reinforcement mechanism for the participants.  They periodically look back at that group photo, and it reminds them of how successful the various team members interacted and leveraged each other’s strengths and capabilities, and the fun they had.  They remember the esprit de corps and the power of pulling together as a cohesive unit.

The group photo is a perfect opportunity for your venue to leave your customers with a powerful memory.  As you will see from the remainder of this chapter, that’s just the beginning of how it can impact your business for months and years to come.  This photo is often times the birthplace of influencer marketing.

Thinking of it as more than just a keepsake photo…


From a business perspective, the Group Photo that is being taken at the end of an Escape Room experience is much more than a memoir or keepsake for the participants. Executed properly, the photo begins a viral journey across various social networks. Each photo has the potential to be viewed by dozens if not hundreds of personal friends of each participant, and can make lasting impressions.

When one of your happy customers posts their group photo to their personal social network of friends, they are creating what is known as a “social endorsement” or “brand endorsement” (As long as you’ve branded the photo). Marketing experts call these people “brand champions” or “brand ambassadors” as they begin to develop a very positive image of your company/venue brand. Some refer to this as advocate-based selling, or endorsement-based marketing. Whatever term you choose matters little, it works extremely well and it’s organic peer-to-peer influencer marketing that you can’t hang on a billboard or replicate on the radio.

The reason peer-to-peer branded engagements on social media are so important is the trust factor. This trust factor is incredibly important for Millennials and Gen-Z demographics. Stacy Wood from North Carolina State University has conducted research and found that the value of recommendations from ‘everyday people’ has potential impact on the brands. Consumers are bombarded by thousands of messages every day which make authenticity, believability, trust and credibility of these message questionable.  Along comes a photo from a person in your personal social network, an “everyday person”, who paid to have this experience and they are willing to endorse the experience. This person is relevant, connected and trusted. He is NOT a paid actor/sponsor putting in the good word for compensation. Trust is paramount in the short-term as it causes more social interest and engagement, and in the long-term as the social endorsement is far more likely to encourage a person to act – and possibly favor your Escape Room venue for their next team offsite or friend experience.

Lastly, of course, is the awareness factor. When the group photos find their way into the flow of social networks, they raise brand awareness and social awareness of your venue and brand. Once again, part of your goal in your marketing is to increase the awareness level of your establishment far above other alternatives, to the point where consumers can locate you and book a reservation.

 

 

How Branding plays into the Group Photo

Branding is the quintessential way to differentiate your Escape Room venue from others. Branding is the formula, the recipe that leads to a perception of the extraordinary experience they will have at your Escape Room. It’s the smell before they taste the product. Let’s hone this knife a bit while we’re in the kitchen. Branding consists of extremely important elements. For instance, the logo design and colors used are obvious branding mechanisms. We all know a catchy logo is a visual cue to your identity. Key words are used to position the brand and to a large extent target a more specific market or demographic through associative marketing – “Corporate Retreat”, “Family Bonding”, “Class Reunion”, “Girls Night Out”. Branding needs to imply a promise to the consumer – such as “The most exciting hour of your week” or a luring escape opportunity “Escape from Alcatraz!”

Consumers develop brand trust in various ways. When it comes to Gen-Z and Millennials, studies repeatedly show they put more trust in a brand endorsed by a friend or family member than from a direct solicitation via a traditional advertisement. Product Reviews and Social Endorsements fall in a category known as “Earned Social Media” which we will explain in greater detail later in this book. These endorsements, however, develop trust in a brand and motivate people to act with a company or venue. These modern day endorsements require a platform or forum such as Yelp, Facebook, Twitter or Angie’s List and a link to your Escape Room.

When you take a group photo at your Escape Room, you have a tremendous branding opportunity that can be realized. There is a wide spectrum of possibilities, with the most powerful solutions delivering upwards of 100 times the power of the least effective techniques.

Above are two Escape Room group photos intentionally made to contrast and show a profound difference. The one on the left has no branding to emphasize this.  While it is very important to offer the group photo, the one on the right is more engineered for maximum visibility, branding, awareness, virality and social engagement.

The photo on the right, from a venue called Lockout Austin, is created with the Social Flash MOBILE solution. Every room/game at their venue has its own unique thematic branding frames for success or failure, and dedicated campaign logic associated with it that customizes the social buzz. The photos taken are voluntarily shared to patron’s smart phones or sent as emails, along with a relevant promotion, whereby they can instantly share them on Facebook and Twitter. Additionally customers can save these images and share on their Instagram account and other channels they choose. Facebook postings include a URL link post on behalf of Lockout Austin that can be viewed by friends. The branded photos on the right made use of props to accentuate the experience further and draw in the viewers’ attention.

Good brands don’t just happen by accident. In most cases, they are thought out in advance, and lots of investment went into establishing those brands. So why are they important?  First, the brand is something that can be remembered and recognized by the consumer, and in most people’s mind it sets your story apart from others.  A strong brand generates lots of referrals from people recommending it, so you gain lots of prospective business from the strength of your brand.  For consumers, a brand represents a promise of a level of quality or service they associate with it.  And in some cases, people “feel good” consuming products of a specific brand. The bottom line is that establishing and promoting the branding of your Escape Room venue will help drive new customers to your doors and bring back existing customers for more experiences.

Source: DazeInfo: Forbes list of the World’s most valuable brands in 2017, “The World’s Most Valuable Brands 2017: Facebook, Amazon And Google Are Challenging Apple”, May 2017

 

 


If you are using an advanced photo system such as Social Flash MOBILE, it makes sense to have room-specific branding that draws in the broader venue logos and branding as it is effortless to switch between designs/frame and campaigns with the swipe of a finger.  The group photo will project a very specific experience the group had, and the more the photo relates closely to that, the more appealing the content to the team members.  If you don’t have the benefit of an advanced photo system, the burden of creating different branded photos for each room experience is probably too time-consuming and labor intensive to consider.





An important added dimension to a group photo can be props that can be made available. They can be as simple as hats and signs to more thematic elements like gas masks or toy guns. They are important for a few reasons. First, people lighten up and enjoy selecting props to use in the photo. They effectively fall into their role and the prop becomes an extension of their costume. Second, it breaks up the monotony and accentuates the specific experience that your group had. That is something people like to convey when they post their photos on social media. As it turns out, and third, it also helps grab the attention of those in social media looking at the photos in their news stream, as it stands out from the ordinary.


Props generally are a very inexpensive way to dramatically improve the excitement of your Escape Room Group Photo. This Group Photo, if taken properly and distributed to the participants can be a cornerstone of your earned media social marketing strategy. Happy customers are eager to show off what a wonderful time they had at your escape room venue, and your job is to make that easy to be done and in as rich a manner as possible.

Last, props can introduce some bright primary colors into the photograph. These colors can make the photo stand out and be more viewed, liked and commented on in social media.

Framing the Right Shot


Escape Room group photos present some unique challenges. First, they are generally indoors, so the lighting must be adequate, particularly if you are using an iPad given its lack of a flash capability unless you have purchased the iPad Pro. Second, the groups can be larger than just 2-3 people, which will require enough space that you can step back to effectively “zoom out” enough to capture the entire group.

Framing the right shot is important as it’s something you want amply shared by the participants on social media. There are a number of considerations that can come in handy when thinking about this:

• • Bear in mind that digital photos are effectively “free”, and you can take several, even break down the group into sub-groups. It’s not unusual to see 3-5 photos emerge from a “group photo” that can be shared amongst the participants.


• • Varying perspective may not be an option generally available. Once the group has more than 2-3 people, it is likely going to be a landscape shot. But if you are taking a subset of that group, sometimes a portrait perspective can be an interesting perspective.


• • When thinking about the group, remember it doesn’t have to be aligned dead-center in the photo. Being slightly off makes it more interesting sometimes and attracts the eyes to it.


• • If the background is meant to be neutral, then you should make sure that’s how it appears in the image, and is secondary to the group itself.


• • The use of some brighter primary colors can make the shot more interesting. Perhaps props that are rich in contrasting colors can be added to the group shot.

 

Thinking Ahead to the Picture’s Journey through its life!


There are lots of historic references to pictures in our culture. “A picture is worth 1000 words”. Rod Stewart almost 50 years ago named his album and its lead song “Every picture tells a story”. The truth is, when something is uploaded onto social media today, it is likely to remain there forever, and it can potentially influence the behavior of thousands of people. Today, it does more than we ever imagined.

Having the group pose and smile for their photo is the start of the journey for that picture. With the Social Flash MOBILE product, once the camera captures the photo image from the iPad, it is immediately fused with a branded border or picture frame to help associate the experience and the venue clearly together. That picture is then uploaded to cloud-storage on the Internet, so that it can be accessed easily now and in the future. The group members are asked for the phone number or email address, and a text or email is sent to them, so they can get to their picture or pictures. Once they see the pictures, they can instantly press the Facebook or Twitter button and Post/Tweet that image to their social media account. Social Flash MOBILE will insert the photo into the news stream of the user and associate URL links that drive curious and interested parties to the venue website or Facebook page. As users Like the post, or Comment on it or Re-Post it, all that engagement activity is monitored, analyzed, recorded and reported.

The impact that a particular picture can have in terms of social engagement can be tracked, measured and quantified through its life cycle on social media. This highlights all the more reason for making sure the photos taken are exceptional, timely, relevant, and grab the attention of the audience. Most important, they must be something the group members want to share amongst their personal social network so that your brand awareness flourishes and you capture the brand endorsement from your happy customers.