Driven on by their 14% increase in operating profits for the first half of 2012, the British-based bookmaker William Hill has hired the Social branding company Lexis to actively increase their online presence. William Hill is one of many gambling powerhouses that are well aware that the future of gambling is largely set to take place in the online gambling arena. It is worth noting their own revenues in online gaming jumped by 30% for the first half of 2012.

While William Hill has a massive land presence with over 2,400 betting shops in the UK alone, they need to expand their market presence overseas where they are actively looking to compete and feature.

According to PR manager for William Hill, Kate Miller, “Social media have become more and more important with sports fans and others, as you can tell from the Olympics. For example, Twitter is a recognized comms stream now, and for us it’s about working to make the best of the content we’re producing. The internet and social media allow us the opportunity to promote to other markets as we expand internationally, and tailor our content to various different marketplaces.”

William Hill’s partnership with Lexis is set to run for three months and will include social media campaigns as well as more traditional campaigns that include the UK Snooker Championships and the FA Cup.

William Hill is expanding in many markets that include Italy, Spain and Austria. They like other major betting companies are also keeping an eye out for developments in the U.S. online gambling market which is in the process of dramatic changes which could result in legalized online gambling.

Almost all traditional gambling companies are looking to partner up with some sort of social gaming entity which is aimed essentially at increasing their brand presence not only online but also aiming to attract more people to their land based betting shops and casinos.

Lexis-the recommendation agency is a London-based external social media and public relations firm that specializes in increasing brand presence among all relevant media. There is no doubt that William Hill like other gambling powerhouses are in need of such marketing strategies in order to place themselves in competitive position in the global online and land based gambling markets.