Patrick Salyer, CEO of gamification platform Gigya, believes there are two keys to success with gamification. “One is making sure that all gamified elements are inherently social,” he says. “That is, don’t restrict engagement to the internal site community. Award points for activities that reach users’ social [networks] to bring in referral traffic.”
The other is to focus on rewarding activities that create value for your businesses. “For example, award points and badges for behaviors like subscribing to your company’s newsletter, checking into your store or sending coupons to friends,” Salyer says. “Gamification is not about haphazardly throwing badges across your site.”
Companies should weigh a number of factors before deciding whether to get into the gamification game. To help you decide, here are three case studies of major companies that benefited from incorporating gaming techniques into their sites and the lessons they learned along the way.
Before gamifying, he says, a business should be able to answer these six questions with confidence:
• What is the reason for gamifying your product or service?
• How does it benefit users?
• Will they enjoy it?
• What are your business goals?
• How do you get users to fulfill those business goals?
• What actions do you want users to take?
If you can provide solid
answers to all the questions, gamification could be an effective component of your online efforts.
Gamification can reward “behaviors consumers will naturally take on the site, such as sharing a blog that’s relevant to their social networks or uploading a photo of themselves and their friends while attending a Verizon-sponsored concert,” says Beth Tourek, Verizon’s social media strategist. Verizon Insider also can be customized to match a user’s interests or location.