5 ways Gamification Can Magnify your Social Media Campaign

No one can argue over the power that social media has had in the last decade. With photos, videos, and marketing campaigns going viral, anyone can share content and potentially reach millions. Though not all brands and content creators can reach virality as easily as others.

So the question is, how do we create effective digital marketing campaigns that users find value in, and in return increase engagement and organic sharing?

The answer is Gamification.

Adding Gamification strategies within your social media campaign can help increase results and engagement. This can take your social campaign from the eyes of hundreds to thousands. 

One might be wondering here, “what is gamification, and how is it relevant to social media? Can’t my brand just release social campaigns and hope they are clever enough for users to engage?” 

This strategy leaves way too much to chance. Using gamification strategies can not only be an effective but fun way to help engage users and amplify your content. We at Gamify are here to show you how. 

5 ways Gamification Can Magnify your Social Media Campaign

1. Reward triggers

2. It's all about timing

3. Award Points

4. Leaderboards

5. Gamified Campaigns

1) Reward triggers

It sounds like a simple solution, but it’s important to know the social benefit of handing out rewards to those who engage with your campaign.

An example of this is Uber, which increased its user base by simply offering free rides to any user who shared the app with their friends. It is important to consider the cost implications here, but in comparison to paying for ads, offering free services is a whole lot cheaper, and you allow your users to do the marketing for you. In Uber’s case, users shared the “free ride” option across their social channels, and by word of mouth, the company and demand quickly grew.

Rewards are a large part of gamification in general, triggering a dopamine release, effective when someone wins a reward.

2) It’s all about timing

Another gamification strategy to consider is timing. In most sports games, the limit of time brings a level of excitement (usually in the form of a large timer/clock hanging overhead). Website offers and discounts can be gamified with a time limit element. This helps create a sense of urgency, which creates more engagement.

As a marketer, you want to motivate and encourage users to engage and create FOMO (fear of missing out), if they don’t take advantage of the offer as soon as possible.

Urgency is a strong motivator, as users are surrounded by Facebook statuses, tweets, and Instagram photos. Motivation and urgency will help increase engagement. 

3) Award Points

Everyone loves earning points, it helps them feel accomplished, and headed closer to an established goal. This also creates fun competition!

One of the best examples of this is across social media is Nike with their Nike Running app. In the app, Nike can track time, pace, calories, distance, and location. Not only that, but users can share their data across Facebook and all other socials, which encourages friendly competition and social engagement.

The app also offers a ‘cheers’ for every Facebook like that a participant received from their Nike status updates.

4) Leaderboards

There are more ways to share stats than simply across a user’s individual Facebook status. Leaderboards are one of the most effective ways to show off high scores and are low budget too. Not every company is as financially backed as Uber was, and can offer a buy one get one free service, but utilising leaderboards can help spread awareness and competition. Leaderboards usually display top scores, as well as badges that have been awarded to users that have played well.

An example of this is the popular maps-based direction app Waze. Waze offers points to riders for pointing out car accidents, traffic delays, or even police in the area the user is driving in. There is no financial gain, yet the entire app is built upon drivers submitting real-time data, all in exchange for points. This incentivises users to submit data, as well as creates a community with those in the app. The reward system helps increase engagement.

5) Gamified Campaigns

Creating a stand-alone gamified marketing campaign or video game can allow your users to have fun and engage with a brand, and win some fun rewards. Adding in-game elements can certainly produce results. Better yet, having a game as a central campaign along with gamification strategies around it is sure to be one of the most effective ways to stand out from your competition.

It’s cost-effective too, no need to even hire a game designer to create a campaign for you. Head over and check out Gizmo for a free demo and receive access to a full library of game templates that you can use.

Conclusion

It is difficult to argue against the power and importance of gamification and game-based learning. It is not just a strategy that can be used within training sessions, It can also be effectively used within social media as well. Whether you use rewards to increase organic shares, timing to raise urgency, or give away points to increase intrinsic value, gamification can be used across multiple ways to amplify any social media campaign. You can start creating your own gamification marketing campaign here today.