5 Actionable Ways to Boost Social Media Campaigns Through Gamification

Today, social media has gained unprecedented power, especially in the last decade. With images, videos, and social campaigns going viral, anybody can share content and reach millions of viewers. However, not all brands and content creators can gain virality as easily as others.

However, the question arises: how can we create effective social media marketing campaigns that users find valuable and, in return, speed up organic sharing and engagement?

The answer is through gamification!

Using gamification strategies within your campaign can help increase engagement and results. Gamification can take your social media campaign from a hundred eyeballs to a thousand eyeballs. You may be wondering, “What is gamification, and its relevance to social media?” Can’t my business release social media campaigns and hope they are clever enough for users to engage? ”

The mentioned autopilot strategy relies too much on chance. Using gamification strategies can be an effective and fun way to get people interested in your content and get them to share it.

Gamification Can Help Your Social Media Campaign in Five Ways

• “It’s all about timing.”

• Award Points for

• Scoreboards

• Triggers for rewards

• Games for Gamified Campaigns

It’s All About Timing

Another gamification tactic to consider is timing. In many sporting activities, the time limit brings a new level of excitement (typically in the form of a large timer hanging overhead). Website discounts and offers can be gamified with an element of time limitation. This helps in creating a sense of urgency that generates more engagement.

As a social media marketer, you need to encourage and motivate users to engage and have FOMO (fear of missing out) if they don’t reap the benefit of the offer ASAP.

Urgency is always a strong motivator. Users are surrounded by Tweets, Facebook statuses, and Instagram images. Urgency and motivation will help improve engagement.

Award Points

Everyone loves to earn points as it gives the feeling of accomplishment or heading closer towards an established goal. Points also create a fun competition!

One of the most relevant examples of awarding points across social media is Nike’s mobile app. Nike can track its app’s pace, time, distance, calories, and location. In addition to these features, users can share their mobile data on Facebook and other social channels, which encourages social interaction and friendly competition.

The Nike app also offers ‘cheers’ for each Facebook as a user receives their Nike status updates.

Leaderboards

There are different ways to share statistics other than a user’s individual Facebook status. A leaderboard is among the most effective ways to show high scores and low budgets. Not every organization is as financially strong as Uber, which can promote a buy one, get one free offer. However, by using leaderboards, organizations can help spread competition and awareness. Leaderboards typically display top scores and badges, such as WooCommerce badges, awarded to users who play well.

A glaring example of leaderboards is the famous map-loaded direction app Waze. Waze gives points to riders for pointing out traffic delays, car accidents, or even police in the area where they are driving. There is no financial gain, yet the app is developed upon drivers submitting real-time data, all in exchange for points. Leader boards incentivize users to offer data and create a community with those using the app. The reward system helps in increasing engagement.

Reward triggers

It sounds simple. However, it’s significant to understand the social benefit of giving rewards to those who engage with your social campaign. A better example of this is Uber.

Uber increased its client base by offering free rides to users who shared the Uber app with their family and friends. It is essential to consider the cost factor here. However, in comparison to paid ads, offering free cab services is a lot cheaper, and you enable users to do the marketing for you. In this case, users shared the “free ride” option by word of mouth across their social channels, and demand grew quickly.

Rewards have become a big part of gamification and trigger a dopamine release. Gamification is effective when somebody wins a reward.

Gamified Campaigns

Making a stand-alone video game or gamified marketing campaign can allow your users to have fun, engage with a brand, and win fun rewards. Inserting in-game elements can produce significant results. Having a game as a major campaign and a gamification strategy around it can be one of the most effective ways for you to stand out from the competition.

These campaigns are cost-effective, too, as there is no need to hire a game designer to run a social campaign for you.

Final Words

It is hard to go against the importance and power of game-based learning and gamification. It is a strategy that you can use within training sessions and it can also be used on social media. Whether you opt for rewards to increase organic social shares, timing to increase urgency, or give away points to improve intrinsic value, gamification is applicable across multiple ways to boost any social media campaign.