Gamification in Social Media

Gamification in Social Media
Cheskin Added Value
Stanford BUS 109 Marketing and Social Media Strategy 255 Shoreline Dr., Suite 350
Date: Authors: Redwood Shores, CA 94065
October 2011 650-802-2100
Leigh.Marriner@cheskin-added-
value.com

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We help leaders innovate

1980s
Apply Ethnography to Business

1990s
Leverage technology to better understand consumers

2000s
Designing brands that express meaningful experiences


Gamification

The application of gaming
concepts and techniques to
non-game experiences, in order
to drive desired behaviors.
Better
engagement Lift of target
behaviors
On-boarding

Conversion
Increase re-
Virality
engagement
(broadcasting)

The power of gamification

You can incentivize any action you value
Can help you better engage both enthusiastic
and even passive audiences
Delivers real business value


What is the key to success?

Requires that you identify the behaviors or
actions you want from participants, alongside
their relative value
Then identify engagement-based strategies
(game mechanics) to engineer a path to your
goal

Identify the behaviors you want to elicit – awareness,
click-throughs, recommendations, purchases – then determine
motivators that can provoke each of those behaviors


What are rewards?

The best reward is the intrinsic satisfaction a
user gets from participating – it’s not
necessarily keeping score.
Gamification is not just a rewards or loyalty
system. Although these can, and typically do,
form part of a gamification environment,
they’re just pieces of the overall puzzle.
Ideally it has so much “fun value” that the
pure engagement qualities of playing can in
itself be the reward.


“I never thought of it as a game”

I never thought of it as a game. So Facebook is not a game.
A lot of times Foursquare will
x
it’s kind of weird when people say,
have nice little coupons of
My experience is not
cheapened by 1 point for
“Do you play FourSquare?” I
thought of it as another application. hey, if you are around here writing on some friend’s
I don’t play it to like win something check this out or get $10.00 wall. That’s just overdoing
and I don’t really care if I’m Mayor off this bakery or stuff like it. It’s been a social
of anything. I can see where my that. I actually kind of like network for me and like the
friends have been and stuff like that. That’s actually kind of way that they’ve employed
that, but I don’t necessarily think of cool. game mechanics, they’ve
it as a competition. kept it that way and I
appreciate that.

I think tips are usually
they’re funny, which is kind I feel Foursquare’s figured out a balance, it’s not
of cool, like I went to this disgusting to me when they do game mechanics or
café up in San Francisco give me points which I can earn. If I check in the
called Epicenter and one of same place, they give me less points than my
the tips was like ask the checking into a new place. They use it in a more
cashier what he can do with clever way so that I go to new places, so I feel like
a computer. And I was so they’re doing me something, I’m getting benefits if I go
intrigued and I really wanted to new places because I get to get more points.
to… .

What are game mechanics?

Game mechanics are
essentially a marriage of tools
that measure and report
statistics. Those statistics are
used to represent progress and
justify rewards.


Game Mechanics
What makes games so addicting?

GAME PSYCHOLOGY1 GAME MECHANICS2 RESULTS3

1. It’s a pleasurable activity
1 Competition

Better instructions- you have a
2. It's an activity that we feel 2 Achievements
goal and it’s measurable
that we can perform - a
challenge that requires skill 3 Points
3. Clear goals for our activity Better feedback- anytime you
4 Purposeful do something the environment
4. Constant feedback on our responds
progress 5 Collecting
5. Exercise control over our Connects you to emotions-
environment 6 Shared
“fiero” experience
6. We become less self- 7 Social reciprocity
absorbed
Better community
8 Feedback & Exchanges

9 Customization

10 Expressive

Source: 1) Gamasutra, The Psychology Behind Games, April 26, 2005 2) Beautiful Interfaces, Farmville’s 5 Psychological Hooks, 2009; Amy Jo Kim,
Shufflebrain; AppsLab, Why Gaming is the Future of Everything, November 5th, 2009 3) Jane McGonigal, UX Week Video,

Game mechanics are integral to social networking sites

“Points or “Feedback &
Follower Counts” “Achievements” Exchanges” “Collecting”


Instant reinforcing feedback loops
Can incent people to do things
they previously shunned; i.e.
short-burst knowledge
management within a company

Tweet count (“score”)

Tweet instantly visible
(“result”)

Irregular feedback by other
people responding/retweeting

@mentions tab is the
Behaviorist’s irregular reward schedule
mechanism. Pavlov figured out irregular
rewards worked best of all.

= self-reinforcing (“addictive”)


Metagames as a model for increasing engagement
Real world reward systems drive engagement

Metagames layer a rewards system on an existing real
life activity.
Real life leveling systems can be applied to everything.
School behavior charts
Frequent Flyer Programs
Contests/raffles
Discounts for being a frequent shopper

Metagame design advances engagement.
Participating in a game and receiving real world
benefits like discounts or public recognition
increases engagement.
Currently Foursquare is tapping into the reward
mechanism by creating a platform where businesses
can reward their customers.
Rewards could include special graphics, titles, credits,
social accolades, QR-coded coupons.

Source: Amy Jo Kim, Shufflebrain; Metagames Presentation

Gaming mechanics are being applied to the newest
generation of social tools -1-

Points for completing real
world tasks
Gambit Tasks: Gambit
Payment’s online payment
system makes the earning
opportunities CrowdFlower
brings to the online workforce
available in virtual economies
for the first time in the history
of social games.



Solving real world situations -
points, achievements,
purposeful, shared:

Urgent Evoke :The goal of the
social network game is to help
empower young people all
over the world, and especially
young people in Africa, to
come up with creative
solutions to our most urgent
social problems.


Answering questions:
points, achievements,
collecting, purposeful,
shared
StackOverflow: Technical
Q&A site with
crowdsourced moderation
and reputation system.
People are encouraged to
give best answers and
ask best questions with
points, badges, and tags


How have brands used gamification?

Post % completed of
surveys when log in

Design own drink and
share on iPhone for
loyalty program points

Buy high end products
cheaply if get there fast
enough


Game mechanics can be mis-used

E.g. reward users with points for clicking
around a site or remaining on a page to
consumer content
“The user will get hooked and consciously
participate as soon as they recognise the value
in it.”
Why does the user care about these points?


Let’s design game mechanics for highway speed camera system
In Finland, ticket charge based on income. Saw 3% decrease
in speed. Fast car owners had money and didn’t care.
Their solution:
Took pictures of every car going by. Once a month one person
who had gone under the speed limit won the lottery of all the
penalties.
30% decrease in speed
Game was linked directly to the outcome desired.


Game mechanics in market research
When respondents enjoyed the experience, researchers
received 2-3 x as much feedback and participants took more
time with their answers. They explored how game rules could
turn questions into puzzles.1
Instead of asking respondents how much they liked a brand, we
asked them how happy they would be to wear a given brand on
their T-shirt.
Instead of asking where they liked to go on holiday, they were
invited to imagine they had to publish a magazine offering holiday
recommendations.
Describe yourself yielded 2.4 words and 85% response. Describe
yourself in exactly seven words yielded an average of 4.5 words
and 98% response.
When asked how much they liked a list of music acts, they got 83
evaluated. When asked to imagine they owned their own radio
station and decide which artists to play, the number of artists
evaluated rose to 148.
When asked to list favorite foods, on average listed 6. When told
they had 2 minutes, it produced 35 items.
(1) Engage Research and GMI, September 2011. 30 experiments with >5,000 people.

Game playing in market research
Turning marketing surveys into games, based on stock market
trading
For getting consumer reactions to new product ideas
Players buy and sell different product concepts
Has been used for ski resorts, crossover vehicles, laptop bags,
smartphones, mirroring results found through traditional research

Do Respondents Prefer Surveys or Stock Trading?

Source: Professor Ely Dahan, UCLA Anderson School of Managaement

Game playing in market research
Something even simpler than markets for predicting preference
Individuals expectation of what others will prefer is a better
predictor than their own preference

Source: Professor Ely Dahan, UCLA Anderson School of Managaement

Design Principles
Use gaming to enhance real life activities.

Measure behavior and report it

Create achievement “badges” that can be collected and
displayed: Create brag-able moments

Don’t let the gaming mechanics get in the way

Easy to share: quick, simple and reward those that share

Easy to “play”: simple, low involvement, quick

Easy to join: leverage existing social networks like Facebook
/Twitter; game tries to make players invite more friends to join

Game pacing: grant rewards over time; sandbox play,
continuously add new things

Make it mobile

Make it fun!

Source: Amy Jo Kim, Shufflebrain; Metagames Presentation, The social behavior incentive (how your app can be as addictive as
Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare) by Robert Scoble on January 23, 2010

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