According to recent statistics over ten million minutes are spent on Facebook every day and there are now over a billion users across the world making the site not only a cultural and social phenomenon, but an economic one.
With such a large potential customer base savvy marketers are required to develop and create technology to utilize this expanding industry. Using social media, brands can announce the arrival of new products, and speak to their audience as a whole, but this as a remote stand-alone method of promotion leaves some customers with a negative, remotely cold customer experience.
Successful brands are now driving in-house promotional campaigns that interact with customers on a one-to-one basis and in doing so are building stronger customer relationships and driving better sales through gamification. Individual interaction and inclusion into business strategies fosters customer loyalty which in turn leads to collaboration and investment.
To achieve a stronger brand performance through gamification businesses have focused on improving their social online models, enhancing engagements with customers, and encouraging corporate collaborations.
Improvement
One game concept that had a strong social online foundation was the world of online casino gambling Operators saw the potential of social media as a model to introduce a more interactive platform for their platforms. Strategies were formed and updated to allow for the merger of these two technologies. Players could now interact by way of chat boxes and live cameras were introduced to enhance the reality of the experience. Immersive roulette was introduced by online casino company 32red. 32red offers a multiplayer roulette diamond edition that allows you to chat with other players, as well as the facility to zoom into the roulette wheel and view other player’s wins. Players are now hooking up via webcams, interacting with each other, and chatting with the dealer in this more dynamic gaming model. Foxy Casino introduced a 24-hour stream Live Automatic Roulette wheel while Casino.com offered an Unlimited Blackjack campaign.
Engagement
All products, whether an improved version of an existing model, or a new concept will need to find and engage with its audience. Geolotto, an online lottery game lets players choose squares located on a map to virtually own an interactive portion of Great Britain. Brothers Henry and James Oakes who run Geolotto are bringing lottery playing into the 21st century with an interactive model based on an established market. The company has shared their concept via entertaining videos shared across social media sites such as Youtube and Facebook bringing their concept to communities across the UK in a fun and entertaining fashion. The team also worked with online personalities and popular sites to increase their product visibility. Using analytics and live data the company have developed an existing popular business model and have worked hard in bringing it to the people.
Collaboration
Once improvements have been made, and audiences found and engaged with collaboration is worth considering. Online ideas-management platform Idea Street encourages employees to share creative ideas with their peers for the development of projects. 4,500 users put forward 1,400 ideas within the first 18 months of operations with over 60 of these ideas being implemented into reality. The platform chiefly encourages innovation for the public sector and also has interactive game elements including leader boards and a “buzz index” that highlights the most actively discussed ideas and showcases proactive members. The innovation team sends weekly reports with marketplace news boosting discussions and in turn traffic.
Looking ahead
The concept of gamification has yet to be widely adopted but is subject to much hype within business communities and a CIO trend to watch. With improvements to integration strategies and collaboration with organizations, concentration on feedback cycles, and a compelling narrative that holds individuals interests gamification looks set to play a big part in business strategies in the future. In creating a fun and entertaining experience for the individual by including those who matter most in the development of corporate strategy, businesses should find that the pay-off is obvious; users are emotionally better invested in their projects, and are willing to invest even more of their time and resources resulting in a stronger brand and a better business model for all involved