“And why do I want to do that?” I hear you cry. To engage visitors with your website for longer, acquire more customers and raving fans, and ultimately improve your profits. How does that sound? Really good – assuming you know what gamification is – so let’s start there.

What’s gamification?

In a nutshell, it’s integrating gaming principles in non-game environments to increase audience engagement, loyalty and fun. By ‘gaming principles’ we mean every type of game from the ancient Olympics through to the latest console release.

There is a whole theory behind gaming – the need for reward, fairness, some form of goal or competition, a sense of progression, a journey of discovery and the rules of the game, for example.

Gamification takes these principles and applies them elsewhere – in learning environments, at work, in Government and to improve health, to name but a few. Whatever industry you’re in, there’s a very good chance gamification elements have been used.

But why gamify my website?

As TV and Internet get ever closer, static websites are becoming a thing of the past. Instead, think of your website as an entertaining hub which links every other element of your online (and offline) marketing together.

Through Matmi’s specialism in branded entertainment, we know that engaging and interacting with people is far more influential in marketing terms than just asking them to watch an advert. Engage people right from the start on your website and you’re onto a winner – longer visits, more returns, more recommendations to your site – and ultimately, a positive effect on your bottom line.

Give me a gamification example

They’re everywhere! But you may not have thought of these items from a gamification perspective. For example:

• Loyalty schemes (supermarket points, air miles, and a gadzillion others!)
• Systems recognising skills and achievements (from Scout badges to MacDonald’s staff badges to corporate HR systems)
• Social networks are gamified to encourage engagement (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, et al)
• Forums like WikiAnswers where the most popular answers get voted up the list

Let’s take a dive into LinkedIn for more detail:

• Progression: As you set-up your user profile, LinkedIn charts your progress encouraging you to add recommendations and join groups to get a score of 80% completion or more. It’s in your best interests to do this anyway, but the point is that LinkedIn has gamified it so that you want to get a 100% complete profile! Clever.
• Data and competition: LinkedIn provides a lot of data that you can use to see how you’re doing vs. other users:
  1) Your direct connections.
  2) Your total number of connections (up to three linked contacts away).
  3) Data on who viewed your profile in the last week.
  4) A weekly update which details some of the activity in your direct network – encouraging you to ‘get busy’ yourself.
• Exploration: Tracking down people you know to find out what they’re up to now (and it’s addictive!).

Gamification is a hot topic that’s getting a lot hotter – take a look at this site for more info – it’s one of the best we’ve found. And if you’d like to know more – please get in touch or send us a message on Twitter. As gaming and branding experts, we’re getting the sense that the rest of the world is catching up (which means we’ll be moving the goalposts again soon…).

Game on! Jeff

PS. We imagined gamifying being an MP with a system that logs how many expense forms you’ve fiddled, how many houses you own, how many times you’ve lied and got away with it or been found out – and so on. What d’you think?

Should we give Cameron & Clegg a call?! It would have to be a community game too so that constituents could take part and add what they know. Mmmm – food for thought!