HOW TO: Make Your eCommerce Site Social With Gamification

“Gamification”- the process of adding game dynamics to sites and services – is an important and powerful new strategy for influencing and motivating groups of people. Gamification is like a Loyalty program. Today, the expression of user loyalty isn’t limited to purchasing. In social Media “Likes” are not loyalty. Real-time social rewards programs could include Points, Badges, Trophies, Virtual Items, Unlockable Content, Digital Goods, Physical Goods, Coupons, etc.. Social rewards create a connection between your brand and your users and your community.

You can engage Users by making any online experience more compelling, rewarding, and sticky through challenges, leaderboards, badges, points and other game mechanics. This will also help you build your base and reach new users organically by extending the gamification experience to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and beyond.

Points are a great way of rewarding a user for doing something that is of value to you (i.e.,purchase, download, share). There are two major types of points: redeemable and non-redeemable. Redeemable points could be Basic Points earned by participation and are usually spendable on virtual or physical goods.Basic points can be rewarded for activities like putting items in their shopping cart, writing a review of their latest purchase, or browsing a new designer collection and could be used for free shipping, and discounts. Premium Points, only available via a cash transaction. Premium Points are usually spendable on “premium” virtual or physical goods. Non-redeemable points could be Experience Points, earned by participation, for activities like view new content, share links to inventory, share reviews, and more. Experience Points constantly increase and the point total is never deducted. Experience Points are not spendable but rewards could include early access to products.

Badges and Trophies are also great ways of Gamification. In March Online Fashion Retailer Bluefly launched its social game platform by incorporating Badgeville, a white label social loyalty, rewards and analytics platform, into its ecommerce website and blog. Bluefly + Badgeville collaboration rewards Bluefly shoppers for watching videos, creating wishlists, writing reviews, and reading blog posts, as they explore and interact with various elements of the site. Bluefly social shopping gamers receive badges that highlight their status and draw attention to their fashion credentials within the Bluefly community. As players earn higher badges, they receive rewards such as early access to products and special deals and discount.

Based on your business objectives you can come up with a game plan on how and when you will reward your users. Recognize and award the social gamer for use of the system. You could award a user 10 points every time a user watches a video. A count reward is simply counting the number of times you have done something. After user watches 10 videos, the user gets a trophy. It could be more complex like “Leave a comment that gets at least 5 upvotes on 5 different blog articles”.

Instead of counting the number of times something happens you could instead look at meta data to reach a certain threshold. It could be something like “10 points for every $100 spent, collect 100 points and get free shipping on your next order.”

Pages and Custom Badges - that help lead your consumers and fans to do interesting things in their neighborhoods and communities.

Then there is the “Easter Egg” strategy where you do not explain the actions required to earn them. These “surprise and delight” rewards are powerful motivators because they tap into our natural tendency toward curiosity and hope. Try to find out how you can earn badges on Foursquare. On their User FAQ page under the heading “How do I earn badges?” this is what Foursquare says “Earn badges by checking into various venues and exploring your city! While we won’t reveal how you can obtain these badges, we’ll give you a few hints: some badges are tied to venue “tags” (these are hidden and no longer tied to the tags that users add!) and others may be specific to an event or category. We’d tell you more, but what’s the fun in that? (P.S. A simple Google search will provide you with further guidelines, but we do not endorse nor authorize this information ” For more information about promoting your business with Foursquare look at this post.

Finally let your shoppers see, in real-time, how their friends and other fans are interacting with your site, whether they’re putting items in their shopping cart, writing a review of their latest purchase, or browsing a new designer collection. Make your eCommerce site social and keep your shoppers on your site, where they are more likely to discover new merchandise, as well as see product favorites multiple times, and make a purchase.

Facebook utilizes this strategy with Facebook Deals. If you have a Deal on Facebook, your Deal page will have a Share button that lets people send a message about your deal to their friends, or post your deal to their Wall. The Like button enables someone to express interest in your deal. Liking a deal generates News Feed stories and notifications, which helps spread the word about your deal. They also have Thumbnail images that show people which of their friends have liked or bought your deal. For more information on Facebook Deals check this article  here.