The Game's The Thing Gamification is a key strategy few understand and fewer online merchants still deploy. This post about 4 platforms that can help your content gamify customer engagement is a must read.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
The game's the thing. We know of no way to keep customers loyal and advocating your content, products, and services without games and gamification.
As businesses look to finalize their workforce management strategies for the coming year, here are the top 7 issues you'll need to consider for 2015.
Marty Note My favorite trend is the CIO/CMO evolution. Love this paragraph:
The CIO/CMO Relationship Continues to Evolve
Through 2015 and beyond, John Reed, Executive Director for Robert Half Technology, says there will be increased collaboration between business' IT and marketing departments. While this collaboration is already happening, the extent of collaboration will only increase in 2015 as businesses work to stay relevant and competitive, says Reed. And that increased collaboration will result in an increased demand for talent, such as the role of digital information officer, that holds both soft and technical skills and can interface with both departments, he says.
### Let's hope this evolution continues along the lines outlined here as the line between Chief Marketing Officers and Chief Information Officers continues to fade.
WackyKid Comment As it has been well over a decade I’ve been into “games and stuff”, I was fortunate enough to witness their mind-boggling development starting from the early 2000s to this present day. Therefore, I feel that the time has come when I bring to you MY personal list of top 5 third-person shooter games – judged mainly under the grounds of plot strength, ease of gameplay, and quality of the graphic content.
Marty Comment The more web marketing I create the more it feels like B2C sites are first person shooter games while B2B are third person shooter games. I wrote about shopper as "actant" not long ago in Why Time Is Money Online (https://plus.google.com/+MartinWSmith/posts/RdjAjWoJTHw ).
I just wrote a Curagami post about difference in B2B / B2C storytelling (http://www.curagami.com/featured/story-storytelling-fedex-time/ ). Will put some more flesh on the bones of this video game 1st Person Shooter vs. 3rd Person Shooter analogy for web marketing soon.
Why TIME Is Money Online I've wrestled with how to fit three concepts into online marketing for years:
* Narrative (storytelling). * Video Games. * Time.…
This post, thanks to a great game theory post by Jesper Juul, is as close as we've come to fitting these three important puzzle pieces into a "super symmetry". Time is money online and its important to understand how to create online environments that work with customer expectations and major trends such as:
* Mobile First. * Ubiquitous and always on web. * Social nets and increasing connections and connectivity. * Design. * Alignment with visitors needs, expectations and aspirations. * Super-Symmetry between once disparate technologies.
Games and gamification creaete great responsive content. Games rock engagement, wins hearts, minds and loyalty so Gamify Your Content Marketing with 5 tips.
Questions Are A Favorite Tactic The question is a great piece of content online. Some questions we can write and then answer. Other questions we can use to promote clicks or create a daisy chain between content.
Best UGC catcher there is? Ask a question. Words like a charm on Facebook and we are proving how effective it can be with our starup Curagami on Moon-Audio.com right now (http://www.moon-audio.com/product-survey ).
Sporcle shows the power of Q&A content. What you don't see is how powerful Q&A content is behind the Google curtain. There is something about lists and Q&A that web spiders love. After a bit Sporcle becomes a tad unnerving, but as an accent to an ecommerce or content marketing site Q&A content can be a powerful engagement and UGC generating tool #usergeneratedconent,
Marty Note Great post here by a new to me but smart and gets it marketing author Bernard Marr on Linkedin. I posted a comment at the end sharing a link to one of my most popular Haiku Decks - Gamifying Content Marketing http://shar.es/1ag0sH.
Didn't do that to hone in as much as add in. Bernard's post shares some good examples of different gamification applications. The trend in HR and other internal departments to gamify is proving powerful.
I'm interested in the S/R curve of B2C ecommerce websites and find, especially in a connected mobile time, many places where "play" can create the tribes, support and engagement we lucky few Internet marketers crave and are finding harder and harder to create.
Great post, horrible photo (at least for me), so didn't perpetuate it here. Bernard's post is worth a read if you are new to gamification and he is a solid follow. M
Struggling to come up with Facebook contest ideas now that the Like-gate is banned? I'm here to help. Rock your next contest with these 6 tips! (Instead of one prize for the winner why not offer a HUGE discount to ANYONE who enters your FB contest?
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Wow, just goes to show you - there are always a million ways to do anything. At our startup @Curagami we like to say anything is easy with instructions (like origami). Here are great instructions on how to create wonderful Facebook contests.
Erica Campbell Byrum - Homes.com, Social Fresh EAST 2014 Erica Byrum takes a bit to get rolling, you can begin watching at 1:41, but what she is saying about crowdsourcing content via contests is valuable so hang with it.
The real diamond is how contests unearth your 1% Contributors and 9% supporters. Homes.com was smart enough to immediately give thier 1% a mission and I love and plan to steal the "Blogger Ambassador Program" great name add a Social Media Ambassador and you have two sticks you can rub together to create fire.
Stay with this video to hear about the power of serendipitous content their content unearthed, content Homes.com was smart enough to double down on. The Contest was a flop, they thought until they stumbled over the single piece of content that "continues to give back to us this day fast forwarding 3 years later".
Homes.com doesn't do what I would suggest - create a page with a clear Call To Action (an ask) to join the Blogger Ambassador program. Instead they surface their 1% Contributors via contests: http://blog.homes.com/category/contests/
I like the dedicated page that explains benefits, shares why you created the program and how your Blogger Ambassadors program. Inside of some things I don't agree with (cash is always a powerful incentive) are great tips I do agree with (surprise works, double down on what works, give 1% Contributors a job, use no more than 2 social nets at once). So more GOOD advice than BAD here.
"Contests create gifts that keep on giving" says Eric Campbell Byrum from Homes.com.
Qualtrics sophisticated online survey software solutions make creating online surveys easy. Learn more about Research Suite and get a free account today. (@NardyVitor Reminder: Are games like Call of Duty realistic?
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Survey Tools Exploding, Need Social Survey Survey tools seem to be exploding which is interesting since surveys feel old and out of touch. We don't need a tool to help make a boring task, taking someone's survey, digital we need a tool to make surveys more like playing a game.
Social Survey / Game Tool Needed The tool we need masks the survey, something WE marketers need, inside something our customers want such as an entertaining game, or a social competition or a gamified Q&A so well disguised customers and survey takers don't feel like we are doing the back breaking work of digging some company's ditch.
Who digs ditches anymore? Isn't there a "ditchwich" or something for that? Why then is there an explosion of survey tools? I suspect two reasons:
* Big Data makes knowing anything HARD. * Its easy as the functional spec seems half written - move our survey's online, make paper surveys digital and mobile-friendly.
Classic case of answering the wrong question in the wrong way. Smarter to ask how social media is changing what a "survey" is. Is the request and then actual use of a #hashtag a surve? Our answer at Cuaragami (http://www.Curagami.com ) would be a definitive YES.
Win A $1,000 Headphone Hack Friends +Moon-Audio.com are running a cool Hack Your Headphones contest. Entering the contest is simple. Take a picture of your headphones and music gear and share on your social nets with hashtag #hackheadpones . Questions or if you don't have social nets email info(at)Moon-Audio.com.
Win $1,000 Headphone Hack Grand prize is a $1,000 #headphones hack by Moon Audio Founder & Silver Dragon audio cable creator +Drew Baird.
Short deadline (October 4th), so take a pic and win a better pair of headphones. Drew hacked my +Shure SE846s with Silver Dragon audio cables and WOW what a difference.
Love Music? Audio Gear? Friends at Moon Audio (http://www.Moon-Audio.com) are looking for people who love music and the amazing emerging technology changing the way we hear to write reviews to share their love. Reviewers become "Official Moon Audio Ambassador / Reviewers" and get to audition gear I can't afford (lol).
Moon's Reviewer Contest illustrates a favorite strategy associated with the "New Ecommerce" - ASK. The new ecommerce is about building sustainable online communities in a social / mobile / connected time. Building sustainable community means listen more than you talk and ASKING for help.
Moon is lucky. Music and technology lovers love to share. Moon is not alone. No matter what industry you are in there are Ambassadors wiling to help...if you ask. Why? Marketing guru Faith Popcorn said it best:
"People don't BUY brands, they JOIN them".
If you love music and the cool gear we use to make it sound amazing you need to "audition" to become a Moon Audio's Reviewer. Here is where you can find out more and enter the contest: http://www.moon-audio.com/ambassador-review-contest
Deadline is March 15th, but I wouldn't wait until the last minute rush. If my friends at Moon Audio love your review you might be audition equipment tomorrow :). Marty
The web + mobile + social means we are all about to be game developers. Those environments are so GAME FRIENDLY and game content so engaging in or out of the organization becoming game developers is in all our futures.
All You Need Is Fun: How To Gamify Your Business [Infographic] image Top5Gamification. Be sure to get your customers in the game too. Reports show that only 31% of consumers are using online communities to engage ...
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Would that it were so. I LIKE the idea of this infographic - that gamification is easy. I haven't found that to be the case, but like the idea. Our websites and content marketing must become more game-like to create the communities and engagement needed to develop ROI.
In my experience gamifying takes commitment, time and resources. You fail much more than you succeed at first, so patience is also needed. That said the social / mobile web is a "gamers" paradise.
Meaning the more your content creates social reinforcement, fun and joy the better. One of your 2015 goals should be either to gamify outright or find little ways to make interacting with your site / company / brand more game-like. That I agree with :). M
Mobile Taking Over World No we are not in the middle of a zombie attack. We are in the middle of smart phones and mobile taking over the world. Proof enough is a sector SLOW to attract investment capital is now a darling.
I just received an iPhone 6 and love it. It is easier for fat fingers to type on, the screen is liquid gold and the sound is full of soul, sorrow and truth. The KEY is to NOT think of the phone as a phone.
The smart phone is a game console. The second key is to realize finding ways to make your content, website and marketing relevant to a gamified world where everyone has a game console and are just waiting to be told (eager to be told) what and how to do something with it.
The camera in our phones is a good example. At first NO ONE CARED. Now we take pictures of our food before we eat and "selfies" have their own TV show. When the tech is there a combination of startup entrepreneurs and intrepid early adopters blaze trails into the forest of our future.
Two suggestions are clear. If your digital marketing isn't "mobile first" you are nuts and if your machete isn't sharp good luck with that :). M
McDonalds, Red Bull & Like Me Scores McDonalds is pushing their Monopoly Game with big brands like Lebron, Patrick Murphy (hockey star) and others. This got me thinking about Red Bull and "like me" scores.
Advertisers evaluate ads on awareness. In a time where everyone is connected to everyone else Red Bull shows the power of "like me" brands. Red Bull brands cultural icons and athletes across a broad spectrum.
Red Bull favors the slightly known star. The missing dimension in ad evaluation is a "Like Me" score. If we ask viewers and consumers of McDonalds vs. Red Bull content is "Like Me" with a 10 point scale (10 = just like me, 1 = not like me at all) I would bet on lower "like me" scores as we move up the brand ladder. More powerful the brand the lower the "like me" scores with many personas (like our Internet marketing tribe).
Lebron occupies rare air, so his "like me" score is likely to be lower than a relevant but only slightly known stars favored by Red Bull. Red Bull gets another benefit by featuring slightly known stars - they get to help shape and amplify the story. They get to play a major role in how the "slightly known" brand becomes known.
My prediction would be the lower the "like me" scores the less likely a consuming audience, especially an online audience, would be to take an action. Higher the "like me" scores the more likely an action. SO...
McDonalds = my tribe = marginal awareness & lower Like Me scores McDonalds + Monopoly + LeBron = my tribe = much lower scores (thus hurting the tiny margin that may have been interested).
Mcdonalds + Monopoly + Mark Traphagen (or Phil Buckley) = my tribe = VERY interested due to high Like Me scores and support and play is 100x more likley.
Smart move, in a digital age, is to align your brand with an army of "like me" brands.
By shaping the stories of "slightly known" stars, and McDonalds includes a few of these with Lebron, Red Bull's TELLING also shortens distance to "like me" identification" (is my theory). By telling s story Red Bull becomes the prophet / storyteller.
Red Bull's focus is outward (seemingly), but they are painting with the collaboration brush AND they are sharing their valuable amplification power to help lesser known brands. This creates a sense of Red Bull's altruism thus increasing "like me" identification chances (again my theory).
Red Bull creates a strong 3 Legged Stool:
* Brand benevolence helps "slightly famous". * Distance between Red Bull and content consumers SHORTENED by branding within the tribe (albeit the top % of the tribe in a particular skill) so LIKE ME identification more likely. * Collaboration feeds aspiration and positions brand as helper / filter / guide / prophet shortening distance and making LIKE ME identification more likely.
Crowdfunding, Contests and Games Crowdfunding is a lot like an online contest. There is a deadline and you need an army of supporters to get from here to there. You need an army to help achieve your goal. In crowdfunding and contests there must be some tangible reward.
If people don't feel special and like they are part of your community they don't contribute. Crowdfunders use updates. Contests use feedback loops. The key is to create an event with a defined timeline. We START here and end HERE.
As your timeline progress updates feed momentum. What does music and The Clash have to do with contests, crowdfunding and Internet marketing? As it turns out, quite a bit as we shared in this Haiku Deck:
You've worked hard to promote your site, and you've assembled some really useful and important information, but your users are leaving after just a few minutes. The content is simply too complicated, long and too much work to get through.
6 Gamification Ideas * Quizzes.
* Board Games.
* Choose Your Own Adventure.
* Puzzles.
* TV Game Shows.
* Animated Games.
Marty Note Love this gamification post because it is a "ditch digging" post. Most gamification posts are steeped in theory. Not this post. This post breaks down the A B C of how to use gamification to create online engagement. Use any two of these ideas and your site wins hearts, minds, loyalty and traffic. Traffic is another form of money, so win some, lose some, play some :).M
Great graphics don't necessarily make a beautiful mobile game. Check out these 10 games that focus on more than reality.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Breaking my rule about big sites again and doing so on design again. Mobile games are BLOWING UP thanks to the ubiquitous smartphone that rarely wanders more than 10 feet from our every waking moment. Our Curagami co-founder Phil Buckley blames smartphones for the death of free time.
An easy to observe phenomenon. Look at any queue these days and count the number of people head down and staring at their phone. They are probably staring at one of these 10 most beautiful games via Mashable.
Successful content marketing engages over time. Engagement needs online community and a role shift from content creators to community curators and GAME creators.
How can you Gamify YOUR Content Marketing? * Ask questions. * Curate response. * Create "winnable" competitions. * Feature, Feature, Feature.
* Curator & Creator = YOUR ROLES.
Learn to think like a video game creator. Content marketing too is a collaborative world WE (you + customers) create.
Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy's (FIEA) head of marketing, Todd Deery discusses how Scrum Hero gamifies the Agile software development process.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Cool idea we should apply to gamifying Agile Marketing too.
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The game's the thing. We know of no way to keep customers loyal and advocating your content, products, and services without games and gamification.