Gamification: Turning Rewards and Recognition into Brand Engagement

This video is a recorded breakout session from Khoros Engage, held September 9 - 11, 2019 in Austin, Texas.

Speakers:

• Jenny Weigle, Senior Community Strategist at Khoros
• Dani Weinstein, Head of Global Community at Domo
• Julien Durand Burgoyne, Sr. Manager Social Media at Videotron
• Chris Hemedinger, Head of Online Communities at SAS

What is gamification? Gamification isn’t just giving someone a badge for commenting on 10 posts. Gamification is the system of building passionate and productive community users by recognizing them in the ways that are meaningful to them. Of course, it is important to reward people for showing up, but when done well, gamification is about creating superusers — people who are more than the sum of their badges and are in fact stakeholders in the community and want it to thrive.

Why does gamification matter? Brands who can successfully motivate users to engage more and become superusers will have more brand advocates and even crowdsourced customer support. Today’s consumers want to connect with others and value peer engagement more than ever before. Expert product users can share their expertise in a community and gamification gives them the recognition for doing so. This doesn’t just contribute to a more vibrant community, it contributes directly to your bottom line in the form of reduced support needs. Superusers are passionate and can even find and solve issues in the community before community managers in many cases. They don’t do it for the badge or swag at the end of the day (although these are great incentives). They do it to contribute and be recognized in a place where they feel at home.

The fundamentals of good gamification come down to discovering, recognizing, and rewarding your superusers in a way that’s meaningful to them. Watch the video now to learn how these companies are maximizing their superuser programs to pay dividends for their brands — and how yours can, too.