Happy Friday! For many of us (in the states anyway) today marks the beginning of Labor Day weekend with Monday off to relax just a little bit more than normal. Before heading out to your Labor Day plans, make sure you are caught up on gamification, customer loyalty and social media news. We made it easy by compiling our favorite articles of the week!
How Gamification Can Help Attract New Customers Entrepreneur 8/30/2012 There is a common misconception about gamification that leads people to believe that a gamified loyalty program is the same as the rewards program at your local coffee shop. Gabe Zichermann of gamification.co explains the difference and how gamification can help build a new customer base, instead of just rewarding existing customers.
A Sum of Parts: The Point of Points and The Gamification of Videogames Gameranx 8/28/2012 Points have always been a part of games, but this article argues that the emphasis in their meaning and role has changed over time as video game development has advanced. “Instead of standing in for some other, intrinsic, emotional goal, the numbers themselves became the goal.” This change directly influences the way we think about gamification and motivation. While we might not agree with everything here, this is a really interesting theory that is worth a quick read.
Boost Your Blog Audience’s Engagement With Gamification Independent Fashion Bloggers 8/23/2012 We wanted to highlight this article as an example of why gamification fails. Adding a quiz to your blog is not gamification, nor is integrating social media. Gamification requires many of these elements (social, rewards, polls/quiz interactions) working together to create an interactive experience. For bloggers looking for gamification, they should check out BigDoor’s free gamified rewards program.
In Defense of Social Shopping: Driving Sales and Loyalty Forbes 8/28/2012 Despite retail seeming like an obvious place to embrace social media and gamification, we have yet to see a really cool implementation. This is a great look at the trend, challenges and suggestions for brands looking to turn shopping into a much more interactive and social experience.
Social media poised to drive customer loyalty, Logic Group Survey reveals Retail Times 8/29/2012 Gamification companies, including BigDoor have been talking about the importance of social media in building customer loyalty for a while, but the trend finally seems to be picking up steam. The Logic Group took a survey of British buying habits and brand loyalties and the results are really interesting. Among other findings the survey found that banks, supermarkets and mobile phone networks are the brands that consumers feel most loyal towards.
SA’s bank clients are becoming less loyal Money Web 8/28/2012 We are always talking about ways to increase loyalty with gamification, but we don’t often talk about industries that seem to be suffering from a loyalty drought. This study takes a look at customer loyalty among banks in South Africa, including why consumers are becoming less loyal and what banks need to do to bring them back. There is a lot to learn about customer loyalty here and it’s a great case study for what to do and not do.