As a gamer geek who has spent hundreds of dollars on games for my iPad and iPhone, I was very excited to attend the Social Gaming and Gambling Summit as a speaker.

Even though half of Apple’s US App Store revenue went to just 25 developers in 2012, I saw a lot of excitement from the boutique game developers at the conference. Almost all of those 25 developers were game companies like Rovio or Electronic Arts. You don’t have to be in the top downloads section to still make a fair amount of money from game apps. Most of the sessions that I attended were focused on making more money from your game.

During our session, Tony Ventrice of Badgeville, and I, spoke about how game designers and game studios can move into the Enterprise gamification space. We’re each finding a lot of interest from large organizations in implementing game elements in their business and there’s a lot for all parties to learn.

From points and badges on the website to deeper engagement and better training for call center reps or students, gamification is a green field right now and game designers have an opportunity in front of them similar to the one that early social media enthusiasts had a few years ago. Here are some of my observations from the event.

Big Data in Game Monetization

One of my favorite sessions was by Hugh Reynolds, CEO of Swrve, who talked about data analysis and creating personalization experiences inside of games. My favorite recommendations were all centered around putting non-paying users into segments based on their in-game activity.

I can imagine all kinds of segments, including: how long do they play, where did they download the game from, or how often do they share activity.

By putting your users into segments, you can start to see how specific groups behave in response to advertising. Hugh, and later Damon Marshall from Supersonic Ads, showed some great examples of monetizing by testing different ads to different segments to see how they respond to the ad and testing little tweaks to the ad to optimize views and click-throughs. Damon was able to demonstrate that video ads in social games have been especially effective.

Adding Social Data to the Mix

As Hugh was talking, I couldn’t help but wonder how many game developers are really taking full advantage of social login to pull in user demographics and interest graphs. Can you can imagine some of the same segmentation above, coupled with knowing which games your players are already fans of, or who their friends are from other social networks?

By using social login with Facebook or Twitter, you can see whether your users already Like any of your game pages or follow any of your games on Twitter. From there, it’s simple to build segmented campaigns to visit specific sponsors, to invite them to download similar titles, invite them to Like and follow your other games, or send them personalized emails.

By knowing who your users’ friends are, you can build invitation experiences. Allowing gamers to invite their friends to play a game can be far more effective than simply hoping someone discovers your game in the app store or see one of your ads.

Cross Platform and Cross Identity Game Play

Billy Pidgeon, an analyst at Inside Network, nailed it when he pointed out that many social and gambling game developers still don’t understand the power of social game mechanics themselves.

There are opportunities for game developers to integrate cross-platform and cross-game identity solutions, so that players carry their points and achievements from tablet to console, from game to game. This is something that a few organizations are doing well.

Microsoft, for example, has seen successful adoption of their Xbox Live platform where people can interact with friends no matter what game they are playing (Janrain has been partnering with Badgeville on some initiatives like this over the past year, and I’ve had the privilege of working on them – exciting times).

In the same way, many game studios could create their own network effect by creating a studio ID. Rewarding players for registering multiple games, inviting their friends, and then displaying these rewards on a leaderboard for all to see is a great first step toward building a central brand identity and strengthening customer loyalty.

Are you a game developer or did you attend the Social Gaming and Gambling Summit? Let us know what you think about the role big data and identity play in gamification in the comments below.

Image courtesy chrisjta.ylor.ca.

If you have the opportunity to catch one of the Badgville Engage City Tour events coming to Chicago, New York or London this year, take the time to do so – you won’t regret it. Marissa Duggan from Badgeville and her team put on a first class event that bring industry leaders together under one roof to share ideas and vision around audience engagement. I had the privilege of participating in Badgeville’s Engage 2012 City Tour in Seattle last week and want to share some of the key takeaways with you.

Gamification isn’t a trend – it’s a movement.

Gartner predicts that by 2014, more than 70% of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application.  So if you have any preconceived (read: negative or dismissive) ideas on the applicability of game mechanics for business purposes, I’d urge you to take a second look.  The easiest way to think about this space is that’s its about how one can apply game mechanics to non-game environments to motivate people and change behavior.

In fact, Autodesk presented a case study that included how they drove a significant increase in trial software downloads due to viral marketing that was supported through Badgeville’s game mechanics solution.

Creating a “social media strategy” does not equal a fully socially engaged enterprise.

Sean O’Driscoll, co-founder and CEO of Ant’s Eye View took the audience through the Social Engagement Journey and described the role gamification plays throughout each stage.  The net of his talk boils down to this:  The end result and value of social to business is a customer base that trusts the organization, recommends it to others, and plays an important part in future direction through online communications.  But you can’t get there if you are simply paying lip service to your commitment to social.

One of the things I particularly liked was his discussion on ROI.  Of course we all want to be able to accurately forecast how our investments will pay off down the road.  But be wary of executives who hide behind ROI as a way to defer making a tough investment decision.  (He challenged the audience to respond to a request for ROI with their own: “What’s the ROI on the phone system we put in place to take calls from customers; what’s the ROI of PR?”)  The best line of the evening in my opinion came from Sean, “Remember, there is no R, without an I.”  1% of your budget is not an investment in social.

Engagement is enhanced when people are rewarded for their actions.

Jim Petty, from Bazaarvoice, spoke about the amplification that occurs when you combine social technologies like theirs, which enables clients to create and harness insights from communities in which users can engage in conversations through activities such as ratings and reviews and game mechanics.  This view was supported by An Le, of Yammer, who spoke of the value in transparency and recognition within an organization.

Identity is crucial to maximizing the value of engagement.

As professionals with responsibility for online activities, we all share common goals:

1. Increase traffic to our website
2. Convert those anonymous visitors into known, recognized users
3. Learn as much as possible about these users, in order to
4. Deliver engaging, relevant, personalized and meaningful user experiences
5. To ultimately drive corporate objectives (more purchases, time on site, etc.)

The reason we at Janrain are so pleased to be partners with companies like Badgeville and other social engagement technology companies is that we complement one another in this scenario.

All in all, a great event.  And if you still doubt that game mechanics can effectively be applied to just about anything, check out the picture – attendees could earn badges for sampling the custom cocktails!

Last month we proudly announced a new partnership with a leader in providing loyalty and rewards programs to the retail industry, 500friends. What this means is that retailers can make it easier for their shoppers and customers to engage with them while building loyalty, increasing registration conversion and decreasing cart abandonment. All critical goals that lead to increased online sales, right?

To celebrate our partnership, we are participating in 500friends’ The Win/Win Challenge where they will reward $25,000 or 1,000,000 airline miles to the online retailer that leverages their LoyaltyPlus product to create the best customer experience.

Ready to enter? Here’s what to do:

1. Learn about 500friends’ LoyaltyPlus and the benefits you can expect when you combine loyalty marketing strategies with social features

2. Check out the official rules for The Win/Win Challenge

3. Sign up to win!

Want to earn extra points towards a win? Integrate Janrain social login, which they make easy to do, and earn bonus points! Your customers will be happy you did since social login is preferred by 77% of consumers and is fives time faster than traditional registration.

Now that’s a win-win!

You don’t earn airline miles until you’ve completed your trip, or rewards points until you’ve used your credit card for valid purchases, right? Traditional loyalty and rewards programs don’t engage with the customer until after they transact with the business or brand.

Today,  there are multiple ways to engage with brand loyalists before they transact with the brand — they may have shared products they like with their social graph signaling some level of purchase intent, posed a question or comment, or visited a site to read reviews. All of these actions can be leveraged to engage the user with the brand and to reward them. This is something a traditional loyalty program could not have done.

With today’s game solutions, you define the user behaviors you desire and reward them with points, badges or trophies, ultimately moving your fans up the engagement ladder.

In my previous post, we discussed a number of ways that website owners can drive additional engagement on your site. Engagement continues to be an important metric because it is a leading indicator for a number of harder and more important bottom line goals; increasing engagement is the first step to improving time on site, conversion rate, and repeat visitors.There are a number of additional ways that community managers and marketers can drive additional engagement and activity. So much so, that we should discuss some additional ideas for creating an engaged community. The tools and platforms that empower these interactions are varied, but their goal is the same: to make your site stickier and more interesting for your users.

Ratings and Reviews

Consumers trust each othermore than your team’s marketing speak. So, give users the chance to have their voice heard. Review platforms allow specific products to be discussed by users who may be in the market, or have used the product before.One concern with ratings is that they are frequently abused with paid or incentivized reviews coming from all sides – competitors, marketers, and affiliates. In order to maintain the quality of your reviews assets, you should require a real identity to be linked to the user’s account. Even better: have users use their real names, and put a face and reputation to a critical review.Sears works to build community engagement on it’s e-commerce site through offering ratings and reviews on all products.

Loyalty and Rewards

You can effectively drive user behavior through rewards and points systems by incentivizing behavior you want to see more of from users. The concept is simple, but powerful. By creating an immediate feedback loop, you reinforce positive actions for the user in a way that triggers our natural reward response mechanism.

Courtesy of Whole Foods
While everyone is talking about adding game mechanics to their website or apps, the concept isn’t really a new marketing tactic. Remember the coffee shop’s “Buy 10 Coffees and Your 11th is On Us” punch cards? Retailers have been using loyalty programs for decades in similar ways to reward their best customers’ actions (I practically have an entire music CD collection free thanks to JCPenney’s early 90’s Spend $15, Get a CD fragrance program). So what’s new?

This new era of game mechanics plays to a higher level of human needs that stretches beyond status and rewards to include achievement, competitiveness and even self-expression. The old grocery store loyalty programs worked because it was the only way to get the best price. Airline loyalty programs were not only a way to earn free trips and accumulate perks, but they played to our egos by becoming a status symbol of the wealthy, or road warrior class.

With both of these examples, the reward was something kept to ourselves or in the case of the airline, was visible to strangers at the airport as we jump into the shorter security line or board the plane earlier than the rest. The social tools available to tell our friends on the social networks that we’ve unlocked the Super Cool badge, or earned the Great Almighty mayorship are a very new twist on traditional loyalty and rewards programs. With one click, we can broadcast our victory to those we want to influence or consider our community.

The Game Changer

That is what’s new for the user. But this is a game changer for brands as well as they are suddenly able to identify and reward true brand advocates within the context of on-site behaviors in real-time. Advocates move along an engagement ladder that rewards loyalty and deepens the brand relationship through exclusive offers or content, sneak previews or other invitations. That’s half the story. The other half is the  simultaneously sharing of this with their friends and the qualified referral traffic this brings to the site. This is a powerful new way to take advantage of word of mouth marketing where rule #1 is provide something people will want to talk about.

Social media and game mechanics go hand-in-hand for brands looking to increase engagement and participation on their website while creating an entertaining and enjoyable experience. Learn more about Janrain’s new Loyalty, Rewards and Game Mechanics Solution and you can be on your way to building a stronger brand advocate community faster than you can earn the I’ve Won Dinner with the President badge.

The Janrain Loyalty, Rewards and Game Mechanics solution (powered by Badgeville) allows brands to track and reward specific activities, including:

• Signing in and registering on site
• Visits, page views and specific pages read
• Arriving at certain pages (e.g. RSS subscription thank you page)
• Commenting
• Participating in a survey
• Sharing articles to social networks including Facebook and Twitter

Brands will now have access to a one-stop implementation of the best-in-class social login and social rewards platforms.

Janrain Loyalty, Rewards & Game Mechanics is sold as a user engagement extension to Janrain Engage (Pro and Enterprise levels).

Click here or contact us to learn more about this new solution.

To fuel the conversation, we invite you to join us on Tuesday, April 19 at 10:00 AM PDT for a one hour webinar with Jeremiah Owyang, Partner at Altimeter Group.  Jeremiah Owyang will present his latest research on the ‘Evolution of the Social Corporate Website’.  Learn how to make your brand site relevant and social with best practice examples and case studies.  We are excited to be hosting this webinar with our partner Badgeville.

Register for the webinar here.  We look forward to seeing you!