Every SMM-specialist knows that gaining subscribers in a VKontakte group is only the beginning of a long journey.
What good is a community of 10,000 or more members if there are 2-3 likes under the posts and there is a regular noticeable pullback of the audience? These are symptoms of the “disease” called “low follower engagement”!
Something needs to be done urgently. How do others deal with this issue, you may ask?
The standard set of measures:
- improving the quality of content;
- organization of engaging contests, events, promotions;
- Effective traffic generation (targeted advertising, subscriber moderation).
But everyone does this, and it’s important for us not only to increase engagement, but also to build against the competition. Consequently, we need a fresh solution. And there is one.
Gamification – the introduction of game elements in training, business, marketing and other areas. Yes, adults are grown-up children. We like to play games, especially if we are properly motivated to take part.
In this article we will tell you how to implement gamification in your VKontakte group. You will find 5 examples of games in communities and a description of the stages of organizing / conducting such events.
What is gamification
Gamification, as a tool in the promotion of communities, is used precisely to involve users. However, it is possible to design a game in such a way that it will attract new subscribers and raise sales.
It is safe to say that today the game – a trend in SMM. But their popularity is only gaining momentum. Therefore, it is important to get ahead of the competition and use this technique right now.
In general terms: subscribers are offered certain rules of the game for a reward.
And what’s the difference from a contest/challenge? The game has a unique story – the circumstances offered to subscribers are different from reality. It’s one thing to post a photo with a hashtag (it’s a contest, a task), and another to feel like a character in “The Tale of the Golden Fish” or play “Cities” (this is a game).
The game can be implemented as an internal function of VKontakte and third-party services, specially designed applications for the event or configured bots.
Examples of games for VKontakte community subscribers
Consider 5 examples of successful gamification of the VKontakte community.
Морской бой
Game for kids. Sea battle. Template page with forms and elements for battleship.
Sea Battle is a game familiar from childhood. Marketing agency PDBA in their community “SmartCover”, dedicated just to gamification, decided to entertain subscribers for February 23.
The aim of the game: to increase engagement, to attract a new audience.
Implementation: VKontakte interface – comments; bot commenter.
Conditions:
- Subscriber writes in the group posts “yasaper” to take part in the game.
In the comments under the post with the game participant writes a letter and cell number (for example, a1).
The bot reports the result in a reply comment.
“Strikes” are allowed once an hour (2 attempts). If the participant reposts the game to his page, he can go every 20 minutes (profile must be open).
Those who manage to defuse the “mine” get prizes.
Results: the post in which the game took place gathered more than 3 thousand views (50% more than usual) and became the absolute leader in the number of comments (100+ comments compared to the usual 5-15).
Case study
NextMedia Education”, an online school for SMM specialists and strategists, offered its subscribers to parse SMM cases in a game form. This event differed from the usual quiz in that the clients for SMM services in the cases were Hogwarts School of Wizardry, The Beatles, Albert Einstein.
The goal of the game: to raise engagement, sales.
Implementation: VKontakte interface – surveys, comments; Google table with open access.
Conditions:
- Subscribers take tests in the form of surveys and score points for answers: 1 point for a correct answer, 2 points for an extended correct answer. Multiple comments do not add up.
Points are summed up in an open-access Google table.
The winner (3 participants with the most points) gets prizes.
Results: 3x increase in post coverage (on average, posts with the game gained 3,000 instead of 1,000). Posts with the game willingly commented. On average, 12 comments per post, versus the usual 4.
Appliance Game
Appliance manufacturer Midea launched an interactive game for subscribers of its VKontakte community in spring 2019 on a wave of hype about the start of the final season of the series “Game of Thrones.”
The goal of the game: to increase engagement and sales.
Implementation: VKontakte interface – likes, comments; comment script; dynamic group cover; specially designed application to track results.
Conditions:
- Subscribers must choose a House to which they pledge allegiance by writing its motto in the comments to the post with the game.
The script notifies the participant of a successful oath of allegiance in a reply comment.
The battle against the other houses begins. Participants must like and comment on the group posts as much as possible. Points are awarded for all actions.
You can follow the general success of the battle on a dynamic cover and the rating of the participants in a special app.According to the largest number of points the winning houses and participants are determined, who receive prizes.
Results: the post has amassed over 1 million views (previously an average of 7,000 views) and has also become 4 times more commented on (800+ comments vs. 200 regular comments).
Horror Quest
An online education project to prepare for the USE played on teenagers’ feelings of fear before taking the exam and offered a chain of puzzles, logic problems and other challenges in exchange for prizes.
The aim of the game: to increase engagement and sales.
Implementation: VKontakte interface – personal messages; chatbot.
Conditions:
- The subscriber writes to the chatbot that he wants to participate in the game.
- The chatbot introduces the participant to the game, talks about on-screen keyboard controls, offers to choose a character and start.
- The participant is immersed in a story-driven horror atmosphere.
- Tasks related to the subject of the USE are offered.
- The final quest task concludes with a message of victory. Afterwards, the winner is contacted by the administration of the group and presents the prize.
Results: high involvement in the game itself was noted: 75% of those who signed up for a chat-bot with the game passed the quest to the end. Online School noted an increase in sales of training webinars by 2 times.
Roulette prizes
No one expected that “Roulette” in the community of the small Chelyabinsk iPhone repair center “HotFix” would add 9500+ comments to the post with the game in just 3 days. After all, the event was advertised to a small audience within a radius of 8 km from the office.
The aim of the game: to increase engagement, to attract a new audience.
Implementation: VKontakte interface – comments; bot commenter.
Conditions:
- Subscriber “spins roulette” – leaves a comment under the post “hotfix”.
- Bot sends in response random location of 3 slots. If the slots match – the bot reports that the participant gets a prize.
- Each participant has 3 attempts, which are updated every 10 hours.
- Subscribing to the community gives 2 additional attempts.
- Reposting a contest entry gives 3 more attempts, which are renewed every 5 hours as long as the repost is on the participant’s wall.
- Bot gives each participant a promo code to invite friends and gives 2 extra attempts for each invitation.
Results: just three days: 9500 + comments to the post with the game, in the group joined 290 people. At the same time, almost every member of the community spun roulette: 1506 players for 1800 subscribers.
Implementing gamification in VK
Suppose we are implementing a game for engaging subscribers in a VKontakte group. What needs to be done?
Step 1:
Adapt the game for the VKontakte group
Choose a genre and story based on your target audience’s lifestyle, mindset, and pain.
Think through the mechanics of the game so that it was not difficult for the participants, but also does not seem too easy.
Do not forget to fill the game with something useful, educational for subscribers.
The organizers of the horror quest seriously approached the issue of adaptation. For the audience of graduates before the Unified State Exam is relevant sense of fear (to fail the exam – not to arrange the future life). Plus, the horror genre is very popular with this age group. For the same reason we chose a mechanic “quest” – a popular format of games among young people. The scenario of the quest is adapted to the theme of the USE, contains cognitive tasks.
Step 2:
Preparing the design
Do not forget about the visual component of the content. Illustrate the event in accordance with the genre and storyline. You won’t be able to engage your audience without attracting attention. And in this the best assistant is a successful design.
For example, a brand of bakery products and pastries “Aladushkin | Darnitsa” held a fabulous quest for Easter. A unified themed design of posts, dynamic cover art, and images in chatbot messages was thought out.
Step 3:
Description of game mechanics for subscribers
Prepare a description of the rules and conditions (can be in the form of a guide/block diagram/algorithm). Format it in the way the audience is more accustomed to. Suppose there is a noticeable activity in the group in the “Discussions”. Place the guide there and provide a link to it in your post with the game.
That’s exactly what the creators of Prize Roulette did.
Step 4:
Prizes
Consider the prize pool. It’s better if there are lots of prizes. Then winning will seem more likely to participants.
It’s worth noting the prizes of the Instrument Game. The organizers made subscribers interested in the fact that not only the leaders, but each of the participants has a chance to get a gift:
- Home winner: a Midea mini oven for the most active participant, second place – a coffee maker, third place – a kettle. Two random players will receive a 30% discount on the purchase of Midea appliances.
- House in 2nd place: induction hob for the most active player, 15% discount for one random participant.
- Homes that will take 3rd and 4th place: benders for the most active participant and a 15% discount for one random player from each home.
Step 5:
Hosting and tracking the game
Keep track of the game. This is useful for the subsequent evaluation phase, positive feedback from participants at the end, and for prompt response in case of force majeure.
Most likely risks:
- Participants who try to cheat and circumvent the rules. Solution: it is necessary to identify through moderation and take action (warning, ban).
- Participants who violate the rules of the game due to a misunderstanding of the conditions. Solution: identify by miscommunication comments, advise, make clarifying changes to the rules guide.
- VKontakte technical failures. For example, because of a sharp increase in activity, the community may be blocked. Solution: react to the situation, if possible warn and reassure subscribers, contact VKontakte support.
The Rainbow Smile store community had to deal with the VKontakte glitch in the group game. They warned the subscribers about it in time, which saved themselves from negative comments on the incident.
Step 6:
Evaluate the outcome
Recall the goal of implementing gamification. In our case, to increase audience engagement. Answer the questions:
Was the goal accomplished? You can find out the audience engagement by calculating the ratio of the total number of subscribers to the likes/comments/re-posts of the posts.
How did the rest of the community change after the game? Assess what happened to the number of subscribers in general, whether audience loyalty has changed, and whether sales have changed.
In particular, the result of “Prize Roulette” is clearly visible in the statistics of community subscribers. For 3 days from September 20 to 22, 2018, 290 people joined the group. Receiving nearly 10,000 comments under the game’s post significantly increased reach and engagement.
Conclusion
Gamification is something that should definitely be tried for promotion. Undoubtedly, hosting a story game is not an easy event to organize and implement, but the result is worth it. The reach, product sales increase, and the audience of the VKontakte group expands.