A digital marketing specialist is constantly looking for new ways and formulas to increase engagement with their target audience. Among many, gamification was born naturally: if users go on social media for entertainment and fun, what’s wrong with offering our content in a game format that answers the user’s needs?
We’ve discussed gamification previously, its meaning, and how it has become an essential strategy in digital marketing. It has entered our consumption routines with such force that it has turned out to be a trend widely used to attain customer loyalty, increase sales, or position the brand in the market. How? Simple: it’s about using playful mechanisms in contexts where gameplay is not common or expected.
Social media is heavily impacted by this trend, of course, especially Instagram. It’s very likely that you’ve participated on a giveaway by tagging your best friends, perhaps answered an influencer’s quiz or you’ve even played “finish this puzzle” to reveal a product’s final look. All of these gamification actions seek active participation from the user, they improve our image and bring positive attention to our brand.
Sell your products on Instagram through games
Gamification on Instagram is evolving daily before our eyes. The potential of Instagram stories and the tools that the application has developed to take advantage of them have taken gamification strategies to another level. It’s a common practice amongst influencers or famous personalities; they use their stories as means to ask questions to their followers and encourage their participation.
However, the platform is taking us even further by including possibilities for personalized filters, playing bingo or riddles. Although we may not be aware of it, all these actions put at the service of a brand, allow us to monetize Instagram in ways that were not possible just a couple of years ago. So how do we sell more through Instagram? And, above all, how do we make it sustainable?
How to increase engagement on Instagram: here are some examples of effective gamification
Increasing sales on Instagram or through Instagram is a goal that requires work. An effective strategy is one that is able to take advantage of all the tools that the app develops. A clear example is the potential of stories, a fleeting format, with way more options to create an authentic voice and have a direct relationship with your audience than your average posts on your feed. Its potential extends to the possibility of using storytelling as a creative strategy, since it allows the development of a voice, an editorial line and a tone to communicate with the audience.
Gamification usually appears as an answer to the question of how to increase engagement on Instagram, while building a loyal community and translate it into sales. Why? Because attractive content attracts customers. Certainly, the actions that make up the final strategy will also depend on the type of account to manage (personal, professional, corporate, cultural, influencer), our objectives and resources.
Here are some examples of how to implement gamification techniques, within a marketing strategy for Instagram.
Contests, giveaways, prizes and surprises!
This is probably the most used and repeated trend on Instagram, as it amuses, entertains, and motivates followers to take part in it. Contests allow you to increase your audience, reward their loyalty, promote your work, or ally with commercial partners to promote a product or service.
Though Instagram is not a social network designed for giveaways, its algorithm does allow several activities that boost engagement. Our personal recommendation from Easypromos is the one that encourages leaving a comment or tagging friends. The reason is simple: it increases visibility and engagement, as Instagram ranks better those posts with higher interactions.
To select a winner, you may use our Instagram giveaway tool, which allows you to filter the participants’ list, control those who meet the requirements, and successfully end the giveaway.
Challenges
Challenges are one of the most successful gamification strategies, both for commercial and altruistic purposes. Its implementation is simple: propose an activity with a certain degree of difficulty and invite your followers to upload their own publication using a previously defined hashtag. Some of the most famous challenges have involved choreography or dancing, but the activities can be extremely diverse, it all depends on the brand being promoted.
Riddles
Starting a riddle game via Instagram can harvest very good results, especially if they entitle some kind of reward (e.g. for the first 10 people who answer correctly). In order to carry out this strategy, the easiest way is to upload a post posing a riddle and encourage users to leave the correct answer in the comments. Using the comment section of the post allows you to improve visibility and engagement. Don’t forget to unveil the correct answer and publicly announce the winners.
An external game
Another interesting opportunity to apply gamification for the benefit of a brand is to create a game on an external platform and broadcast it through a URL. This will expand the possibilities of our gamification strategy and aims to convert followers into participants.
Whether it’s building your brand or just throwing a little sparkle on the latest selfie, games on Instagram are customizable and fun; seizing every resource the app has to offer in order to obtain commercial benefits will make a difference. Remember: if you’re having a good time, chances are your followers are having fun as well!
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