Gamification to Boost Engagement in Your Online Community: Everything You Need to Know

Gamification: How to Motivate and Engage Members of an Online Community

In a Brand Community, having a large number of users is only valuable if they are truly engaged in the project.

To be clear, a community with thousands of members, most of whom post a comment only once in a while, isn’t necessarily more useful than one with fewer members who are highly active and involved.

That’s why you shouldn’t just focus on attracting new users; one of your main priorities should be to increase engagement among existing members and encourage them to take action by creating content, interacting with each other, posting comments, and so on.

But how do you motivate them to do all this? The answer is gamification.

In this article, we’ll explain what it is and offer you the solution you need to apply it to your project.

Also read: Improve Your Online Community: Use User Segmentation to Create Personalized and Engaging Experiences

Gamification: The Art of Motivating Through Play

Gamification involves using game elements and techniques in non-game contexts to stimulate motivation, engagement, and participation among users.

But why does it work so well?

The answer lies in human psychology.

Games activate the reward circuit in our brains, releasing dopamine—the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure. Every time we reach a goal, overcome a challenge, or receive positive feedback, we experience a feeling of satisfaction that drives us to keep playing.

This is the principle behind why people are so attracted to video games—sometimes to the point of spending hours in front of a screen. Gamification leverages this mechanism to encourage desired behaviors and increase user engagement.

Think about how the software and apps we use daily apply gamification to keep us engaged, motivated, and excited, even though their context isn’t strictly playful. This phenomenon is evident in many areas; a common example is step challenges integrated into wellness apps that motivate users to regularly commit to physical activity.

But the most interesting aspect we want to focus on here is the possibility of applying gamification within Communities. As you’ll see, this engagement strategy is a powerful tool to encourage users to actively participate in the life of the Community itself.

The Role of Gamification in Community Member Participation

Community members’ motivation to participate can be intrinsic, extrinsic, or often a mix of both.

Intrinsic motivation comes from personal interest or enjoyment in performing actions without needing external pressure or rewards. For example, a member with intrinsic motivation participates because they enjoy contributing to discussions and helping others on specific topics.

This dynamic relates to the fundamental characteristic of Communities: being a meeting place for individuals sharing a common trait (a profession, passion, etc.). Consequently, by their very nature, Community members are inclined to invest time and effort in something they care about.

However, this factor alone may not be enough to optimally engage users. That’s where extrinsic motivations come in—driven by external factors like rewards, prizes, or recognition.

When Community members are motivated by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors, they are much more likely to show higher levels of commitment and participation. Gamification is an excellent extrinsic strategy to encourage users to act when intrinsic motivation isn’t sufficient.

SelfCommunity: The Solution to Implement Gamification in Your Project

After explaining the benefits of gamification—especially for boosting engagement in your brand Community—we’d now like to briefly introduce you to our solution that lets you easily integrate this strategy into your project.

Meet the SelfCommunity Platform

As you can see by requesting a free demo and taking a tour of our product, SelfCommunity allows you to quickly implement gamification features within your Community, such as a loyalty program that awards points to users based on their actions—like their first login or content posting. You can customize which actions earn points and how many points to assign to each, so you can tailor the loyalty program perfectly to your business goals.

Points can be redeemed for rewards that you decide, easily customizable from the dedicated area in the admin panel.

Additionally, SelfCommunity lets you set up a widget displaying top users in each thematic category, further amplifying your gamification strategy.

SelfCommunity’s powerful features go beyond gamification, though we’ve focused here on those aspects. Our platform can offer you much more.

To discover all its capabilities, request a free demo and don’t miss this opportunity to take your project to the next level!