VIDEO: Gamification Examples: Point Systems

Welcome. In this series on gamification, we'll be looking at some specific features common to gamified solutions. For this video, we'll be looking at point systems. Point systems are often seen as one of the most basic features of gamification. They work by rewarding a customer or user with points for completing certain actions like buying a product or sharing something over social media. Companies have been using point systems to drive repeat business for years, even though websites have only recently started implementing the same technology.

Starbucks, for instance, has an extensive rewards system designed to incentivize customer loyalty. By signing up for a Starbucks rewards account, you earn stars or points on the purchases you make. Earn enough of these and Starbucks will give you custom Starbucks cards, discount codes, and free drinks on birthdays or whenever you request one. At the end of 2012, Starbucks had 4.5 million active users in its rewards program and around 9 million at the end of 2013.

Airline miles are another great example. Unlike the Starbucks reward system, airline miles actually incentivize two different products. One is the airline. Uh, not only though are you encouraged to fly more often, which isn't always the easiest sell, but you're encouraged to start a credit card through that airline in order to earn more miles on all of your purchases. And finally, many gas stations use a point system as well. One example is Speedway, which gives customers a free loyalty card to swipe before purchases of gas or snacks.

All of these purchases then give you points that you can eventually redeem for gift cards or other merchandise. Speedways Speedy Rewards have been so successful that they actually had their highest merchandise sales ever in 2012. But how does this all translate into online gamification? Well, the basic concept is pretty much the same. By rewarding users with points for using a site, you can provide additional incentive for them to read more articles, watch more of your videos, or share more of your content.

We've previously looked at the question and answer site Kora, which has an extensive point system built into it. Another great example in a similar vein is the educational site Con Academy. When you visit the site, which we have up here, all the actions you take, such as watching videos or doing their learning exercises, are framed as part of specific missions. As you complete these missions, you have a progress bar here, and it's your mastery of that skill.

There's also energy points, which you get for making it all the way through videos or watching a certain time amount of videos in a certain section. And then you also have badges based on the number of points you have. This all helps to provide some extra motivation to say finish a video series on finance or complete a problem set on math. It also shows other users what you've learned which adds a social dynamic. Another website that effectively uses a point system is Stack Exchange.

Stack Exchange is similar to Kora, but creates individual websites for highly specific groups to answer each other's technical questions. Here's one we have pulled up about computer super users. You'll notice that everyone's name has a number by it, including our own. That's their reputation or the amount of points they've earned through providing helpful answers and questions on the group. we have a one because we haven't answered anything. And this system not only encourages users to spend more time commenting and participating on the site, but it helps identify the most knowledgeable people as well.

The more helpful advice you've contributed, the higher your points. As you can see from these specific examples and our other videos, point systems are an effective and proven way of encouraging repeated business or user interaction online. They can help encourage your users to explore more of your site, share more of your content, or do more of virtually any action. We've showed you just a few examples here, but there are tons of sites across the internet that use point systems as part of their gamification strategy.

If you'd like to further explore this topic or are thinking of adding a similar system onto your own site, you should visit technologyadvice.com where you can read the latest gamification news. You can also use our smart advisor tool to compare over 90 gamification companies in under 2 minutes, all for free. Thanks for watching this video on gamification point systems.

This transcript was generated automatically from the video's captions and may contain errors.