How can I get people involved in this new initiative? 🤔
How can I ensure people keep coming back to this app?
And how can I drive maximum results?
You make it fun!
Duh.
Kidding, it’s not always that obvious.
Nor is it that easy 🤷♂️
And there are so many more ways to get people involved with your program.
But ultimately.
The #1 tried and tested way to keep people coming back?
Gamification! 🎮
I’m talking gamification in the form of leaderboards and rewards 📊
Leaderboards that showcase top sharers.
Leaderboards that highlight those who generated the most clicks that month.
And a points-based system to ultimately reward the efforts of top performers.
Why does this work?
The friendly competitive nature of winning and the chance to win a prize 🏆
Gamification can quickly improve adoption rates, too.
And can seriously help you get your program off the ground 🛫
It will create a buzz, which leads to curiosity and then interest!
One DSMN8 client offered up their latest tech and smartphones as prizes.
Which tripled user adoption rates!
Others even choose to offer bonus points for signing up to give you a stronger start 💪
Eg “Sign up today, get 100 points” 👇
However, to succeed with gamification.
You absolutely have to be consistent 👏
People will quickly lose interest if the leaderboards and rewards are not kept up to date.
A prize for “top shares” in Q1 and then nothing in Q2 means that come Q3…
People will have lost interest and you’ll have to build that momentum from scratch once again 🤦♂️
So, that said.
It pays to keep it exciting and varied!
And that’s not just for the sake of employee engagement.
It could be for you to meet your goals as a company.
Whether that’s for sales, marketing, or even HR.
If your goal, for example, is to increase website traffic 📈
Then offering more points for clicks can help you achieve your targets!
So, without further ado 🥁
Here are 5 contest ideas to spice things up a bit! 💃
Jump to:
The LinkedIn(fluencer) 🤩
Whether you’re in B2B, B2C or any of the above.
There’s no denying the increasing importance of LinkedIn.
Long gone are the days of it being used solely for job searching.
With over 774 million users, it’s now the #1 site for professionals across all industries to connect and engage with prospects, peers, candidates, and more.
So, naturally, you have to assume that it’s not a bad place to showcase the latest news and content from your company 🤷♀️
Especially for B2B brands.
So, why not set up a contest specifically for LinkedIn and allocate points based on shares, engagement, and clicks generated from the site?
The Click Collector 🤠
Nothing gets a marketer more excited than the idea of new/more website traffic!
If your objective is to drive traffic to your website (that converts) then this is definitely something to consider.
Your employees are naturally pretty good at this…
Employees are 8x more likely to generate engagement and see a higher click-through rate than posts shared by corporate social channels.
You’ll have a role to play here, too.
If your goal is to generate more traffic to your website, you may want to consider uploading a higher number of company posts rather than thought leadership content and third-party links.
The Engagement Magnet 🧲
Engagement on your employees’ social posts, whether likes, comments, reactions or re-shares, can have a huge impact on your brand awareness and visibility.
Not only this, but for salespeople, engagement means an opportunity to start a conversation or to simply identify a potential lead.
Delegating points, and more of them, to things such as likes and comments, will be key to running a successful contest to crown an “Engagement Magnet”.
Caption copy has a big part to play here, too!
If engagement is what you’re looking for, then you’ll need to ensure that each pre-approved caption is written so that a conversation can start off the back of it.
Think “Thoughts?” or “Would love to give your thoughts on this!” at the end of each caption.
If employees are well-trained and educated on best practices from the start, then they’ll likely already be doing this and might want to write their own captions.
After all, nobody knows their audience quite like they do!
The Share Provider 😎
Don’t underestimate the value of a share! It all starts here.
More shares = more chances for engagement and clicks.
Contests for top no. shares have been known to seriously elevate participation in your employee advocacy program.
Many employees will be a little more reluctant to share and can shy away from the idea if they’re not comfortable with it.
So, launching a contest for top shares during launch can seriously help to get things off the ground!
Once again, communicating the benefits for the employee will be a big help here. Offering an incentive is one thing, but ultimately employees need to know what’s in it for them.
However, when running a contest for top shares we recommend implementing a daily share limit, which admins can manage within the DSMN8 app.
This ensures that people aren’t “spamming” their networks by sharing tens of times per hour and ultimately doing more harm than good to your advocacy program.
Fun advocacy fact: In an MSLGroup study, company messages reached 561% further when shared by employees vs the same message shared by company accounts.
If your goal is to generate more traffic to your own website, then you may want to consider uploading a higher number of company posts, as opposed to thought leadership content and third-party links.
The Grand Champion 👑
The all-around superstar employee advocate.
To determine your Grand Champion, you’re simply going to look at the employee with the most points overall over a set time period. That’s points from shares, clicks and anything you decide to allocate points for.
We recommend crowning one Grand Champion per quarter so that it doesn’t lose its credibility!
Also, if you’re running monthly contests that allocate more points for certain metrics, then you may find that your Grand Champion is simply the winner of that monthly contest too.
One Grand Champion per quarter means that everyone is in with a chance to win something!
If your goal is to generate more traffic to your own website, then you may want to consider uploading a higher number of company posts, as opposed to thought leadership content and third-party links.
Final Thoughts 💭
Let’s get regional!
Segmenting your leaderboards is going to be a great way to seriously increase participation.
Imagine if, for example, you have 1,000+ employees taking part and 20-30 employees who have huge networks and are regularly topping the ranks.
The people sitting in 500th place might quickly lose hope 🙅♂️
By segmenting your leaderboards, whether by geography or department, you level the playing field and ensure that everyone has a chance of hitting the big time.
Communicate the benefits!
As mentioned, gamification is a tried and true way to seriously elevate all aspects of your employee advocacy program.
However, nothing is more authentic than employees sharing company content than one who does so because they know what’s in it for them.
Not only will you have their continued participation, but these people are often superstar advocates as they’re always growing their networks and engaging with your key audiences on social.
Ready to try gamification and elevate employee advocacy at your company?
We’ve got you covered.
More employee advocacy reads you might enjoy!
Lewis Gray
Senior Marketing Manager at DSMN8. Lewis runs DSMN8's own employee advocacy program, putting the platform into practice from the inside, hosts The Employee Advocacy Podcast, and launched the Employee Advocacy Certification Course. His background in sales informs his approach to demand generation and B2B content strategy.
