The first decades of the 21st century seems to be the time of overwhelming content for viewers and the brutal brawl of attention between content providers. Not only has the access of watching content become more easily accessible than ever, but also the huge amount of different types of consuming. You can watch what you want, whenever you want, wherever you want. It’s becoming increasingly important for broadcasters not only to get attention, but also to gain retention. But how? How can broadcasters win the fight for viewers’ attention?
One of the answers to this question is the topic of this blog post: Gamification.
We will take a look at the following:
1. What is gamification exactly? – Explanation via SAPS model
Let’s break down what gamification is on the basis of the SAPS-model.
The first element – the “S” in SAPS – stands for status. Status is used to identify the effort or performance of a viewer. It separates viewers between a regular user and a VIP, for example.
Next up is “A” for access. It is possible to gain access to specific features of a service. To remain in our example, a vip person could have access to a special chat room that only vips can join.
“P” stands for power. A person with a specific status can have more power than a normal user. Everyone has the opportunity to vote but a VIP’s vote is worth three times more.
Last but not least “S” stands for stuff. This is mainly for digital goods you can collect, like custom emojis for the chat, status icons, virtual gifts, or avatar extensions.
With these 4 elements combined you can drive gamification for your audience.
Community building
On the one hand, you can generate exclusive content in the form of trivia questions or polls. On the other hand, you can collect things like custom emoticons that enable unlimited creativity and unique content. This exclusive content and competition between users encourages community building.
Viewer monetization
Another benefit of gamification is the higher potential for viewer monetization. Online viewers are much more likely to pay multiple smaller amounts than to make large transactions. A unique Robert Lewandowski emoticon for 1,49€? Totally worth it!
Viewer retention
Last but not least, the most important benefit: Viewer retention. For example, once a viewer has played a trivia run and is ranked with the other viewers, they want to get better and be in the top 10. Or the viewer already purchased 7 emoticons and has a VIP pass for the whole year, he wants to exploit it. That means: As soon as a person has invested into something, they are much more likely to come back and take advantage of it.
I’d like to show you a quick example of how gamification influenced me during a livestream series. While watching multiple games of an esports tournament on twitch I had the option to use an overlay tool that allowed viewers to guess which team would win. A feature called “Pick’em”. If you guessed correctly, you gained points. In addition there is the leaderboard. An overview where you can see which rank you are in. Friends of mine started to play as well and so the battle of the betting masters started. But even after my favorite team got kicked out of the tournament I continued to watch the stream just because of the pick’em feature being able to guess who is winning the next match. Once I started to watch the other teams as well I had fun and continued to watch the whole tournament, climbing up the leaderboard and winning against my friends. (By the way: the extension is called Spect8 and was developed by us).
There is no indication that there will be less streaming content in the near future. That means the brawl of viewers will continue. Today you learned more about gamification, just one of the tools that can help you build community, increase viewer monetization and gain viewer retention.
Spice up your live stream with gamifying elements. Participation is rewarded, viewers are more actively challenged and thus more satisfied.
About the author:
Thomas Hofmann is part of our Marketing team and content lead. He has been a part of vAudience since 2019.
Spect8 is on a mission to engage, monetize and analyze your viewers.
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