Everyone loves games, and they’re a great motivator. So why not incorporate gamified elements into your Mighty Networks community?
Available on all plans, you can use gamification to ramp up engagement and encourage healthy competition.
Key Takeaways:
- Use streaks and points to encourage members to post and respond
- Create award badges for milestones and achievements
- Run events, checklists, and challenges to increase interaction
Gamification Increases Engagement: Here’s Why
If you’re not adding gamification to your courses, you’re missing a trick. Gamified elements are incredibly powerful and can completely transform the experience for your users.
Provides a Purpose
You have to give your users a reason to keep coming back.
Community members can be fickle and easily distracted by other things going on online, so you have to motivate them to keep returning and checking in on what’s going on.
Gamification provides that purpose and compels users to log in and engage with other community members.
Of course, your content matters, too. Even with the best gamified elements, users won’t come back if your content isn’t up to scratch. But if it is, giving purpose through gamification encourages users to build the habit of logging in daily.
Instant Feedback and Rewards
Who doesn’t love to know they’re doing great? Or to get a nice little reward for their efforts?
Gamification gives us that instant gratification that we crave. Those points and badges lead to the dopamine rush that makes games so addictive, but more importantly, they show users that they’re on the right path for success.
This just adds to the motivation to keep users coming back for more. Incentives like a bonus course or a free one-to-one call give your community a reason to stay engaged.
Encourages Healthy Competition
Your community is the perfect space to breed a little healthy competition among its users.
We all possess a natural capacity for competitiveness, so you may as well put it to good use by leveraging gamification elements to push users to reach the top.
And you don’t have to make your community members act alone. Encourage collaboration by placing users into teams and giving them shared goals to strive for.
Celebrate the wins within your community and demonstrate that success is acknowledged (again, this feeds into instant rewards). You’ll be amazed at how “into it” your users will get!
It’s Fun!
Above all, games are fun. That’s why they’re one of the most popular hobbies worldwide.
Besides the mental stimulation, gamers love the sense of accomplishment and the social connection that online gaming provides. You’re onto a winner here because your community can bring all of these elements to the table.
Rather than simply posting and adding course material, you can use gamification to transform the space into an enjoyable and dynamic experience that people won’t want to log out of.
4 Ways to Gamify Your Mighty Networks Community
The big advantage of Mighty Networks is that you have the competitive element already included. Your community members can engage and compete with each other to get ahead and unlock rewards.
Streaks and Milestones
The streak feature is designed to encourage daily visits to your community.
A weekly calendar view shows each user which days they logged in—and which days they missed. Streaks are the number of days logged in consecutively, and the dashboard displays the current streak and maximum overall streak.
Streaks lead to special emojis appearing next to users’ names whenever they engage with the community and also on their profiles.
If you’re wondering what those emojis are, I’ve listed them here along with the required streak:
| Streak | Emoji |
|---|---|
| 3 days | ⭐ |
| 7 days | 🔥 |
| 14 days | 🚀 |
| 30 days | ⚡ |
| 45 days | 🎉 |
| 60 days | 💎 |
| 90 days | 🏅 |
| 180 days | 🏆 |
| 365 days | 👑 |
To encourage users to log in and maintain their streak, Mighty Networks sends a push notification at 2 PM (tailored to users’ time zones) as a reminder.
Community Value Awards
Daily log-ins also unlock another reward. Each user earns ten points for every day that they log into your community.
But the points aren’t for the user. They are to give out to other members to recognize them for embodying your community values.
The community values are completely customizable, and you can have up to five of them. For example, you could have values for being motivating, helpful, knowledgeable, and so on.
Once users have accumulated enough points, they can “recognize” other members’ posts, comments, chats, or just the person themselves.
The points users earn through recognitions can unlock rewards such as events, courses, challenges, etc.
Automated Points
You can set up automations within your community that enable users to earn points for things beyond being recognized by other members.
For example, points can be earned for reaching streak milestones, completing courses, and earning badges.
This gives the less chatty members a chance to earn points and allows everyone to get rewards, no matter how they engage with your community.
Badges
Mighty Networks allows you to award badges for just about anything within your community.
These are customizable, so you get the opportunity to create badges that work for your content specifically.
So, as an example, you can award a badge once a member has posted 50 times, reached a streak milestone, referred new members, and achieved other milestones.
Each member has their awarded badges displayed on their profile, which is available for other members to view.
Create a Leaderboard
The platform features a Global Discovery feature that pulls in content from all community spaces a member has access to. It works a bit like the “For You” pages you get on social media.
Again, this feature is customizable, so you can rename it “Leaderboard” and add the Top Posts and Top Member sections to it. That way, the whole community can see exactly who is leading the charge and getting the most points and badges.
Run Challenges
Timed challenges are a great way to get more engagement out of your community and create a buzz among its members.
Make sure your challenge has a specific start and end date to ensure that everyone takes it at the same time. This will generate lots of posts and engagement around it and encourage healthy competition.
Those who complete the challenge can win rewards, and you can award winners badges to those who complete it first or with the highest results.
Use the Task List
You can find this cool little feature on the Courses plan upwards. You can create a checklist of activities that a member must complete.
Throughout the day, week, or month, as each user completes them, they can check them off. Once the list is finished, members can reset it and start again.
The list can be used for anything. For instance, a fitness-based community might have one for daily exercises, while a nutrition-based community might have one for healthy eating habits.
Once the list is complete, you can award points, badges, or even access to new checklists and learning content.
Enable the Mighty Networks Ambassador Program
The Ambassador program offers a dual benefit: it motivates members to pursue rewards while expanding your community membership base.
It’s a referral scheme where existing members recommend the community to others and sign up new members.
There are three levels of ambassador depending on how many successful referrals a member has made:
- 2 members referred: Bronze
- 10 members referred: Silver
- 25 members referred: Platinum
You can assign a reward for each level achieved, which obviously motivates individuals to refer. Additionally, you can assign badges to each level and give shoutouts within your community.
How to Set Up Gamification in Mighty Networks (A Quick Guide)
To create your community values, head to Admin > Gamification > Community Values.
- Click to create a new community value
- Click the pencil icon next to existing values to edit them
You can change the icon and the community value name. Unfortunately, you can’t adjust how many points are required to earn each badge.
Streaks can also be found under the Gamification tab. These can’t be edited, but you can toggle this feature on and off.
Find badges by heading to Admin > Members > Badges, and click to create a new badge.
Add a name, description, and image for your badge and hit Save. Create as many badges as you need.
Click Admin > Members > Automation > Create, and select the trigger (for example, the number of contributions or posts, completing a course, etc.).
Then, choose the appropriate action, such as awarding points or badges.
5 Ways to Reward Your Community Via Gamification
Possibly the hardest part of gamifying your community is deciding what rewards you will offer for engagement. The most important thing is to align rewards with your niche and the type of community you run.
1. Provide Access to Secret Content or Community Spaces
One of the best ways to reward members is to give them access to a course or content that isn’t otherwise available.
This could be anything from a live webinar to exclusive group coaching or even a special Q&A session.
Additionally, you could create VIP community spaces reserved for the top performers and fill them with content they will find valuable.
2. Plan Upgrades
If your community has tiered access plans, why not offer an upgrade as a reward?
This could be limited-time access or permanent access, whatever makes sense for your business.
Alternatively, you could create an entirely new tier that cannot be purchased. Rather, community members have to earn enough points to gain access.
3. Invites to Exclusive Events
Mighty Networks has an events feature, allowing you to schedule and run online or in-person events.
If you run regular paid events, your top performers could earn free access to them. Or, you could set up exclusive events specifically for them.
4. Extra Resources or Support
Build a secret community space that acts as a resource library and fill it with extra content just for your community winners.
You could also offer exclusive access to you, such as personalized message support or even live support via the discussion chat feature.
This works particularly well if your members are working towards a goal. By offering extra support, they can achieve their goals in a shorter time. This further incentivizes members to strive for the top spot.
5. Discounts on Products
This is an easy one to implement. Offer decent discounts for your paid community spaces, community tiers, and digital products.
Make sure the discount is worth obtaining, though. A 10% discount probably won’t motivate people much, whereas a 50% discount will be far more desirable.
6. Physical Rewards
This one can be trickier to implement since Mighty Networks isn’t set up to facilitate the sending of physical products.
However, it can be an excellent way to reward members. For instance, swag bags, books, products related to your industry, or even t-shirts can work well.
Just be prepared to manage the products and shipping outside of Mighty Networks. So for that reason, I’d only recommend this option for smaller communities where you aren’t likely to be sending out large quantities.
Also, bear in mind that sending physical products will cost your business more, so use them sparingly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Gamification Available on All Mighty Networks Plans?
Yes, gamification is included on all Mighty Networks plans, including streaks, points, badges, and automations.
Can I Automate Gamification in Mighty Networks?
Yes, you can automate gamification in Mighty Networks. You can set up triggers and actions that award things like points, access to content or community spaces, awarding badges, and more.
