2021 social e-commerce gameplay guide!

Nowadays, more and more mobile Internet products, especially e-commerce and platform products, are introducing gamification mechanisms. Gamification, especially gamification in the form of mini-games, has two most direct values:

Mini games give users more reasons to open the app, increasing the frequency of app opening and online time. The frequency of opening and online time themselves can improve the position of a product in the user's mind.

Mini games are often closely related to the business, and will guide users to use a service within the product more frequently, or cross-use services that have not been experienced within the product. The most typical gamified products in China include Alipay, Taobao, and Pinduoduo.

To discuss gamification, we need to first align our understanding of what “gamification” is. On Wikipedia, gamification is defined as the application of game elements and game mechanics to non-game contexts. The reason why game elements and game mechanisms are applied is that games are a special product in which people voluntarily spend their time, money and energy to do something that usually has no real economic benefits. Therefore, how to make real-life tasks or products as attractive as games has become a goal of many product and organizational system designs. But is it really enough to just add game elements and mechanics? What kind of game elements and game mechanics are more effective becomes a pressing question that needs to be answered.

We need to ask a step further: why do people like to play games? What is the driving force that drives people to like playing games? If we find the driving force behind the game's appeal, can we directly try to apply this driving force to the product rather than superficial game elements?

User psychology insights

Social gameplay, there is social interaction, and then there is gameplay. Gain insights into user psychology and behavioral changes from the essence of social interaction; design different gameplay mechanisms based on user insights.

The book "Social Dividend" believes that: Social dividend (benefits) = information * connection * interaction. It can be considered that the components of social are content, relationship, and interaction, among which social relationships are the core. When the human brain handles social relationships, there must be a clear driving force behind it. The output of these factors in the brain is also weighted according to the processing methods of the left and right brains.

The magazine "Public Library of Science Public Science" believes that in the process of collecting and processing information, the left brain is more inclined to logical thinking, that is, rationality and objectivity, while the right brain is more inclined to artistic emotion, that is, emotional thinking.

*Human brain thinking process

1. Left brain thinking:

Features: rational creation, output benefits, interest stimulation, information collection and logical processing one by one

Composition: The core driving forces of the left brain include four major driving forces: progress and sense of achievement, ownership and possession, social sense and creativity. It can make trade-offs based on its own logical output and the value benefits that can be obtained.

Applicable scenarios: Cultivation games, interactive games, RPG role-playing games, instant interest induction games

2. Right Brain Thinking:

Characteristics: perceptual cognition, mental changes, information collection and processing based on personal sensitivity points

Composition: The core driving forces of the right brain include curiosity, resonance with people of the same type, personal or collective honor among group users, and the desire to explore unknown things. After collecting batches of information, it tends to process based on its own sensitive single points.

Applicable scenarios: innovative interactive, multiplayer online PK, personalized evaluation, emotional product promotion

Game model design

Social gameplay is the expression and implementation of user needs. From the time a user enters the gameplay interaction starting point to the time they leave the page, there are three core elements in the process: the user's own interactive operations, the user's spontaneous dissemination and sharing, and fission under the gameplay mechanism. The gameplay is based on thinking at the user operation level, the dissemination is based on thinking at the sharing motivation level, and the fission is based on thinking at the dissemination model level.

The book "Yu Jun Methodology" points out: Product value = new experience - old experience - switching cost. In Yu Jun's product value formula, the meaning of gamification is to increase the value of "new experience", so that when the value of some products is 0 or slightly negative, the product value can be restored to positive by enhancing the "new experience", thereby allowing such users who are on the edge of use to use the product.

*Game model design framework

1. Thoughts on gamification

Features:

• With high error tolerance and high degree of freedom, it is difficult for users to lose interest once they are immersed in a scene. We have a lot of opportunities to embed brands and businesses.
• Highly innovative, adding new business methods to the original business, based on the gameplay entry point, increasing user stickiness to the business, and improving the value of communication and return visits;

Business application scenarios:

• Brand placement: By customizing page elements with brands and exposing them repeatedly during a large number of user interactions, the exposure efficiency is greatly improved compared to traditional static advertising.
• Implantation of coupons and benefits: Implanting coupons in the form of prizes into the game process (such as rewards for phased achievements in the game) greatly improves the success rate and volume of coupon issuance. However, there is a decline in the utilization rate of coupons, which is related to the strength of the coupons themselves and the matching degree between the product and the user group.
• Implantation of other businesses: embed business operations such as event reservation, public account following, sharing and dissemination into the gameplay (for example, rewarding game points for event reservation, etc.), and drive users to make reservations, follow, share and other operations through the gameplay. Of course, there is also the problem of inducing a decline in user quality (because it is not an active operation), but if the game itself is intended for target users and users with needs, it can greatly improve the user's effective operation.
• Incorporate the check-in mechanism to form a user operation scenario: extend the activity cycle, use long-term rewards to motivate users and the fun of the game itself to drive users to visit repeatedly and retain users for a longer period of time. Of course, if you want to use the gameplay as a user operation scenario, you can consider long-term gameplay such as cultivation from the beginning.

2. Thoughts on sharing mechanism

Features: The primary premise of content dissemination, based on existing users, the core means of attracting incremental users, low fault tolerance, and efficient sharing mechanism must have user self-propagation attributes (emotional resonance, interest matching, atmosphere hotspot introduction, highlight achievement guidance, etc.)

Business use scenarios:

• Create communications based on topics that resonate with the target group of the product: The easiest communication planning approach that also ensures effectiveness for the business is to create topics that resonate with the target customer group. For example, if your target audience is white-collar workers, then topics such as overtime, workplace struggles, and motivational hard work can easily be spread among your target audience. The process of communication is also the process of helping you capture your target customers. The more specific the target audience is, the more specific the scenario is, and the more touching and profound the topic will be.
• Create communication based on the creative binding of hot events and products: The most critical first step in communication is to attract attention. If you can bind a hot event, it will greatly help you take the first step to attract attention. The key point is to ensure the timeliness of hot spot tracking and the creativity of product binding (awkward implantation will completely discourage users from spreading the word).
• Communication packaging based on the product’s selling point: Does your product have a special selling point? If you can refine it and create some exaggerated, interesting, and conflicting communication content based on this selling point, your product features will be deeply embedded in the user’s mind.
• Build a continuous IP: In the current content era, if you can build an IP with user value (user attention and motivation for conversion) + entertainment (user likes and dissemination) (for details, please refer to the article from ordinary people to millions of bloggers, and give the link), and output and disseminate a large amount of continuous content, you will have a better chance of guessing the explosive points of those contents and at the same time you can form your own traffic pool.

3. Thoughts on the fission mechanism

Features: Value-added services of trust relationship, the premise is that multiple people benefit. Before the implementation path is reached, any one of the page content interest stimulation, gameplay introduction, and emotional needs can hit the fissioned users.

Business use scenarios:

• Fission exposure: represented by the lucky card collection gameplay, brand elements are implanted into the fission gameplay (collecting several images of the brand) to achieve deep brand exposure through large-scale dissemination. Compared with a single advertising exposure, investing traffic in fission interaction can achieve the spread to more users and multiple exposures during multiple interactions.
• Fission traffic: represented by bargaining gameplay (one user can pull dozens of people to assist in bargaining), through the profit-driven activities, the process of users obtaining benefits is connected to the fission model, realizing the introduction of a large amount of fission traffic.
• Fission fan acquisition: Various fission gameplays can be integrated, and the following behavior can be implanted into the main process of fission propagation (send points for following, initiate fission from the official account after following, etc.), so as to achieve more efficient use of promotion traffic.

The value boundary of social game play

Let’s first look at two other models, which can help us better understand how “gamification” works on products.

Yu Jun’s product value formula: Product value = new experience – old experience – switching cost

In Yu Jun's product value formula, the meaning of gamification is to increase the value of "new experience", so that when the value of some products is 0 or slightly negative, the product value can be restored to positive by enhancing the "new experience", thereby allowing these users who are on the edge of use to use the product.

Fogg Model: Behavior = Motivation + Ability + Trigger

In the Fogg model, gamification is to increase the value of "Motivation" so that users have additional motivation in addition to using the product functions themselves, so as to make the usage behavior more likely or more frequent.

The value of gamification is actually the finishing touch, providing a certain "boost" effect on the product, but you cannot make a product that lacks user value successful through gamification.

At the same time, “boost” means that this force is relatively weak, so it makes more sense to push a product in small, short steps and with high frequency. However, it is difficult to change the path of long decision-making things through gamification, such as buying a house, a car, or a large insurance policy.

For e-commerce, this is a high-frequency business with universal user demand, but the gamification of Pinduoduo and Taobao still needs the help of coupons. At the same time, they cannot guide you to buy products that you have no demand for. Instead, they recommend you to use coupons to buy products that you may have been interested in through your browsing history and purchase history. Only in this process can the gamification push be more effective.

Author: Leon New Retail Notes

Source: Leon New Retail Notes