Rob Webb – RobWebb2K – Markets, Information, Technology, Law

I’ve recently spent a good amount of time looking at systems used to motivate users of consumer websites. Across the board, the systems that are most successful 1) have a social component 2) highlight relevant scores within user profile and 3) award points that have no actual or implied dollar value.

The most effective systems accomplish all three criteria above and are also able to link a user’s profile to the user’s actual identity. When this link is created, users are concerned about how their profiles are seen by others so they ask friends to help raise their score/count to respectable levels. Prime examples are friend/follower counts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. If you use one of these sites, think about how many successful adds you needed before you stopped worrying about your friend/follower count. I think for me it was ~50 on each, after which I stopped caring at all. Along my way to 50 I dragged others in deeper by adding them and asking them to add me, and new users were brought into the system who then set out to raise their own scores…wash, rinse, repeat. The primary score these systems highlight within user profiles is the friend count, because increasing friend counts fuel growth and is the exact user behavior they are trying to elicit. Very powerful stuff.

The second tier of systems don’t (or are unable to) connect user profiles with actual user identities, but users that become engaged with these services become mindful of the scores attached to their profiles. Prime examples are Yahoo Answers’ “answers” and “best answers” counts and Yelp “reviews” and “first review” counts. I created profiles on these systems long ago but since my actual identity was not connected with my profiles, I felt no shame in having crappy profiles with low scores. I’ve never gotten engaged with these systems but if I ever do, I’ll likely try to improve these scores since they are attached to my profile, which again is the behavior these systems are trying to promote.

After these first two tiers of systems, the relative success of incentive systems trail off drastically. Systems that don’t have a social component can still award points to users for desired behavior, but there is little incentive to manage these scores upwards when no one else sees them. Systems that don’t highlight relevant scores within user profiles fall in the same bucket – if they’re not public and viewable, no one cares. Lastly, systems that award money or prizes instead of scores end up anchoring the desired behavior on the value of the prize. Consumer sites can’t afford to reward user behavior with more than nominal values over the long run, so users end up anchoring the value of their behavior on the nominal value of the reward. For this reason I’ve yet to find a widely successful incentive program utilized by a consumer website that was based on monetary rewards or physical prizes.

If you can think of any examples of consumer sites that effectively incentivize users differently I’d love to hear them. Post a comment!