Driving participation through gamification

Recognizing and rewarding your brand ambassadors plays a key role in building and maintaining a thriving employee advocacy program. While it's important to ignite initial excitement and provide thorough training, ongoing encouragement and appreciation are what truly keep your team motivated and engaged over the long run. 

Focusing on how individuals can benefit (like what's in it for employees) is a great beginning. But, for long-term success, it's also important to explore other ways to motivate and inspire everyone to get involved.

The Power of the Leaderboard

The Leaderboard is a dynamic tool for sparking friendly competition and recognizing top performers. Use filters to create targeted leaderboards, which will allow you to:

  • Set Time-Bound Competitions: Run contests for specific durations—weekly, monthly, or quarterly—to keep the excitement alive and give everyone regular chances to shine. Don't forget to celebrate your ambassadors' achievements by sharing the results with them!
  • Reward Based on Points: Connect points earned directly to meaningful rewards, making it easy and exciting for everyone to stay engaged. Use the Rewards system in Haiilo Advocacy or your own preferred system.
  • Foster Team Competition: Consider organizing users into teams—it's a great way to make filtering the leaderboard easier and to foster friendly competition among smaller groups, which can really boost overall engagement.
  • Identify and Leverage Top Performers: Highlight your most passionate and effective advocates. Their achievements can inspire others and serve as a benchmark for future competitions.

Align your point allocation to your program's goals:

  • Increase User Growth: Grow your user base by giving extra points for inviting colleagues to join the platform (if applicable).
  • Maximize Content Reach & Impact: Assign high points for unique clicks on shared content.
  • Boost User Engagement: Reward points for actions like employee-generated content or sharing specific, high-priority posts. 

Effective Rewards and Recognition

Set up monthly or quarterly competitions to keep excitement fresh and offer a variety of prizes that resonate with your employees. Design your reward system to be achievable for everyone involved.

  • High-Value Items: For bigger prizes, consider setting a point requirement that's challenging yet achievable over a longer period. Encourage your ambassadors to put in effort to reach this goal. This approach helps keep the prize feeling special and prestigious. Look at your average leaderboard points per year to set a realistic target.
  • Accessible Items: For low-point items meant to be regularly attainable through accumulated points, set requirements that allow an active user to win them multiple times a year (e.g., 2-3 times annually). Again, use average quarterly points to guide your setting.

We've organized our example rewards into different point tiers to make it easier for you to see your options.

Low Point Rewards

(e.g., up to 1,000 points)

Medium Point Rewards

(e.g., 1,000 - 5,000 points)

High Point Rewards

(e.g., 5,000 - 10,000 points)
These are easily attainable with consistent engagement and allow active users to win multiple times a year. These require more sustained effort over a quarter and offer more significant incentives. These are for your top performers over a quarter or longer, representing significant dedication and impact.
  • Company Merchandise: Consider selecting your own branded items like t-shirts, tote bags, mugs, or notebooks. These offer subtle brand promotion and foster a sense of belonging.
  • Charity Contributions: Employees can use their points to influence which charities your company supports, allowing them to donate to causes they care about.
  • Tickets and Vouchers: Popular choices like cinema tickets or electronic gift cards (e.g., Amazon vouchers) are easily distributable and perfect for remote teams.
  • Sports & Wellness Vouchers: These are a nice diversification, promoting employee well-being and offering a welcome asset for all sports and health-conscious employees.
  • Educational Rewards: Books, e-books, or subscriptions to educational content support personal and professional growth, making them highly valued.
  • Hardware: Consider items that genuinely enhance your employees' work or personal lives, such as quality headphones, adapters, or ergonomic computer mice.

Further Tips & Tricks

To successfully run an employee advocacy program, it's important to consider the following steps regarding gamification as well:

  • Make Rewards Visible: Continuously display available rewards on your platform. This serves as a constant visual motivator for users to keep sharing content. Learn more in Using Perks & Rewards.
  • Transparent Point System: Clearly communicate how points are earned. Transparency builds trust and encourages strategic participation.
  • Utilize Trophies: The Trophies feature is an excellent way to add an individual gamification element, allowing users to track their progress. Trophies can also trigger automatic notifications to re-engage users who haven't shared or proposed content recently.

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