Did you know it’s been nearly 20 years since the start of the social media age? After MySpace’s launch in August 2023, we’ve seen social media evolve from posting simple status updates to creating three-minute-long Reels and communicating through live videos.

Over that time, we’ve also seen the way brands interact with social media evolve. Even just a few years ago, many businesses still primarily posted static, one-way messages geared toward selling their product. More recently, brands have shifted their focus to building community through gamified content. On social, gamification simply means adding interactive or competitive elements to your posts.

In some ways, this shift is a natural continuation of companies’ other game-like features. Brands like Starbucks and Chipotle have successfully gamified their customer loyalty programs for years, allowing members to rack up points via competitions, puzzles and more. Bringing more game-based posts into your social strategy will help engage potential customers outside of the loyalty program bubble. Keep reading to find out how you can play up these methods in your company’s own social content.

Likes & Upvotes

Before we get into the creative social games brands have created, we need to talk about how modern social media is structured around gamification. On every platform, the algorithm is designed to show you the most popular, i.e. highest-scoring, posts first. However, some sites, such as Reddit, are more transparent about how their content is sorted.

On Reddit, users organize themselves into sub-reddits, or group of users who share a common interest. Within each sub-reddit, comments on posts that have the most “upvotes” will appear at the top of the feed, while posts with too many “downvotes” can be removed entirely. Users can also dole out awards to posts or comments they find especially interesting. Music streaming platform Spotify has utilized Reddit in the past to ask users for input on their favorite songs for different moods, using the most upvoted responses to build Reddit-inspired playlists. According to Reddit, their site’s number of active users grew by 44% last year, totaling 52 million daily active users.

Video platform TikTok prioritizes well-liked posts and comments in a similar way. Videos that receive more engagement are more likely to appear on users’ For You Page, while the most-liked or most-replied-to comments typically appear at the top of their section. Savvy brands like Duolingo and Tarte have played with this feature, leaving clever comments on trending posts to increase engagement and reach a broader audience.

Contests & Giveaways

For brands and influencers, contests and giveaways have become a popular gamified method for growing their customer base. Of course, sweepstakes and giveaways have been around in the marketing world for decades, helping companies build an audience network and increase brand loyalty. (I’m not ashamed to admit I forced my parents to sign me up for many a Nickelodeon and American Girl sweepstakes in the early 2000s.) Now that social media can give your brand access to more than a billion daily active users, it makes sense that it’s become the platform of choice for these programs.

On the brand side, businesses often choose to give away a brand-relevant product or experience as a way to grow their organic consumer base in a way that still feels authentic. For example, diaper brands like Huggies will occasionally give away a year’s supply of diapers to a lucky parent, and Bass Pro Shops has promoted a free golf weekend getaway. Meanwhile, some influencers have used joint giveaways to achieve massive follower growth. We’ve seen several creators band together to give away one large prize, such as a lump sum of cash, to one user who follows all the participating influencers. These contests have become extremely prevalent among influencers because it’s simple, it lowers their financial investment in the promotion, and it introduces their brand to thousands of millions of new users who follow similar accounts.

Interactive Games

On traditional social platforms like Facebook and Instagram, famous brands like Qdoba, Little Caesar’s, and Wendy’s will often post their own interactive games to boost engagement with their audience. These gamified posts can be as simple as a quick “which menu item are you” quiz, or more involved with an ongoing series of “this or that” questions on their Stories. When the post involves a game or poses a question, followers are more likely to add a comment, tag their friends or share the post to their feed. To further incentivize engagement, brands will often respond to answers with clever comments or even give away a prize to one or more participants.

This strategy is a contrast to the prevailing Instagram aesthetic of past years when many brands prioritized attractive photography and curating a specific vibe. While nice photos might earn a lot of likes, interactive posts and games tend to win more engagement through increased comments and shares, which are more valuable to brands today as they drastically increase the reach of the post. According to a SNIP Survey, gamification raises brand awareness by 15%, brand loyalty by 22%, and client engagement by 47%.

As a marketing agency, we’ve taken note of these trends and tried to incorporate them into the social tactics for our own clients. For a client in the restaurant industry, we recently ran a series of puzzles highlighting the brand’s healthy menu options with a gift card reward for anyone who commented with the correct solution. The series resulted in up to 10 times more engagement, as well as increased brand exposure among new audiences.