Thingfo powers Biggest Gleek social media game for Fox hit “GLEE” - finding, channeling and rewarding the top evangelists

Written by Mike Grishaver Monday, 31 August 2009 00:00

The hilarious new show from Fox, "Glee", is using the latest product from Thingfo, code-named BrushFire, to create the Biggest Gleek social media game.

The show "Glee" is a great showcase for our technology, because even before their 1st season, the show has garnered a passionate fan base. This new game (and the software that runs it) enables Fox to harness that fan enthusiasm in positive and measurable ways. We think it is especially cool that a major company like Fox is using innovative social media technology and techniques, so here is a bit more about this social media game and how it helps channel and measure onlineevangelism.

Built with our new product, the BrushFire game engine, the game is designed to find and reward the top fan evangelists for "Glee", who call themselves Gleeks. We do this in several ways by tapping into the social web to engage users, reward them for creating and sharing content and links, and engaging with Glee. Fans can join and sign in to the game with their existing identities from Facebook, Twitter or MySpace. We award players with points for mentioning the show or its stars in updates to their Facebook, Twitter or MySpace status feeds. We give bonuses if content is commented on, @replied to on Twitter or Re-Tweeted, since all those actions indicate a measure of engagement if not quality. Importantly, we put limits on the numbers of times per day that players you can earn points for various activities (3x/day for status messages, for example) to discourage spamming.

Players earn additional bonus points for using the game’s customized short URL’s (http//glky.us) to share Glee-related content. With these short URL’s, our players can see how many clicks they’re driving — and get bonus points for each click! (Our short-URL system is pretty awesome, with special thanks to our partner awe.sm who put in some serious work to provide us with the kind of granular data we needed in order to pull this off. Look for a follow-up post about the metrics that the Thingfo/Awe.sm partnership can provide to marketers.). Not only do we provide players with custom http://glky.us URL’s with links to Glee content like the pilot, the official site, the official Twitter page, etc… but we give a “link-of-the-day” which changes daily and provides bonus points if it’s used on that day.

In summary, our game engine:

• Enables sign-up and login from Facebook, Twitter and MySpace
• Rewards users for social evangelism such as:
  • Activating their social network identities
  • Inviting friends to play
  • Posting status messages
  • Receiving replies, Re-Tweets, and comments on messages
  • Following the official Twitter and Facebook pages
  • Using short-URL’s and driving clicks
  • Uploading photos
• Allows fans to move through levels based on their points
• Creates a leaderboard to reward and promote top fans

Most importantly, the game is rocking. Look on the leaderboard for the Biggest Gleek game and you will see some of the most passionate and influential Glee fans from around the web. Gabby Curtis, also known as “Gleeky4lyfe” on Twitter, is a determined fan who’s within striking distance. Other fans are climbing the leaderboard: Rob Black “GleekRob” who according to his Twitter bio, “runs www.GleeFan.com, a fansite and blog for Glee!” is now #4.

The Biggest Gleek game is fun, it’s drawing in the top social evangelists and channeling their energy and enthusiasm. We can do ROI analysis by counting messages posted, numbers of followers and clicks driven, but the fan enthusiasm remains priceless.

All right, I know what you’re asking if you’ve read this far: can Thingfo create one of these social media games for my brand or campaign? Is it hosted? Can we customize the game play and look and feel? Are there built-in reports and administration tools to manage the game? Yes, yes, and yes.

Rehashing things, the benefits of using our system:

• Find the top evangelists
• Incentivize your supporters to talk about and link to your content
• Build followers for your official pages
• Drive traffic to your content
• Customizable game play, points, and levels
• Easy-to-use administration panel
• Customizable look and feel
• Reporting on all key metrics
  • Players, social networks, status messages, and click-tracking
• Fully hosted with backup

So, check out the Biggest Gleek game. Then come on back, and contact us to get your own game going.