For those of us that love gadgets, self-data monitoring and
keeping healthy, the Fitbit is the ideal gadget. In case you’re not familiar
with Fitbit, the Fitibit is a tracker you wear around your wrist—similar to a
bracelet or watch—and it will magically count your calories, steps taken and
monitor how well you sleep. Actually there is a lot of science and mathematics
behind how the device figures out your steps, but it seems supernatural.
Not only is the Fitbit a great device for keeping track of
your health, the company is a master at using marketing tools such as
gamification, social and community to keep users engaged.
Gamification is the use of gaming principals—like
earning levels or points—in order to reward users for engaging. This is similar
to Yelp’s leader boards or becoming a “mayor” on Foursquare for checking into a
place more than anyone else. For Fitbit, gamification includes providing badges
for reaching different milestones—lifetime steps or walking 5K, 10K and 15K
steps in one day. In addition, you’ll get a big green smile for every goal that
you meet. I personally love trying to reach as many goals of possible. Fitibit
has daily goals for number of steps, miles walked, calories burned, number of
active minutes and ounces of water drank.
Implementing social into the Fitbit application
helps to keep users motivated as well. With your permission, the Fitbit
application will look for users in your smartphone contacts and Facebook
friends and provide a list of Fitbit users you can add. Once connected, you can
view your friends’ steps, send messages, cheers and taunts. In addition, if you
like to brag to a wider group of people, the application allows you to send
automatic tweets as well as Facebook and WordPress blog posts from your Fitbit
on your activity.
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| My Fitbit Dashboard - Friends names removed for privacy |
If earning badges and competing with friends isn’t
enough to keep you engaged, Fitbit also provides a community to help keep you
motivated. You have the opportunity to join different types of groups for
Fitbitters ranging from groups for desk-jockeys to age-based (30s, 40s, 60s)
to location.
If you’re in the business of trying to engage users,
Fitbit provides some powerful lessons on how a combination of gamification,
social and community can help keep users motivated and engaged.
