I got to thinking about the motivation behind Mafia Wars and why people visit sites in general online.  We hear a lot of talk about social media and interaction online, but we often overlook one of the big reasons people keep returning to sites over and over again – competition with others.

Sure, one of the primary reasons we visit any site to begin with is because we have an interest in what the site is providing.  Take me for example, I have a big interest in automotive, tinkering around the house, reading and (of all things) Kmart.  So it should come as no surprise that some of the sites I visit on a daily basis are:

• ManageMyHome.com – Sears site for getting ideas, sharing projects and finding out tons of information about things in and around your house.  I just recently discovered this site and have been having a lot of fun building up my profile and finding new ways of doing things around the house.
• CarTalk.com – Online home of Tom and Ray from NPR and their hilarious Car Talk radio show.  Tons of great automotive advice plus forums full of tips, tricks and laughs!
• Amazon.com – What can I say, every book (plus just about everything else) you could ever want. 
• MyKmart.com – Online customer feedback site for Kmart stores.  Great way to relive memories of the home of the blue light special, as well as give feedback on what you think could make Kmart really shine.

Those are just four sites I find myself visiting pretty regularly.  So I went to those sites and found out something rather interesting.  Not only was I an active participant, but in many cases I was also engaged in “healthy competition” with others in a ranking scheme of some sort setup by the website.

Over on Amazon.com I checked and I was currently ranked 261 in the top reviewer list.  Wow!  I could hardly believe it – out of all the people on Amazon who have ever wrote even a single review, I was ranked in the top 500!  Heck, I was even close to the top 250!

Of course this is now a motivating factor for me to come back to Amazon again and again and make sure that I continue to climb in the rankings.  It’s like a badge of honor.  In fact, as you can see in the picture on the left, Amazon already gave me a badge of sorts — “Top 500 Reviewer”.  Talk about stroking a person’s ego and making them want to come back and write even more!

Over at MyKmart.com the competition was in full force – I was ranked #4!  Wow!  Now I’m in the top 5.  If that isn’t a motivator for participation, I don’t know what is.  Again as you can see below, there were plenty of badges of honor attached to my profile.  At Kmart I’d earned the “President’s Circle” ranking as well as a Shutter Bug award.

So what’s my point about all this?  Merely that a major driving force behind website loyalty nowadays is the ability to be ranked.  We all know that sites must be interactive (Web 2.0) and non-static, but it seems when you add in an element of ranking – or even just adding in a rewards system where you assign badges or gold stars of some sort – then you really start increasing your customer/reader loyalty.  People are more apt to return to a website where they have a way of checking up on things, such as where they rank or how many responses they have received since their last visit.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to get back over to Amazon – I have to break through to the top 250!