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!

Blogs were great back in the days when pretty much all the content came from the “big companies”.  Blogs were a way for people to have their voice heard and to actually use the web interactively instead of just one-way.  It was no longer acceptable on the web to have a static web page in which you blasted out information about your product/company/etc and only update it once a year and have no way for the readers to interact with you and the content.  Blogs allowed us (and businesses) to update their sites non-stop and for discussions to be two-way.  They were the first step into the Web 2.0 world.

Today, blogs are just a pain to maintain – at least from my perspective.  It’s so much easier for me to Tweet my current thoughts via Twitter in 160 characters or less, or to update my Facebook status (and even then I’m wondering is Facebook is getting to be a little 2000 and late).  In a nutshell, I find that Twitter is giving me everything I need without taking up a lot of my time.  Even better, its allowing me to find the topics that interest me via a real-time search engine.  The important stuff bubbles to the top because of the re-tweeting taking place, and those people I trust the most I follow so I can always see what they have to say.

Now before I say blogs are dead and gone, let me state I do think that blogs still have a purpose.  After all, you can’t dive very deep into a subject when you are limited to 160 characters!  I think blogs are becoming the website instead of being a part of the website.  Take my site for example, sure I have this “blog” if you will on the front page – but really the entire site is a blog.  I’ve just adapted it to display the information I care about.  I might not update it for a month, or I may update it every day for a week – but the idea here is to share information that I want others to add to and use over time.

Compare this to Twitter where I am interested in sharing information and collaborating in real-time.  A year from now (or even a month from now) I am not interested in what happened on Twitter 30 days ago – I only want to know what is going on right here and right now.  A real-time search engine.

Blogs at one time were the public squares of our time – where everyone went to shout out their thoughts, opinions and advice.  Today that role has been taken over by Twitter – and instead of a lengthy speech we hoped a few people would read now have bullet points that we shout out to the crowds in short, digestible chunks.  Sort of like moving from a Microsoft Word document to a PowerPoint slide if you think about.

I started hearing more good things about Ford, and checking them out, after I read about their upcoming presentation at Web Expo 2.0 on how they set their content free and connected with their employees, customers and suppliers.  Just reading this presentation outline makes you want to sit back and go “ooh” and “aaahh”.  A company the size of Ford making the leap to social media is just amazing – but shows that Ford does indeed “get it”.

It wasn’t long after I read that article that I stumbled upon Scott Monty’s twitter page.  Scott is the head of social media for Ford.  Now there is a job title I’d love to get!  Twitter is quickly becoming one of the more popular way for our mobile society to interact with each other.  The fact that he’s using it not only to interact with Ford customers, but also to present a face of Ford, is what makes it such a worthwhile venture in my opinion.  I feel that by being able to “tweet” him a message that I’m actually interacting with Ford on some level.

Ford doesn’t stop at Twitter, though.  Facebook, Myspace, Second Life.  These are all Ford media outlets.  I feel I can get more information about Ford products through these outlets than I could ever get before.  The beauty of it is that I’m getting information from all sides, and not just what traditionally would have been pushed to me by Ford.  The information is when I want it, where I want it and how I want it.  I’m in control of the content delivery!

I have to think to myself is it no wonder why Ford is weathering this economic storm much better than Chrysler and GM when they have forward-thinking leaders who see the value of social media.  They understand the value in connecting with their customers and hearing the good, the bad and the ugly.  They aren’t trying to make us buy a Ford or tell us how great they are – through their efforts they instead create evangelists, fans and enthusiasts who buy a Ford because they feel connected to the brand.  They feel they know more about Ford and its cars through the community and not just one-sided conversation.

Folks, you can’t buy better marketing then this.  When will other companies get it?

Taken from Craigslist (click on the image to zoom in):

As I’ve written before, I’m a Kmart kid – it was where I grew up shopping at.  I still love the store, and love the memories even more.

It’s good to see Web 2.0 technologies being used by what were considered old and outmoded companies – and it’s even better to see companies actually trying to improve their products and services by interacting with the consumers directly.

Turn on the bluelight, I’m heading over to my savings place!