Awarding fans badges has also become a key component in the "gamification" of the online social media experiences. Social media companies such as Foursquare, GetGlue, and others have popularized badges as a way of rewarding, engaging and motivating users. In the context of online social media, badges can be considered "virtual goods" - digital artifacts that have a visual representation. Badges can be awarded to users who complete specific tasks or activities, or reach a certain score or level of participation, or they can simply be given away as means of spreading your marketing message.

Social Media Badge Applications:
Over the last year, we have built a number of badge applications for Facebook and Twitter applications that enable fans to promote their favorite artist with a dynamic music badges (see below) which get posted on their Facebook wall.

Newsfeed Badge "Player":
Once posted on a fan's Facebook newsfeed, viewers can interact with the dynamic music badges. Once expanded in a viewer's newsfeed, the badge can play one or more tracks and allows the viewers to purchase the album or click by including links to iTunes and/or Amazon.

Comprehensive Campaign Component:
It is also possible to integrate badge marketing into other, more comprehensive marketing campaigns. For example, this Nirvana Nevermind 20th email subscription application adds a marketing badge to make it more interesting and interactive on both Facebook and Twitter.