If I am a email marketer, I will track my click through rate, and open rates. If I am a CEO of a public company I will keep track of the stock price of my company. If I am a runner, I track my speed, time and miles.

What ever we track gets improved.

That’s why people who track their facebook likes and twitter followers, try to get more of them. It’s a good gamification technique but for us its important to track the metrics that matter and optimize it so the numbers are sustainable.

An marketer can give away free stuff or use spammy techniques to hit his numbers, a CEO can game the accounting and a runner can take illegal drugs to boost performance but those are all short term number hitting techniques.

Providing value to the end user solves all the bottom line number hitting problem better than any technique I know.