This guest post was written by Matt Simpson, Marketing Director at Bulbstorm.

At Bulbstorm, we couldn’t help but get a chuckle out of Neil Vidyathi’s Social Times post 5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Just Add Badges to Any Old Game or Website. The day before publication, we added a new feature to our Idea Challenges application for game-like marketing promotions on Facebook.

The new feature? Badges.

We implemented 12 non-branded badges that are attainable across all client campaigns within our application. We also added the ability for clients to create up to 12 branded badges in their respective campaigns.

Here are four reasons we did it:

Drive engagement via competition Our app facilitates engagement with brands by asking fans for their ideas (and rewarding the top idea as voted by the community) and by offering virtual currency redeemable for prizes such as e-coupons, branded merchandise, etc. But virtual currency doesn’t offer gaming mechanics because users’ balances dip when they purchase prizes. After all, kids don’t compare their tallies of skeeball tickets after visiting the prize counter! Badges and our friends-only leader board are additional hooks that give users a means to compete and a reason to engage.

Deepen the user experience Badges give users more reason to stick around. In the Tornados Flavor Challenge – the snack brand is crowd-sourcing the its 2011 product line – badge pages have accounted for more than 2% of page views in an environment with over 1,300 pages representing individual user-submitted flavor ideas. Since implementation, average time in app has increased to 5 minutes, 36 seconds per visit – key as we seek to expand our share of overall attention span rather than shift users’ attention from one part of the app to another.

Influence user behavior If users are clear on how badges are earned, badges drive desired user behavior. In our app, unearned badges are obscured visually and accompanied with instructions on how the badge is earned. In the Intel Phone of Tomorrow Challenge, users learn that the Ethernet Badge is earned by successfully inviting three friends to play and the Pocket Protector Badge is earned by commenting on 10 different ideas. (Note that our friends at Intel are looking for consumer input on their upcoming media phone product. And they’re offering over $10,000 in prizes – and up to 24 badges – to co-innovators.)

Encourage public brand endorsement A major objective of any social campaign is to drive users to share content about your brand. Badges with creative concepts and compelling designs entice users to show them off by publishing to their walls or directly sharing with friends. Badges have increased publishes to users’ walls more than 12%, contributing to more viral growth and personal brand endorsements

We understand that badges are not universally appropriate for every application. However, in many instances, and to achieve a broad range of objectives, badges can motivate users. That’s why we’ve been successful in using them.