Tracking group challenges with an online app

In 2007, as Fitbit launched, Wired coined the term "quantified self." While not new, accessible devices revolutionized habit tracking. Smartwatch usage has surged, growing from 1.3 to 7.2 percent in five years, driven by our fascination with comparing data with peers.

This interest in comparison has fueled the rise of group challenge tracking apps. These trackers extend beyond fitness to areas like learning and corporate goals.

Tracking our achievements it nothing new. But with digitization it got a lot easier. And a lot more exciting!

Examples of effective group challenges

There are plenty of challenge trackers designed for fitness competitions. And these are great for staying on target with exercise and movement goals. However, there are plenty of other uses for tracking apps. For example:

Corporate & Community Challenges

Do you want to initiate a company-wide challenge to stimulate team morale? Or maybe you want to rally your community around a specific cause? Here are a few ways you can keep motivation and engagement high with a group challenge app that integrates a real-time leaderboard.

• Corporate wellness programs: Events like a running challenge or a strength training challenge with participants tracking their own progress along the way help hold employees accountable for their health and fitness.

• Team or department competitions: Using a tracker to track productivity brings company spirit to field and remote workers, helping increase camaraderie among a distributed workforce.

• Scavenger hunts: Generate interest in your neighborhood, nature, or local art institutions by organizing a scavenger hunt and tracking each group's progress.

• Charity events: Host an event to raise money for a good cause. This can be anything from a marathon to a walk-a-thon to a virtual run. Or you can also track time spent doing charitable work, e.g. community service hours.

Make helping others even more rewarding with a charitable work challenge.

Educational & Personal Growth

Take the competition to the classroom with some fun challenges that are geared towards enhancing the learning experience.

• School and classroom competitions: Inspire students to give it their all by awarding points for a job well done. Our favorite go-to is the Harry Potter House Points Challenge.

• Reading and learning challenges: Make reading even more fun by creating exciting reading challenges that invite readers of all ages to explore new books, genres, and authors.

A reading challenge will motivate students to get off their devices and into a good book.

Fitness & Health

And of course there are plenty of ways to get in, stay in, and improve your shape. In fact, there are countless options for fitness competitions since, as mentioned, there are so many devices and fitness challenge apps that allow us to track our every waking (and sleeping!) moment. This means you can get really creative. Maybe a “most hours slept” challenge for kids who never want to go to bed. Or investment bankers putting in too much overtime!

• Workout challenges: Track step taken, or distance cycled, or number of workouts completed.

• Transformations and habit formation: Help participants stay on target with new habits and good behaviors by challenging them to see who stays committed longest.

• Overall health tracking: Keep tabs on participants' overall health by having them track how much water they drink, how many hours they sleep, and how active they are.

Keep everyone motivated to get in shape with a fitness challenge.

Using an online group challenge app

KeepTheScore has been helping businesses, sports clubs, schools, and individuals track their success and achieve their goals with our leaderboards and scoreboards for years. Here are the features that differentiate our tool and make it such a hit among users:

• Participant signup: This feature allows participants to sign themselves up for the competition, change their profile pictures, and track their own stats, making it much easier for the coordinator of the challenge to manage the event.

• Zero-integration: Participants can access the leaderboard via a shareable web link on their mobile devices or laptops. This means no installation of external apps.

• Social features: Our leaderboards allow you to turn on a comments section so the community can interact with one another and cheer each other on.

• Real-time leaderboards: Real-time updates make our leaderboards highly engaging.

KeepTheScore knows that you’re more likely to stay on target when performing challenges in a group.

Getting Started with KeepTheScore

It’s incredibly simple to kick off your challenge with a KeepTheScore leaderboard.

1. Create a leaderboard by clicking the button above.
2. During the process which follows you will have the option of choosing between
   • "Add names manually"
   • "Enable Participant Signup". 👈Make sure you choose this option
3. After the board has been created, click on the "Registration page" button.
4. Setup the registration page and then share the registration link with participants.
5. Participants can create an account and join your leaderboard.
6. Once registered, participants can update their own name, score, and profile image

Now it’s time to track your challenge goals!

A scavenger hunt challenge is a great way to explore a new city or learn more about your surroundings.

What challenge do you need a little help getting motivated for! And how are you using KeepTheScore to keep you on track? If you have any questions or insights, share them with us in the comments section! For regular inspiration on how to use KeepTheScore delivered right to your inbox, sign up for our newsletter.