Member Activation Vs. Gamification in Online Communities - What Actually Drives Engagement

I just had a long discussion with my team about improving engagement in our online community.

Specifically, the KPI we were targeting is posts/member ratio. Currently it's around 0.6%; which I believe is too low for our niche. We're looking for at least 1-1.5%.

We talks about gamification, points, badges and leaderboards. We thought about rewarding our top and frequent contributors. It's the usual playbook.

We noticed a pattern. New users don't ask questions or respond. A typical user takes about 4-5 visits before they take the simplest action - liking a post. If we could somehow get our members to take the first action right after signup; we can improve the engagement and hope that they'll post more.

We juggled a few ideas and I felt like we are mixing two different ideas: member activation and gamification.

Gamification feels like - hey you shared a post; here's your badge.

Activation is more about - hey, thank you for joining our community. Here's the first action you could take.

Our members aren't lazy. I don't know if what stops them from taking the first action. Maybe they are not sure if they'll be accepted in the commnity.

I am curious - how do you think about this? How do you differentiate between activation and gamification? What's working for you?

PS: We are an early stage community for SaaS. Thank you for your time in advance.