It’s hard to stand out online today, particularly for small businesses. You have to capture your audience’s attention and keep them engaged, which is a challenge, given that you only have seconds to do it before they scroll on. So, how do you stop a person’s fingers on its scrolling tracks? The answer is interactive content.
What is interactive content?
Interactive content is any content that prompts your audience to participate actively. This can include quizzes, polls, surveys, calculators, and interactive infographics. It’s more engaging than traditional content like blog posts, articles and run-of-the-mill social media posts because it requires the audience to interact, and it gives an added benefit to the audience that they wouldn’t usually get, for example, entertainment factor or winning a prize. It helps to build an emotional connection with your target market, leading to brand loyalty and, importantly, increased sales. It increases your brand’s visibility and creates “buzz” on social media.
Interactive content examples
If you’re a regular on social media, you may already be familiar with the types of interactive content the best marketers use. To be effective, interactive content must benefit your audience as well, not merely to create buzz about your business. Here are some examples:
1. Quizzes – quizzes are fun to do if your audience will derive some benefit from them, for example, finding the perfect pair of jeans for their body type. A bonus for you as a business owner is that it helps you assess market demand and generate leads.
2. Polls – most people love to talk about their loves and hate, and polls are a great way of encouraging interaction and starting a conversation. It’s also a great way to get feedback on new products or services.
3. Competitions – another great way to drive engagement is to encourage people’s competitive spirit. It is even better when there is a nice prize for their effort!
Why is interactive content important?
In a world where algorithms are there to encourage people to keep scrolling endlessly on an app, interactive content encourages your audience to stay on your content, share that content with others, and even click on your website to learn more about your products and services, and ultimately, buy your product or service. As a business owner, interactive content marketing helps you gain valuable customer insight that you can use to improve your marketing and sales strategies.
Benefits of interactive content
The benefits of interactive content include:
1. Increased engagement – it’s more engaging than traditional content, which can lead to longer dwell times on your website and more page views.
2. Improved brand awareness – it helps to increase brand awareness by giving potential customers a chance to interact with your brand in a fun and engaging way.
3. Lead generation – it helps generate leads by collecting contact information from users who participate in your quizzes, polls, surveys, competitions and other interactive content.
4. Sales conversion – it helps to convert leads into customers by providing them with valuable information and insights to help them make purchase decisions.
5. Improved SEO – when you have an engaged audience lingering longer on your website, it will improve your search engine optimisation (SEO) ranking, which means Google will rank you higher in search lists, which then leads to more potential customers finding you and interacting with your content, creating an amazing positive feedback loop. Learn more about SEO here.
Interactive content for Instagram
Instagram is an excellent platform for sharing interactive content. Here are some examples for inspiration:
1. Use your Instagram stories to create quizzes, polls and surveys.
2. Behind-the-scenes content – use Instagram stories to give your followers a glimpse of what goes on behind your business. Giving your followers an “intimate” glimpse into your business has the same effect as intimacy in a relationship: it builds trust and connection. Learn about building trust with your customers here.
3. Product demos – use Instagram reels to give followers demos of your products or services. This helps provide credibility to your products and services as your followers will better understand how it works or what’s involved.
Best interactive content examples on the internet
Here are some examples of some of the best interactive content on the internet to get inspiration for your content.
1. The New York Times “Snow Fall” is an interactive long-form journalistic piece about a deadly avalanche in Washington state.
2. The Washington Post’s “The Upshot” blog uses interactive data visualisations to help make complex information enjoyable.
3. BuzzFeed’s famous “Quizzes” section offers readers fun and engaging quizzes on various on-trend topics.
4. National Geographic’s “Interactive Infographics” features visually stunning infographics that keep audiences returning repeatedly.
5. Spotify’s “Year in Review” is a personalised interactive experience that shows subscribers their top playlists from the past year.
The key takeaway
Creating and sharing content can boost your engagement, generate leads, improve your SEO ranking and increase sales for your small business.
Need help with creating content? Contact me.
