Interactive Social Media Content

As social media continues to evolve, so does the challenge of producing organic content that performs well on social platforms. For the last year or so, the leading social platform, Facebook, has been making updates to its algorithms in an effort to better facilitate closer connections with family and friends. They are also working to regain users’ trust after many privacy concerns.

According to the tech and social media news source, the Verge, Facebook recently announced at their F8 developer conference that the platform would be reprioritized around groups and events and start downplaying the news feed component of the platform¹. There is now more of an emphasis on Facebook events and stories in the news feed, and group interaction options are being mixed in with standard news feed posts.

These recent updates, along with Facebook’s robust advertising platform that seems to require you to “pay-to-play” to be able to reach an acceptable portion of your followers with your posts, can make reaching your audience through the platform a challenge. One way to combat these changes and give your social presence a boost, is to create better content, content that is interactive.

What is Interactive Social Media Content?

Lead qualification platform, SnapApp, provides one of the best definitions of interactive content.
Interactive content is content that requires the participants’ active engagement — more than simply reading or watching. In return for that engagement, participants receive real-time, hyper-relevant results they care about.²

Benefits of Interactive Social Media Content

Interactive social media content can deliver higher engagement rates than standard static social posts. It creates a two-way dialog between your brand and the social user. Creating interactive content that users are excited about participating in will not only encourage their interaction, but it will encourage them to share your content with others, both of which will help your posts’ performance combating Facebook’s algorithm changes.

Interactive social content also creates a user-focused content experience with the opportunity for personalized results. Personalization is a great way to set your brand apart from competitive brands and the plethora of social content users are exposed to on a daily basis. Interactive social media content allows your brand the opportunity to provide a unique value to your social followers.

In addition, interactive social media content also allows you to capture valuable data that you can use to help guide your marketing efforts. This could be in the form of names and email addresses, demographic information, or insights about audience preferences.

Types of Interactive Social Media Content

There are several types of interactive content you can employ in your social media programs to boost your results and maximize your investment in social media content development. Many of these can also be leveraged through other methods beyond the social media realm, including your website, email program and PR program. Here are a few types of interactive social media content to consider:

• Facebook Polls – Facebook has a poll feature built into its platform that allows you to create a post with two options for social users to vote on by simply clicking the image of their choice. Polls are a simple form of interactive content that can be a cost-effective way to boost engagement and uncover insights about audience preferences.
• Contests – Contests can be a great way to create a buzz around a specific topic among your audience. A popular form of contests are “enter-to-win” giveaways. Contests encourage user participation and interaction, and can be tied into many other components of your marketing program. Contests can be leveraged with new product announcements, the release of new content or seasonal topics of interest to your core audience.
• Quizzes – Social quizzes can be short and fun opportunities for your followers to engage with your brand. They usually consist of answering a few questions, and then providing a customized answer or outcome based on the results. When participants take quizzes and share the results on their social channels, their network of friends are likely to take the quiz as well. Quizzes also allow you to capture data from the questions answered to gain insights about your audience you can use in future content development or in other areas of your marketing program.
• Calculators – tools can take a little time and some resources to develop, but they can be a great way to offer unique value to your audience. Users simply enter a few key input numbers and through an established formula, a unique and personalized solution is given to them. Providing a tool that helps make your followers’ lives easier can be a great differentiating factor for your brand and position your company as an authority within the industry.
• Surveys – Surveys can be a great interactive social tool to gain valuable feedback and insights from your followers. People like to feel like their voice is heard and their opinions matter. Surveys provide a platform for users to be heard. A drawing for an award of completed surveys can be a great way to encourage participation and extend the reach of your content. Also, sharing some of the results with your followers can be a great way to position your company as a customer-centric brand.

Interactive social media content can help your brand’s social reach and post performance, differentiate your company, provide unique value to your customers and prospects and help position your brand as an authority within your industry and on social platforms.

Resources:
¹https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/30/18524068/facebook-f8-2019-keynote-highlights-summary-news-feed-messenger-instagram-oculus
²https://www.snapapp.com/interactive-content/
³https://www.singlegrain.com/blog-posts/content-marketing/7-types-of-interactive-content-why-and-how-to-use-them/
⁴https://blog.dot.vu/12-different-types-interactive-content/