Add an interactive “touch” to social media content

In today’s digital age, most brands are aware that having a social media presence is essential. A lot of users are being fed high-quality content on a consistent basis from brands on social media. However, there are brands that still underestimate the value of engagement. Whilst creating high-quality content, brands miss the interaction mark by creating content that does not drive engagement. Many brands overlook the opportunity to engage with potential and current audiences. Yes, brands share high-quality visuals and post frequently but that alone is no longer enough. Customers’ social media expectations keep evolving and they yearn for more. They want a consistent reason why they should follow your brand on social media. Apart from learning about new products/services or the brand, showing support to a brand they like or being up to date with news, promotions/discounts, people use social media for various reasons.

Understanding why your customers are on social media should be aligned with your reasons for being on the platform your brand is on.

Speaking in the language your customer speaks and keeping them in the conversation can benefit your brand. On the other hand, when you interact regularly with your target audience, you are building the relationships that can drive conversions for your company. With that being said, brands should create content that will actively engage their target audience, and this is where this article comes in.

Before we move further with this discussion, it is important to understand what is meant by “interactive content”.

What is interactive content?

Interactive content refers to content that actively requires the participation of the user. Basically, this is content that users can click, play, answer, or otherwise engage with. In reference to the given explanation, you might still be confused as you may be thinking all social media content is interactive, since users can like, comment, and share it. Well, interactive social media posts are intentionally created to engage your audience in the sense of giving an audience a reason to interact with the brand’s content beyond the basic likes and shares. This might be as simple as asking a survey question. Social media content should indeed include a call to action (CTA). Interactive posts for social media should prompt a user to interact in a certain way. It is important to remember that content with a simple CTA may be a little less interactive than a quiz but still offer the audience an opportunity to engage. For that reason, interactive content is so important for your content marketing campaign. It provides you with an opportunity to engage with your target audience.

A brand’s audience already expects them to come up with quality content ideas. That’s why they follow the brand in the first place. However, producing creative, engaging social media posts on a regular basis can be challenging. This is where content marketers fall into the trap of creating content for the sake of creating it, and then later wonder why they aren’t seeing great results. When brands focus on interactive social media posts, they intentionally think about ways to get their audience involved.

Let’s look at the method a brand can use to create interactive posts for social media pages.

Creating interactive content for your brand

Understanding what content your audience likes to consume can help you develop the right interactive content for your social media pages. The more a brand gets to know its audience, the more it can deliver on the audience’s expectations. Interactive media encourages engagement so that you can discover more about the people who follow you on social media.

When reworking content, starting from scratch is not necessary. Interactive social media posts don’t need to be brand new for your audience. If your brand already has content, then you can simply just start adding interactive elements to them. For instance, if your brand’s content is about hair care, you can give your readers a quiz to take. Like asking them how often they should wash their hair and giving them a couple of options to choose from. Keeping the options simple is the key to getting your audience to react to them.

It is important to include a Call To Action (CTA). A CTA help will help your brand direct the audience to the next steps of the content they are consuming. A CTA can quickly entice your audience. Using the example made above, if you are giving the audience options to choose from, then your CTA can be “choose the correct answer”. Without CTAs, your brand could miss out on a crucial step of interactive posts for social media.

Wrapping up final thoughts

In conclusion, interactive content performs better than static generic content as it includes your customer in the conversation instead of speaking to them. This is because interactive content performs better when it comes to grabbing the audience’s attention. Another reason is that it increases brand awareness. In comparison to static content, interactive content has the potential to have more retention. Interactive content is what could help a brand stand out from the crowd.