From Like to Love: Increasing Social Media Engagement with Interactive Content
Arguably, the best thing about social media is that it breaks down communication barriers and allows consumers and brands to chat like friends. However, most consumers are on social media to chat with their actual friends, not banter back and forth with social media managers looking to push them through the purchase funnel.
With that being said, social savvy brands have proven time and time again that engaging on social can generate a great deal of goodwill in a very short span of time. Take, for example, Wendy’s recent Twitter exchange that gained national media attention for the clever and quick way the brand responded to a mean-spirited commenter. But not all social media interactions can be as perfectly off-the-cuff as Wendy’s, and to rise above the clamor on social media, most marketers need to create content that generates engagement, not just likes.
Images are No Longer Enough
By now, the idea that social media posts need images is practically gospel, but just to refresh, Tweets with images receive 150 percent more retweets than posts without images, Facebook posts incorporating pictures get 2.3 times the engagement of text-only updates, and articles with an image for every 75–100 words earn double the social media shares.
However, the problem with those numbers is that when every social media post is packed with images, no images stand out. Even great images can get lost in the social media shuffle, so these days, adding a picture is just the first step to getting audiences to stop and take a closer look at social media posts. The next step is to make social media not just visually, but physically stimulating.
Make Touch Screens Matter
As more and more users switch to mobile, audiences are literally closer to content than ever before. The act of holding content in the palm of your hand, rather than at arms length at a desktop automatically makes users more likely to want to tap and scroll their way through social media content. Inviting users to touch their way through social media messaging is a way to make content personal.
For example, click-to-reveal Twitter messaging, might seem counterintuitive. Why hide the image from the user? But the element of mystery created by putting users a tap away from the content is a great way to get audiences to stop scrolling long enough of to spend time with content. And, of course, tap-to-reveal discounts or special offers have the same spontaneous quality of spinning a wheel for a prize at the fair. Adding an element of surprise makes social media content more fun, and could earn a new customer in the process.
Let Audiences Control the Message
Another way to get followers to stop and stay awhile is to put them in the driver’s seat when it comes to video messaging. Recent studies show that 51 percent of all video plays are now on mobile. Auto play video on social media means users are exposed to more video than ever before, but getting them to stop and turn the sound on is a different story. Many brands are embedding interactive content into social media to make sure video spend counts.
For example, last April, Adweek reported that Taylors of Harrogate, a British tea company, had embedded a quiz into its Facebook video, garnering 4,400 likes, more than 200 comments, 400 shares, and a 35 percent engagement rate. That boost in engagement proves audiences are looking to interact on social, as opposed to passively watching autoplay ads. Asking the right questions can lead to more meaningful social media conversations.
Invite Engagement By Asking Questions
Buzzfeed has a great thing going with its often user-generated polls that ask readers to give their opinions on everything from 2000s fashions to ice cream flavors. Some of the best voices in social media are getting in on the action by using Twitter polls to ask audiences for valuable feedback. For example, at CES 2016, Amazon let users pick which panels they covered, which basically guaranteed an audience.
Communicating with followers via social media is all about making experiences feel personal. Building content around micro-engagements, like swipes and taps, not only keeps users in control of messaging, but also makes content feel as if it’s created specifically for audience delight rather than as a means of relaying a message. And as our smartphones increasingly become our main source of entertainment, the ability to engage increasingly becomes brands’ best means of earning attention.
Likes are great, but what you really want is love. And love starts with engaging experiences that mean something to your audience.
Anna Talerico is co-founder and EVP at ion interactive and blogs about interactive content at medium.ioninteractive.com.
The ion interactive enterprise SaaS platform empowers modern marketers to produce data-driven interactive content at scale and without code. ion’s marketing technology and services deliver measurable business value for hundreds of brands and agencies. ion’s platform launches, customizes and tests all types of engaging interactive digital experiences — infographics, ebooks, assessments, quizzes, lookbooks, interactive white papers, calculators, wizards and configurators. The platform delivers competitive differentiation, conversion performance and lead quality for in-house and agency teams. Connect with ion interactive on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Medium or visit ioninteractive.com.
