How to use interactive content to increase engagement

Investing in interactive content is one of the main ways to achieve online engagement, which is so important to the success of a digital strategy.

This is mainly because competing with the huge volume of simultaneous data that the Internet has been producing in recent years is an increasingly difficult task.

To stand out, it’s necessary to stimulate user participation and to understand the public as a protagonist, and not a mere information receptor.

Interactivity is the key to generating value to the audience’s experience and accumulating positive metrics at the end of each month.

In order to go deeper into the strategy, we’ll address the following topics:

The role of engagement in Digital Marketing strategies

Before you get down to business and learn how to raise the bar of your content by using interactivity, it’s important to understand the value of engaging in Digital Marketing strategies.

Think about the amount of content that you, as a user, come in contact within a 24-hour time frame. We’re sure the volume is very high, right?

Of all the materials you access, how many do you leave a comment on — or take any action beyond viewing?

The user may like something when they see it, which is very good and contributes to brand recognition strategies in the future. But engagement is responsible for showing brands how many people actually like what they’re getting and how willing they are to interact.

Marketing and Communication Sectors don’t create content to draw them in right away.

There are metrics and strategies behind it, and the best way to achieve the goals is to get the public’s attention and earn all the engagement that comes as a consequence.

Users have been searching more and more for a value proposition. That’s why it’s no longer useful to perceive your clients as numbers on a computer screen: it’s necessary to understand their preferences, pains and difficulties, gather it all in an extensive database and transform the information into relevant content.

That way, be assured that the conversion rates will be much higher. People who create real connections with brands go beyond the customer level, become brand promoters, pass on their positive experiences, and generate even more potential for new opportunities.

The advantages of investing in interactive content

Minute by minute, people are overwhelmed by information coming from all sides: when they access news sites, log on to Facebook, take a peek at Twitter or post that selfie with their friends on Instagram.

A myriad of data circulates through the timeline of users worldwide, but not many contents survive time and remain in the public’s imagination.

You, as a brand, must conquer real space. Not just on smartphones or computer screens, but in real life. After all, the ultimate goal is the conversion into sales!

That’s why retention is so necessary. By investing in engagement, it’s possible to retain the loyalty of an audience attracted by the content and, more importantly, that wants to remain interacting and discovering new ideas.

Unlike the number of views of a post, retention is a metric of interactivity capable of predicting sales and mapping people who stand a better chance of becoming customers.

The best ways to work with interactive content

Content creators deal with the great challenge of keeping themselves in evidence. 

To use the interactive content strategy in the best possible way, there are some steps that you must follow thoroughly.

1. Define a goal

First of all, you need to define your campaign goal. The vaguer your action, the less chance it has of reaching the right audience and yielding conversion.

So, understand what the primary needs are, list them individually, and turn them into campaigns.

In social media and other channels, we can observe the growth of investment in unified content, which is part of a larger purpose and collectively responsible for achieving the brand’s objectives.

Your actions must cover the strategy in general, instead of just focusing on the next post. 

Once you have defined your objectives, you’ll be able to determine the best interactive content formats.

2. Create strategies focused on the persona

What works for one specific audience may not work for another. Therefore, to understand the best ways to conduct your approach, it’s important to have a very well-defined buyer persona.

Brands that work with high age personas — from age 55 up, for example — should take care that the material doesn’t get too complicated in a niche of people who don’t have the same skills as a digital native.

The same thing happens with profiles of people who live in very distant regions. When we think of our country’s extremes, we deal with places that don’t have good quality internet.

In that case, the idea is to work with more straightforward content and avoid those demanding longer loading time. The union between simple images and attractive calls to action can already be quite effective.

In addition to the two examples mentioned here, keep in mind that your entire strategy will change depending on the profile of people you want to reach.

Projects that try to embrace everyone at once don’t generate the same engagement as those that focus individually on each person who has interacted.

It’s necessary to understand, study, map, and find the main trends that can be transformed into interactive content suitable for each type of persona.

3. Understand which channels are suitable

The definition of the persona will also be essential to understand the best channels of promotion.

If most of your audience is on Instagram, for example, you should invest most of your creative force on this social media platform.

By working with this kind of analysis, you’ll enjoy each platform in the best possible way. 

It’s not every brand that matches a strategy in TikTok, for example. The social network that has been gaining the world has a very specific audience. 

By analyzing users’ profiles, we find that several brands can give themselves the chance to “ignore” such success and invest in those platforms where they can gain real relevance.

Bonuses: the best interactive content formats

After understanding the key information on the subject, and recognizing the importance of working with a strategy focused on seeking engagement, check out the best interactive content formats!

Live videos

Live content is a great way to ask questions and have personal contact with the public.

With them, you can create a two-way conversation — something that can be difficult to do on social media — and deliver personalized content.

Questionnaires

There are several ways to work with interactive questionnaires. This strategy allows you to engage the reader to keep them answering the questions, mostly due to the unique experience offered.

The Orbitz travel platform provides an excellent example. 

Through an interactive quiz, the reader answers if their traveling companion is the “perfect match”.

The quiz brings light and fun questions, leading the user to the very end. To find out the answers, the consumer just needs to convert, registering their name and email.

In the end, Orbitz makes contact to disclose the result and takes the opportunity to show how it can be useful in business travel situations.

Useful tools for your final client’s work

A good example is interactive calculators. Companies that have pastry chefs as end customers, for example, can create resources so that each person can add the recipe ingredients and find out the best way to price them.

When designed to facilitate the audience’s daily lives, interactive tools become great allies, not only in direct moments of purchase.

Brand strengthening and recognition, in this case, is powerful.

Interactive videos

Have you watched that episode of Black Mirror, where the viewer is responsible for the whole story?

Maybelline, a giant in the global cosmetics industry, ran a campaign using interactive videos in which the user could learn from a make-up tutorial based on their personal inclinations.

After the user marks their preferences, the video brings a complete tutorial matching the person’s style profile.

In this case, the interactive content also offers customization. Using the example of Maybelline, imagine how many of the brand’s customers enjoy colorful tones and how many are not very fond of heavy make-up. How is it possible to please both groups?

To please as many people as possible with static posts, you will spend a lot more time and investment in different content. It’s much better to gather different approaches in a single video full of interaction, enabling customization.

Whatever format you choose, always keep in mind the importance of really getting to know your brand’s audience and finding the best means to create an interesting dialogue for both sides.

Good engagement numbers are the result of excellent work.

If you enjoyed learning about this engagement strategy, download our Interactive Content ebook and learn how to take your content strategy to the next level!