What's the difference between social media content that succeeds and social media content that simply exists? Interactivity. For every post that appears on your feed, your number one concern should be user experience. Like a good programmer, you want users to be invested in your social media content and react to your posts on a consistent basis - it's not enough to post a beautiful picture, a serious article, or some witty emojis.
It's considered tacky to direct followers to respond to a post in a specific way (no one wants to post, "like this post if you love avocados"), but a call to action is always necessary to improve social performance. Followers who passively consume your content don't become advocates; what a strong social media strategy leads to is evangelists.
You don't need to be blatant in your call to response, but to be clever about calling for interaction requires forethought.
Here's a recent example from an entertainment property I'm working on:
For this campaign, we decided to create a video that, when paused, would tell followers what character they most resembled. Very BuzzFeed, but also very strategic.
The engagement rate quadrupled for this one post, making it the most successful post of the entire campaign, without any paid media required. On its face, the video concept itself seems like simple creative, but strategy was required.
First, we knew our focus for this show was Facebook, where native videos are the top performing post type. So we needed a highly interactive video, not post, link, or embedded video. Second, we didn't want the call to action to feel forced - no "share this if you love this show moment." Instead, we simply asked "What character are you?" Fans chose to respond in the comments, without us specifically requesting they do so. Fans wanted to participate and interact with the content.
Third, it's easy to force interaction by creating content that's fun but not on brand. Posting an inspirational quote or funny cat video might bring in the likes, but it won't forward the momentum towards a team of organic brand evangelists if it's not on topic.
My favorite part of this successful post is that it became self-propagating-- fans shared their results and tagged their friends, allowing us to reach people outside our normal following without using Facebook expensive ad tools.
Strong interactive social content utilizes the platform it lives on, has an organic call to action that pushes fan engagement, and forwards the message of your brand. It's not easy to make a piece of content that fulfills those objectives every time you post, but if you hit two out of three you're on your way to social media success.
Main image via Shutterstock