What does your content marketing process look like? For many marketers, it goes “idea–>create–>publish–>promote.” While “promote” might be last on that list, it shouldn’t be last in your mind – it makes the rest of the journey worth your while.
What’s the use of spending your time and budget on developing amazing content without delivering a stellar follow-through? Make sure your content spreads like wildfire with a strong social media plan.
And the icing on the cake of your social media plan just might be interactive content. No matter how much planning you put into promotion, not everything you publish on Twitter will be a hit. Instead of sweating the social shares of every blog post, incorporate a little bit of interactive content to reach an audience looking for a quick, mobile experience.
The colorful, snappy examples below prove that interactive content and social are the best bonded pair in your marketer’s toolkit:
Alabama Outdoors
Alabama Outdoors built a digital community around their passion for adventure. With blog posts that feature the best parks and gear reviews, they carved out a niche in their state — and region — as the go-to authority for outdoor enthusiasts.
When they wanted to kick their reach up to the next level, Alabama Outdoors decided to go interactive. They told their happy social media followers on Twitter that they would give away 10 of their True Grit pullovers to lucky participants. Here’s the catch: to participate in this interactive contest, Alabama Outdoors needed their followers to share exactly where they would wear their new pullover. Alabama Outdoors used interactive content to build on an already solid conversation about outdoor adventure and apparel — but instead of just doling out advice, they asked for feedback from their community, too.
By crowdsourcing information about the preferences community members, they learned about the habits of their users — (mmhm, awesome data!). They also expanded the conversation to include how the visitor had heard about their brand as well as their preferences about the different kinds of pullovers available.
With information about the style, color, and pile their audience members prefer, Alabama Outdoors gave themselves the option to refine offerings and their content plan over time. Plus, the lead form at the end of their contest brought in a whole group of new consumers into their database. Where do I sign up?
Boston Content
The savvy marketers at Boston Content know their way around killer strategy and implementation. They know that contests have the highest conversion rate of any content type — and that’s exactly what you want when you’re prepping for a big event. Committee members timed voting for their first-ever “Boston Content Marketer to Watch” award with the lead-up to the Annual Bash. Through this contest, they increased engagement, heightened excitement and kept their social media promotion super personal.
Instead of just listing names, the marketers at Boston Content also included photos of nominees in their virtual voting booth. According to research cited by Buffer, faces are more memorable. KISSmetrics also recommends including faces in marketing campaigns to increase engagement — A/B testing found that when one website, Medalia Art, replaced images of paintings for sale with photos of the artists, they experienced a 95% increase in conversations.
No doubt, Boston Content’s super personal approach to event promotion contributed to their awesome numbers.
TrackMaven
TrackMaven empowers marketers by harnessing data to optimize their content. Their strategy allows marketers to quantify their most successful content — as well as their competitors’ top content — so their efforts hit the mark every time.
To interact with potential leads, TrackMaven shared a data-driven marketing quiz with their Twitter community. TrackMaven grounded their quiz with a smart icons that represent each of the four stages of marketing teams: data-aware, data-informed, gut-driven or data-driven. Pro tip: Always share an image on Twitter, as they can boost retweets by 35%.
TrackMaven’s user-friendly quiz garnered a 5% share rate and sourced valuable leads for their teed-up sales funnel. TrackMaven captured imaginations with their clever corgi icon, and gave prospects a sliding scale with a paw print instead of asking a simple multiple choice question. A little extra design effort made all the difference.
The quiz made a splash because it reflected the company’s visual branding, infused gamification into the mix, and offered immediate value — a short lead form at the end sealed the deal.
ServiceNow
ServiceNow captured the attention of their target audience with a simple but excruciating painpoint: password resets. IT employees spend one day a week helping customers to get new passwords. That’s a huge amount of time!
As a service management company, ServiceNow streamlines processes across a range of industries — and hopes to eradicate those kinds of inefficiencies. The title of their quiz “Password Resets: Have You Hit a Boiling Point?” mirrored the frustration of their audience in spending so much time on such a monotonous task.
By digging into a tangible, everyday challenge with empathy, ServiceNow stuck a chord with their audience. Seth Godin calls this approach “Selling the problem.” By revealing an issue that needs to be solved, marketers create common ground for a larger discussion about the solution.
ServiceNow’s content broke through the noise because it offered personal value — it took an emotional approach to the audience, which has a far greater impact. Seventy-one percent of B2B buyers who see personal value in a product will make an immediate purchase. By appealing to the target audience’s emotions with empathy, they struck gold with an 11% share rate on Twitter!
Target
Since new CEO Brian Cornell took the helm of our favorite red and white superstore, Target has revamped their approach to customer acquisition. Taking a big leap into all things digital, Target has harnessed personalization to revitalize their connections with their buyer personas. One of these ideal customers is your first-year college student — inevitably, these teenagers are looking for a stylish home away from home on a shoestring budget.
With their #MadeforU campaign, Target hit the bullseye. They created an interactive experience that gives college students the chance to create their ideal dorm room based on their personality.
This kind of knowledge is empowering for their audience — students are eager to embrace this new chapter and buy a lot of stuff, but may have no idea where to start in decorating a home. Target’s team allows participants to invite a roommate to find common ground between two styles, even making room for budding friendships.Target’s marketing team optimized the campaign to excel in social media channels. Their hashtag showed up in force on Instagram and Twitter — it was even a hit with vloggers on Youtube!
Conclusion
Now that you have reeled in new leads with interactive content on social media, how are you going to encourage them down the sales funnel? Interactive content doesn’t just hook in new leads — you can use digital forms to expedite and strengthen every aspect of the buying process.
Want to learn more about using interactive content in all your demand gen channels? Get our Demand Gen Marketer’s Guide!
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