In this post we’re going to take the position that social media works best when used as a gateway into email marketing which is where you’ll turn subscribers into buyers and make money.
This is one way to see things and not the only way, but from the data collected by Litmus, email marketing has an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent, or 3,600% whereas social media is much harder to pin down. Not saying you can’t make money from social media marketing, many companies do, we are simply taking the position that for the most reliable long-term growth it is best to funnel everything back to your email list.
This post is a guide on how to use interactive social media posts to create that funnel and get people onto your email list so you can acquire more customers.
What is an interactive social media post?
An interactive post is one that prompts people to respond. It is a two-way communication where your followers will have an opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions with you as opposed to the typical social media post that is a one-way communication where you share your thoughts and opinions with your followers but they don’t have a chance to respond.
Why do interactive social media posts work for list building?
Quizzes convert at a rate of 12.6% from view to lead. That is 5.4 times higher than what landing pages convert at on average according to Campaign Monitor. That is extremely high, and that number has stayed consistent since we launched interact in August of 2013.
There are two primary psychological reasons why quizzes convert at such a high level.
- Quizzes ask you about yourself, and you have a chance to talk about yourself. According to the Scientific American.
You may like to talk about yourself simply because it feels good—because self-disclosure produces a burst of activity in neural regions associated with pleasure, motivation, and reward.
Humans are relational creatures, and giving people a chance to talk about themselves promotes social connection and makes us feel good.
- Quizzes help you learn about yourself. A study conducted by a bunch of psychologists over time found that one big reason why we like to learn about ourselves is that it helps us understand other people better, which leads to more social connection and therefore more happiness.
Quizzes are able to offer these two opportunities in a way that other content isn’t able to because there is interactivity built into it. That’s why it has such higher conversion rates.
What are the logistics of creating Interactive Social Posts?
Spelled out in steps, this is how you will create and implement interactive social media posts.
- You create your interactive piece of content, which primarily means quizzes. You can create your own quiz for free using interact. There are other types of interactive content, but quizzes far out-perform in terms of lead generation conversion rates.
- Create a social post promoting your quiz. When people click on the link it will take them to your webpage (off of the social media platform) to take the quiz.
- Within the quiz your potential customer will answer questions, have a chance to opt-in, and see their quiz results which can include personalized recommendations for products and services.
How to Create an interactive Social Media Post
- Find a quiz you’d like to use (recommended): This method utilizes interact’s portfolio of professionally created quiz templates. They are sorted by industry so you can choose one that matches your brand and use-case.
- Create a quiz from scratch: If you’d like to start from the beginning and create from scratch that works too. Simply follow our best practices guide and build your interactive quiz.
- Whether you choose a template or create from scratch, add an opt-in form to your quiz, customize the text on it for maximum conversions.
- Add links to the results of the quiz. You can recommend resources, services, or products depending on what type of quiz you are creating.
- Embed the quiz on your page or simply use our built-in sharing URL.
- Create a social media post that links to your quiz so your followers can see it and engage.
Examples of Interactive Social Media Posts
Think of a quiz like your opportunity to chat with each person who follows you on social media. That’s obviously impossible to do, but the power of a quiz can scale your connection with people. For example, like this quiz from Outsider Coffee, they posted “What Coffee Fits Your Personality?” which emulates the type of conversation someone working at Outsider Coffee would have with someone who walks into their physical coffee shop. So it’s that type of conversation but taken to social media.
- Outsider Coffee Co.
Questions
The fun part of this being an online quiz is that you can mix mediums. This example question uses a fun personality type question mixed with an emoji, crossing up psychology and emojis. This quiz has 9 questions, which is right in the range of interactivity, most quizzes that convert well have 6-10 questions depending on how much information you need to make a recommendation. If you need some inspiration on what questions to ask, interact has a quiz question bank for you.
Opt-in form
Interactive quizzes have opt-in forms built right in, and these forms integrate directly with your email marketing system so you can filter/segment your new leads based on which quiz result they get or based on answers to specific questions. This is powerful because advanced personalization in marketing increases ROI by 70%, so not only will you have an email, but now you’ll also benefit from personalization!
Results
I wish there was a better way to tell you how engaged people are when they see the results of quizzes, but from anecdotal responses there are stories of people being brought to tears by a quiz result that speak to them, and the conversion rate of personalized product recommendations increase average order value by 369%.
Quiz results speak to people because they’ve just told you a lot about themselves in the questions, so whatever you say has a captive audience. With interact you can use pre-made quiz templates to make sure you offer value in your results, or follow this guide to writing your own quiz results.
- Witt & Wire: Podcast Coach
Here’s another interactive post example, this time from a podcast host who is asking “What’s your podcast host advantage?” which checks out because that’s probably something she’d help her potential clients discover in an intake conversation. So she’s simply translating those in-person conversations to a quiz that attracts and converts people on social media.
- Mellisa Lin: Business Coach
As a business coach who helps companies break through whatever is holding them back and grow, Melissa Lin often identifies which strategies will help her business clients grow. So she turned that concept into a quiz that can be posted on social media, help people find their growth strategy, and get those people onto her email list for further nurturing into customers.
Create Your Own Interactive Social Media Posts
To run back the numbers real quick:
- 12.6% of people who view an interactive quiz become a lead
- Email marketing has a 36:1 ROI – you make $36 for every $1 you spend
- Personalized recommendations have 369% higher order value than generic product sites
Put those things together and it makes a compelling case for creating interactive social media posts in the form of quizzes. To get started, choose a quiz template or create a quiz from scratch.