10 Ways to Make Your Blog Post Interactive

Static marketing content is just as outdated as pure print newspapers. Just as one-day newspapers lie on the streets, static digital content is useless for the average reader. With such a flood of static marketing content, a piece hardly stands out from others, which means that brands merge and ideas fade.

Readers yearn for the dynamics of interactive digital content. A Interactive study measured the success and overall sentiment of marketers in terms of interactive content. In terms of effectiveness, 93% of marketers say that interactive media is a great way to educate buyers. 88% say it is effective in differentiating brands, while static is only effective in 55%. Not convinced yet? Did you know that? Interactive content also leads to 2X more conversions as static content?

Despite these numbers, many marketers shy away interactive content. This could be because it has a reputation for being expensive and labor intensive. But that’s an unfair reputation. Indeed, creating interactive elements is easy, quick, and even free.

With these ten tools, you can instantly interact with customers who are attracting them, converting them to higher rates and giving feedback to improve your business.

1. PlayBuzz

The original PlayBuzz site is intended for the average internet user who is interested in which Hogwarts house they belong to or who is testing their knowledge of television programs from the 90s. However, PlayBuzz Business site is tailored to empower companies to generate an interactive feature, embed it in their marketing content, and watch how engagement increases and their network grows.

With PlayBuzz you can create free countdowns, surveys, personality tests, flip cards, trivia, rankings, general lists, gallery tests and a swipe voting function popular with dating apps.

Each element has an appealing quality that attracts the attention of readers and can communicate information quickly and visually. It also keeps visitors on your site longer and is designed for sharing on social networks.

When choosing from so many options, think of highly interactive features like quiz and swiping are good for social platforms and visually driven posts, while flip cards and surveys are good for text-intensive content.

Think of your company’s brand and voice when designing these embeddable features. This ensures consistency and adds the bonus feature that customers appreciate. The best way to track the success of PlayBuzz content is to monitor social performance in terms of shares, engagement, and views.

PlayBuzz is also easy to use, so you may forget that you’re playing with the design tools and fun features while playing. Check out these flip cards we made with them.

2. SlideShare

Slide presentations are something that almost every professional has seen or used, be it from business training, college lectures, or group projects. Bringing information into a compressed, easily digestible format is one of the most popular marketing, sales and offer tactics due to its familiarity and logic.

SlideShare can be embedded in any blog post and subdivides a topic for readers in a more visual and attractive way than static sections of text. Try it out with an existing post that needs more visits but contains valuable content.

Take text from the blog, simplify it for each slide, keep the word count to a minimum, insert a CTA in the last slide, and include the function somewhere in the post. If you place the slides on top, you can insert a friendly disclaimer, e.g. B. “You don’t have time to read the rest? We have summarized it here for you.”

Readers appreciate options for including information and really appreciate it if you understand their limits. SlideShare converts already written content into high-performance data snippets.

Do not think of SlideShare as a place where you can put all information in bullets. Think of it as a place where you can present an idea visually and condensed. Including a large amount of information in a slideshow could be a good challenge. This exercise will help you write briefly and concisely and immediately think about content.

Give priority to the most important points instead of putting an entire blog post in a slide show. Graphics, statistics and quick thoughts are particularly effective with SlideShare.

In the following example, Orly Ballesteros, a business event organizer in the Philippines, created a SlideShare for easy digital marketing for your business.

3. Make a GIF

Regardless of how you pronounce it (“JIF” or “GIF”), these little graphics are characterized by being entertaining and fun to add to your digital content. It shows that you have a sense of humor and don’t take yourself too seriously. However, make sure that you use GIFs sparingly and only for appropriate topics.

Many websites have tools for creating your own animated GIF or a domain with popular tools for every emotion and situation. These images also ensure the use of BuzzFeed-worthy titles and descriptions that belong to the GIFs you selected.

This type of interactive content is ideal for social platforms due to its striking element and viral properties. These traits work well to easily track social success by monitoring stocks, preferences, and engagement.

When choosing or creating a GIF, make sure it is a reference that your audience will understand. You don’t want to use a GIF from a popular TV show if your customers probably don’t know it. However, if your content often contains references to pop culture, you can use GIFs as freely as you want.

Websites like GIPHY Do the art of finding the right GIF quickly and entertaining, while offering you everything you need for your audience.

Take the GIF below – I typed “content marketing” in the search field, found this Mad Men jewel and just copied the embed code into the blog. Easy!

Image source

4. Qzzr

If the products or services you market are good for interviewing your potential customers, Qzzr is the right tool to keep them committed. With this free quiz platform, you can create a quiz in minutes, embed it in any post, and track the results. It also comes with a WordPress plugin for easy integration.

Customers love to test their knowledge to prove how much they know. They also love to reveal parts of their personality and discover new sides of themselves. If you offer your customers these opportunities through quizzes, this is the perfect gateway for interaction and connection.

Keep the tests as short as possible so as not to tire your readers. Make sure the answers are targeted and do not allow quiz participants to avoid questions. There is nothing worse than a vague answer and worthless results. And there is nothing better than seeing customer interactions and the fruitful rewards being specific.

You can use a quiz if you are trying to target certain products or services to your customers when they begin their purchase journey. The fashion delivery company Stitch fix All first-time users must take a fashion quiz to determine which products they like best.

You can emulate this model or use a quiz to test your customers’ knowledge of your industry, current events, or other relevant topics. Readers especially love quizzes that tell them which car, building, period, scientist, politician, pop star of the 1980s, etc. are closest to them.

The great thing about Qzzr is the possibility to integrate into CRM systems. With this function you can track the success of each quiz, retrieve data from the results and address customers more precisely and personally.

5. Podcasts

Podcasts are not just for Serial fan or listeners to the public radio. The audio format is a gold mine for the busy professional. It gives multitaskers the opportunity to consume your content on their terms. There may not be enough time during the day to read all the content distributed in certain industries or to interact with certain companies.

However, if marketers give professionals the ability to take full advantage of static content on their daily commute without burying their faces on a screen, interest and customer conversations can increase. It is also great for audio learners and is a much more casual and open environment for getting guests and commentators to have a fruitful discussion.

Study before you create a podcast. Listen to all types of podcasts to find out what works. It is also good to pay attention to what length is appropriate. As you get more downloads and wait for shorter episodes, your customers may want a quick chat. However, if you see a longer demand for podcasts, your customers are likely to appreciate deep insights into specific topics.

Bring guests for a fresh perspective. Try implementing different segments to resolve the monotony of a single episode. But make sure you immerse yourself in the groove of podcasting before you give up or count on your early success.

As you develop your podcast and find out what works, you can customize and develop episode by episode based on listener feedback or performance statistics. The key is to keep your eyes and ears open. Podcasting is just as much about listening as it is about speaking.

6. YouTube videos

Similar to podcasts, embedding a YouTube video in your blog posts can make your post more interesting.

When you add a video, readers have the option to watch a video instead of reading the post. This means you won’t lose readers who are more interested in video content.

It also makes it easier to scroll through your post and gives readers the opportunity to interact with and engage with your post.

For example in the post Office In the following, HubSpot has embedded a YouTube video in a blog post that explains pillar pages and topic clusters.

7. Diagrams and graphics

Another way to make your blog posts more interactive is to include charts and graphs. Adding visualizations to your blog posts will help your readers understand and analyze the information.

You can create your own diagrams and graphics using visualization tools, or you can hire a graphics expert to do so.

While it may seem like a daunting task, creating a visualization can actually be easy. In fact, you can create charts in a simple program like Excel or Google Sheets.

In the following example a British company Carvill Creative Contains a table that readers can use to visualize the expert opinions of the tour.

8. Infographics

Not to repeat it again, but to make your blog posts interactive, you should include multimedia elements in the post. As a bonus, these elements also make reading easier, so users are more likely to read the entire post.

One element that can help you with this is infographics. In fact, you can sometimes create an infographic to communicate most of the information in a blog post.

For example in this HubSpot blog postWe added an introduction and then let the infographic speak.

9. Pictures

Another great way to add interactive elements to your blog posts is to include images.

First, it helps readers visualize what you are talking about. Second, pictures are just more interesting to look at.

For example this post on The edge, contains a moving image so that readers can see a demonstration.

10. Draw quotes

If you’re looking for a way to include a simple, interactive design element in your blog posts, look no further than a pull quote.

Pull quotes are just snippets of text from your blog post that contain the key information.

Reading a pull quote should involve your reader and interest him more in what you have to say. Hopefully, if you skim over a pull quote, you will be encouraged to dive into the post because it is so interesting.

Interactive content determines the marketing landscape for now and the foreseeable future. There’s no denying that customers want more than just block text on a page. You want to dive in, learn more, give feedback and get to know the company.

Just make sure you balance the message within the format and you should see success. Trying one of these methods should lead to an increase in engagement and possibly even leads without the headache of a complicated tool and won’t cost you a cent.

Editor’s Note: This entry was originally published in February 2016 and has been updated for completeness.