5 Types of Interactive Content That Will Help You Stand Out

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’re probably aware of the phrase “content is king”.

But, while this form of marketing is now being valued more than most others, it’s not enough to churn out a couple of hundred words and hit publish.

Why not?

Because more than three million blog posts are published every single day.

Standing out in noise is a fine art, which is why you need to really think about what you’re putting out there.

What is Interactive Content?

In its simplest form, interactive content requires active engagement from your audience.

Instead of passively watching or reading, they can get involved, receive personalized information, and glean immediate insights into their current situation, whether it’s help with their diet, marketing strategy, or something else.

While it all sounds fun and exciting, the vast majority of marketers turn their back on interactive content because they think it’s complex and expensive to create.

But instead of being a burden, it should be top of your to-do list.

Here’s why:

• Interactive content generates 2x more conversions than passive content
• 88% of marketers believe interactive content sets them apart from their competitors
• Interactive content gets up to 5x more traffic than other content
• 91% of B2B buyers would rather consume interactive content than passive content

If you’re eager to get started, I’ve put together some tips and tools that will help you create engaging and fun interactive content for your audience.

1. Polls and Quizzes

How many times have you decided that finding out what salad item you are is a better use of time than doing the laundry or finishing that report for your boss?

If you regularly find yourself clicking away through Buzzfeed-style quizzes, you’re not alone.

There’s a reason they are so compelling: they actively involve the reader and provide immediate results.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t really care whether your personality resembles a carrot or a radish, but getting that little surge of endorphins when we click “get results” is enough to keep us coming back for more.

But you don’t have to create inane quizzes.

You can also create polls that help you get to know your audience on a deeper level, and you can create quizzes that segment your audience so you can send out different content to them based on their results.

Who’s Using Interactive Quizzes?

Accenture, a software company that provides cloud advisory information for huge corporations, uses quizzes to qualify their leads.

When someone clicks “take assessment”, it’s likely they are interested in the ServiceNow offering. And, while the quiz helps Accenture find their people, it also gives participants immediate results that they can work with right away.

Your Interactive Quiz Inspiration

There are several different kinds of quizzes and polls you can create for your audience, like personality quizzes, popularity polls that find out whether your customers prefer X or Y, and questionnaires that solve a key problem your audience faces.

Tools like Quizzr, LeadQuizzes, Apester, and Quiz Maker all offer features that help you set up your quiz or poll and provide personalized answers.

2. Interactive Infographics

The internet was awash with infographics about five years ago.

Everywhere you looked there was a colorful, visual display of information that would have been typed up into a blog post before that.

And while it was easy to see that infographics were what the internet wanted, the static infographic has taken a backseat in favor of a more interactive format.

What does that mean?

It refers to infographics that highlight specific data that viewers can interact with.

They can click on certain sections and dig deeper into a set of statistics, or they can tweak the data input so it reflects their own lives to get a more personal reading.

Who’s Using Interactive Infographics?

The Evolution of the Web is a beautiful resource that allows viewers to dig deeper into the history of the internet.

Each browser is tracked in a different color, and there are markers of different historic events that users can hover over to find out more.

Your Interactive Infographic Inspiration

Try creating infographics that allow users to tweak the data so it’s more relevant to them, flowcharts that take participants to different outcomes depending on their answers, scrollable timeline infographics, or comparison charts.

Tools like Ceros, Visme, and Displayr have features you need to create clickable interactive infographics.

3. Interactive Videos and Live Streaming

The rise in popularity of moving content has been on an upward trajectory over the past couple of years, and it doesn’t look like it’ll be dying down anytime soon. In fact, by next year, 80% of all web traffic is predicted to come from video.

More marketers than ever are getting creative with their videos, too, with 20% using interactive video as part of their content strategy.

Of those, 78% found it to be incredibly effective.

Combining the much-loved video format with interactive elements makes for an engaging prospect, which is why new Digital trends like livestreaming have taken off. These types of in-the-moment videos are candid and authentic, and let viewers comment, like, and interact with the video as it’s happening.

Who’s Using Interactive Video?

Honda used a dual storyline in their interactive video for the new Civic Type R. Viewers could switch between the two stories by pressing the “R” key on their computer.

Your Interactive Video Inspiration:

Consider producing training videos that teach users something about your product by actively getting them involved; interactive demos and split narrative videos that require the audience to choose their desired ending; and narrative videos where each step is driven by the viewer’s input.

You can use tools like Storygami, Wirewax, and Vidzor to help you put together interactive elements in your videos.

4. Calculators and Measurement Tools

Interactive calculators, like quizzes, give participants immediate feedback (we’re back to instant gratification again).

They incorporate things like salary checkers, tax calculators, and headline analyzers where participants input personalized information to get personalized results in response.

Internet users no longer have the time to sit down and read an ebook or a whitepaper. Instead, they want fast content that they can consume immediately, which makes calculators and measurement tools perfect for lead generation.

When people go through something like a website checker or an ROI calculator and they see results they weren’t expecting, it’s hard for them not to sign up to find out how to fix it.

Who’s Using Calculators and Measurement Tools?

HubSpot knows how to do interactive content right. They have a number of interactive calculators and measurement tools, like their Website Grader and ROI calculator that help business owners figure out if they’re on the right track.

In return for entering their URL and email address (hello, lead capturing), participants are then given a free grading of their site based on a number of different categories.

Your Interactive Calculator Inspiration

Try creating an ROI calculator for your audience, where they can figure out how much return they’ll get on their business, property, or other investment. Alternatively, you might decide to create a pricing tool or a usage calculator for an area that’s relevant to your product.

There are plenty of tools out there that can help you put together an interactive calculator, like Outgrow, SnapApp, and Calculoid.

5. Interactive Ebooks and Whitepapers

Ebooks and whitepapers aren’t new kids on the block. In fact, they’ve stood the test of time thanks to how easy they are to consume.

Ebooks are still one of the most popular forms of content for marketers.

But the old days of static ebooks that run on and on for pages are no longer the life and soul of the party. Instead, marketers are looking at new ways to make them more engaging and to encourage readers to keep turning their pages.

The answer? Make them interactive, of course!

An interactive ebook is no longer a static collection of pages.

It has in-built touch screen capabilities that provide a sensory experience for the reader, whether it’s with additional videos, embedded quizzes, or interactive data points.

Who’s Using Interactive Ebooks and Whitepapers?

SnapApp’s What is Interactive Content ebook is an interactive ebook about interactive content – snazzy, right?

Readers can click to skim through the book, with questions that pop up on every other page for them to answer.

Your Interactive Ebook and Whitepaper Inspiration:

The possibilities are endless when it comes to interactive eBooks and whitepapers. You can share the results of your latest report, create a clickable case study filled with stats, or build a how-to guide that allows readers to get involved with interactive elements.

Tools like iBook Author and Kindle Textbook Creator will help you get your eBook ready to go.

Promoting Your Interactive Content on Social Media

Once you’ve created your interactive content, it’s time to get it out there in front of people. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram lend themselves perfectly to promoting your eBooks, quizzes, and infographics because they are sociable, interactive platforms in their own right.

Interactive content is usually pretty visual in nature, which means it’s more likely to be shared far and wide on social media.

How to promote your interactive content?

Since interactive content like infographics or eBooks or whitepapers are visually appealing, you can add a CTA like Learn more, Download now, signup, etc along with the links you share on social media.

You can also create a social media calendar or a content calendar and let your promotion run on autopilot! Here’s a list of social media tools that can help you get started..

Using Interactive Content to Engage and Convert

Interactive content is the missing piece in many a marketer’s puzzle. Gone are the days of boring static content, and instead we say hello to wildly engaging interactive content that lets us get involved and gives us instant results.

In a world where we want everything immediately, interactive content does the job, whether you want to simply connect with your audience on a deeper level or drive more conversions to your product or service.

What type of interactive content are you going to create? Let us know in the comments.