Here’s a fun fact for you: MySpace reached a million active users in the early 2000s and the world has since been increasingly enamored with social media. Just 2 decades later, there are nearly 4.5 billion people who use all sorts of social platforms, from Facebook to Twitter, and everything in between. 

I credit this surge largely to fun – and often time-consuming – interactive social media posts found across all networks. And while you might not be aware of it, I’m sure you’ve across many of these posts while you were thumbing through your feed. 

So, what are they? And how can your small business benefit from them? I’m answering both of those below, so stick around for a couple of minutes. Oh, and while we’re at it, I’m giving you 9 examples that you can use for your brand, too. Let’s start!

What is an interactive social media post? 

Interactive social posts are, well… posts that are designed so your audience interacts with your content. A common example would be the Quiz option on Facebook and Instagram where you can ask your audience a question and they pick between 2 or more choices. 

Naturally, there are many other examples you can use for your small business but we’ll get to them shortly. 

Why should small businesses have interactive social media posts?

In a nutshell, your small business should have interactive social media posts because it helps maximize your engagement and reach while on a limited budget. They can also increase the success rate of your social media campaigns. 

“How?”, you ask.

Many interactive social media posts are personalized.

Meaning your audience gets different outcomes depending on how they choose to interact with your content. This personalization is entertaining and engaging while also encouraging your audience to stick around for a while longer. It’s like the DJ playing a good song when you were about to leave the party. 

Buzzfeed’s many, many quizzes are perfect examples of these types of posts but other brands do similar things. With a bit of effort, your small business in Upstate New York can do them, too!

These types of posts can help your brand be more visible.

This circles back to your audience staying in your post for a bit longer. Many social networks, including Instagram, have algorithms that push posts to the front of the line based on the time people spend on them. Hence, why reels are now flooding your feed instead of photos. 

Since interactive social media posts entice your audience to engage with your content, they naturally spend more time on it as well. 

Interactive social media posts can help you go viral.

Content like this tends to be highly shareable and has more comments than many other posts. 

This is because of the “personalized” and entertaining nature of interactive posts. When your audience relates to your content and finds it enjoyable, there’s a good chance that they share it on their feed. 

Take the post from 9GAG below as an example. A large majority of the comments and shares on that post are people writing down the first 3 words they found. Their friends also found it entertaining, so they did the same thing. 

You can use it to gather personal information.

Information has always been key to the success of marketing strategies. 

Particularly for digital marketing, demographic information can help give you a more accurate representation of your buyer’s persona while contact info can help you generate more leads. You could even design your post in a way where your audience (knowingly or unknowingly) tells you what type of content they want to see. 

For example, let’s say you’re selling adventure clothing and you made a “matchmaker” that asks your audience about their name, gender, sizes, style, travel habits, and email address. Marketers all over the world would give up a limb for that type of information.

9 Examples of interactive social media posts

1. Quizzes, polls, and surveys

These types of posts can be easily created on Facebook and Instagram Stories. They can also be created on Facebook groups that you belong to. 

They look a little different from each other but they’re the same in that you present a question to your audience and they have at least 2 choices. 

In this example, let’s say you’re selling vintage items and antiques. You came across a set of Minolta camera lenses that you want to sell but you’re wondering which one you want to prioritize. So, you joined a photography group on Facebook and started a poll.

2. Questions 

Questions work both ways – you either ask your audience a question or you let them ask you something. 

The difference between “questions” and quizzes/polls is that the former doesn’t have options for answers. It’s more open-ended and free. 

This is from one of our stories on our Instagram page where we ask you, our audience, what your business goals are for the following year. 

That being said, you don’t have to limit yourself to Facebook and Instagram Stories either. Question-type posts can be posted as an image with your audience replying to you through the comments section. It could even be Youtube Reels or a TikTok video if you want it to.

3. Games

This can be anything that comes out of your imagination as long as the games you create are related to your niche. Among the more popular ones include word searches, crosswords, and those BuzzFeed quizzes that dominate social media feeds. 

Since we’re talking about BuzzFeed, let’s use them as an example. 

They make a lot of their money through advertising. So the more people on their website, the more money they make. Having said that, one of the ways they drive traffic is through their quizzes. 

The social media posts they create have short but compelling headlines, eye-catching images, and a link to the quiz’s page. If the post gains traction, they automatically gain more money. If it doesn’t, at least the post (not the game) took little time and effort to make. 

4. Going “Live” 

Really, this is just you broadcasting yourself in real-time. Coming from someone who follows several brands that use this, I think this is where the power of social media for small businesses truly shines. 

For one, it makes your brand feel more “human” because you or a representative will be right there talking to your audience. Two, your audience’s questions can be addressed very quickly while providing entertainment. 

Live Q&As, for example, is great for quick-fire responses to your audience’s immediate concerns. They’re also great at gathering data when you’re running out of ideas for your next content. 

Some of the most commonly used social networks for going live are Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, and Discord. 

5. Contests and raffles

These are among the most fun way to interact with your audience – and it gets you a ton of benefits, too. 

Depending on how you set up your contests, you can get user-generated content that you can use later on, a power-up to your brand’s reach and authority, a viral post and/or hashtag, and more engagement than many of your previous posts. 

Also, the beauty of these contests is that they can be anything you want them to be as long as it relates to your brand. 

As an example, I once had a small pizza business amid the pandemic. I ran a contest that grew my page’s followers which, ultimately, increased my sales through new and repeat customers. All that and it only cost me 9 pizzas (which was about $20 in total). 

6. Tag a friend

This is one of the most popular types of interactive social media posts largely because it’s easy and effectively promotes engagement. 

Put simply, all you have to do is ask your audience to tag a friend who also relates to your post. That friend could tag someone else or comment a reply. Either way, your engagement goes up and your post shows up in more feeds. 

For example: 

• A sports brand might ask its audience to “tag someone who can’t guard you”. 
• A fashion company might ask its audience to “tag a friend you want to go shopping with”
• A travel company might ask its audience to “tag a friend you’d go to this beach with” 

7. Fill in the blanks

These types of posts encourage comments and shares, making them great for your brand’s visibility. The more comments and shares your posts get, the more likely they’ll be visible to your audience’s friends list. 

As usual, these can be anything but they have to be related to your niche. Also, you can use your audience’s answers as ideas for your next content. 

Let’s say your business sells cookies. You could post something like the following: 

• If I had one cookie to eat for the rest of my life, it would be _____
• The cookie I can’t live without is _____
• If my spouse was a cookie, they would be _____
• _____ cookie is Santa’s favorite cookie

8. Calculators (e.g. “how much money you can save if you switched to solar energy”)

For these, you will need to design a landing page on your website where your audience answers a set of questions and get their answer at the end. Businesses often also send the results to their audience’s email addresses, thus increasing their list of potential leads. 

However, these calculators often require more technological savvy than the average post. You can always hire someone to create it or you can learn how to do it yourself. Either way, when it’s done, it’s going to help bring in a lot of leads and traffic to your brand’s website. 

When you’re ready, simply share the link to the calculator on your page and pair it with a compelling feature image and an enticing headline. 

9. Challenges

Social media challenges have become a part of many people’s lives – and no, I’m not exaggerating. 

For example, many fitness and nutrition brands have raised challenges for their audience to exercise more and cut out junk food for a month or so. The people who participated in these contests went on to share their physical and mental changes on social media while crediting the page/business that started it. 

Your brand can have its own twist on these challenges, too. Or, if you think starting a challenge is too risky, you can jump on a trending challenge yourself. 

Conclusion

Interactive posts are some of the most powerful tools you can use to grow your brand on social media. They encourage engagement, increase your reach, gather useful data, and ultimately, boost your leads and sales. 

So, if you ever run out of content ideas, feel free to refer back to this page for examples that you can tweak. And if you’re still not satisfied, that’s fine. You can always apply for our free business evaluation. Because, who knows? Maybe we can help.