If a picture is worth a thousand words, then social media videos are practically novels. Creating great video content that speaks volumes can make your brand as popular as the next Harry Potter. But that’s only half the story.
The other half is boosting user participation, ensuring your audience stays engaged and keeps the conversation going.
Not sure how to generate that all-important buzz?
Let Perspective Pictures put you on the right track. You can use these interactive techniques, engaging incentives, and smart strategies to grow your community and encourage sharing.
INCORPORATING INTERACTIVE FEATURES TO ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE
Social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube know what brands want. After all, they rely on engagement and user participation, too. These platforms have integrated built-in interactive features to help you engage your audience and drive participation.
With these features, you can invite users to interact with your videos in real time, creating a sense of involvement and community:
Polls and Surveys
Who doesn’t love sharing their opinion? No wonder polls and surveys are a fantastic way to encourage audience interaction.
On platforms like Instagram Stories, you can post polls asking your audience for their opinions on various topics related to your brand or industry. This drives participation and provides valuable insights into your customers’ preferences.
YouTube also has a “Community” tab where you can post updates, ask questions, and create polls. This keeps your audience engaged even when you don’t share full-length videos.
Challenges
From the Ice Bucket Challenge to the Lip Sync Challenge, social media challenges have become wildly popular. By creating simple yet fun challenges that align with your brand messaging, you can encourage users to participate by posting their own videos. This type of UGC (user-generated content) has taken many brands viral, and there’s no reason why yours couldn’t be next.
TikTok’s “Stitch” and “Duet” are stand-out UGC social media features that are perfect for challenges. They let users interact with your video content by creating their own versions or responses, adding a personal touch and spreading your content organically.
Q&A Sessions
Hosting live Q&A sessions via Instagram Live or YouTube is an excellent way to engage users in real time. You can field questions from your followers, which promotes interaction and personalises the user experience. By addressing user inquiries directly, you make your audience feel heard and valued, which, in turn, motivates them to participate in future content.
To build excitement around your Q&As, you can use Instagram’s Stories and Reels stickers, countdowns, and mentions to create interactive videos that invite users to participate and drive anticipation and engagement.
USING INCENTIVES AND REWARDS TO MOTIVATE ENGAGEMENT
Whether it’s a contest, giveaway, or exclusive offer, incentives provide an additional layer of motivation that can significantly boost participation rates. In fact, research shows that a worthwhile incentive can entice up to 50% of those who would otherwise not complete a survey to do so.
- Contests and Giveaways: A well-structured contest can quickly generate conversation around your brand. To enter, users can share your video, tag friends, or create their own video responses. Offering an attractive prize, such as a product bundle or a discount, increases the likelihood of user participation.
- Exclusive Discounts: Promoting exclusive discounts or early access to products for those who engage with your video content can also drive participation. You could include a special discount code at the end of your video, incentivizing viewers to watch until the end and share the video with their networks to gain access to the offer.
- User-generated Content Features: Consumers are often excited to see their contributions recognised by the brands they love. Ensure your UGC strategies include asking users to share videos of themselves using a particular product and then highlighting the best submissions in their main content feed.
CRAFTING COMPELLING CALLS TO ACTION (CTAs)
A call to action (CTA) is essential for driving user participation and telling them what to do next.
Your CTA should be clear, actionable, and inspiring, encouraging viewers to take immediate steps after watching your video content, and it should follow these rules:
- Be specific: Instead of generic UGC social media CTAs, try more specific, engaging prompts like “Share how you use our product using #OurProduct.”
- Encourage Sharing: CTAs like “Tag someone who would love this product!” allow users to actively participate in spreading your content.
- Highlighting User Actions: Show appreciation for users who participate in response to your CTAs by resharing their posts, commenting on their contributions, or creating follow-up videos highlighting their actions.
CREATING A COMMUNITY
The feeling of belonging to a community is crucial to encouraging user participation and engagement.
That, and FOMO.
When users feel like they are part of something bigger, they are more likely to engage consistently and continually interact with your branded content.
You can encourage this by creating a branded hashtag that allows users to connect with others who share similar interests. By encouraging users to share your content or their own UGC social media content using your branded hashtag, you’ll promote a feeling of collaboration and inclusion.
Highlighting user success stories related to your brand can also help create a sense of community. Transformation stories, before-and-afters, and customer testimonials all celebrate the user’s success from their perspective. By showcasing these stories, you publicly recognise their efforts, which often inspires others to participate and share their stories.
Just don’t forget that social media is like Swindon’s Magic Roundabout. It’s not one way.
As a brand, you need to actively respond to comments, like UGC social media videos, and share feedback. By personalising your interactions, you’ll build stronger connections with your audience, making them feel valued and more likely to participate in future content.
AMPLIFY YOUR USER PARTICIPATION (With a boost from Perspective Pictures)
When you combine the power of professional video production with these tips and UGC strategies, you’re on to a winner. The professional touch makes for immersive and compelling viewing, which, when used with a few smart tactics for driving engagement, gets everyone talking. Let Perspective Pictures’ talented team create cool content that encourages meaningful connections and transforms casual viewers into loyal advocates for your brand.
