Content is the foundation of every successful social media strategy. It’s how brands connect, engage, and build lasting relationships with their audience. But with so much content competing for attention, how do you make yours stand out?

One of the most effective ways to boost engagement is through interactive social media posts. These posts encourage direct participation—whether through quizzes, polls, surveys, or interactive stories—helping brands capture attention and increase time spent on their content.

So, what makes interactive content so powerful? And how can you use it to drive more engagement and reach?

In this guide, we’ll break down:

What are interactive social media posts and why do they work?

Unlike static posts, which mainly generate likes and shares, interactive posts prompt audiences to take specific actions. For example, voting on a poll, answering a quiz, or submitting user-generated content (UGC). 

Static posts are typically aligned with goals such as lead generation, direct sales, brand recognition, or specific promotions. Interactive content is more user-focused, drawing the attention of the audience, building your brand reputation, and keeping them engaged with your content. 

This doesn’t mean you should focus all of your energy on interactive posts. Rather, interactive posts can be used to draw attention to the content that impacts your goals and improves your bottom line.

Let’s consider an example.

A coffee brand could post a “What’s your favourite coffee?” poll where users vote on their preferred types of coffee. This is a simple way to increase engagement, but it also subtly promotes the coffee brand’s menu. Additionally, it helps a brand understand what coffee they should post more!

If the brand posts this type of content regularly, it increases brand awareness and traffic, making users more aware of their products, services, and promotions. 

Top benefits of interactive social media posts (+ why they boost engagement)

As we mentioned earlier, finding a balance between static posts, videos, and interactive content is essential.

Below, we briefly discuss what interactive social media posts bring to the table. 

• Higher engagement rates: Interactive posts encourage clicks, comments, and shares by their very nature, improving your engagement rates. 
• Improved algorithm performance: Social media networks prioritise content that sparks interactions and engagement, boosting your organic reach. 
• Better audience retention: Users spend more time interacting with dynamic content, increasing dwell time on your posts as well as brand recall. 
• Valuable customer insights: Polls, quizzes, and Q&As provide direct feedback, giving you insights into audience preferences. 
• Increase conversion opportunities: Interactive posts can guide or encourage users toward sign-ups, purchases, or other desired actions. 
• Stronger community building: Two-way direct engagement builds deeper connections and brand loyalty with the audience. 

Types of interactive social media posts (+ examples)

Social media content comes in many shapes and sizes. Different content types serve a variety of purposes. Interactive social media posts are predominantly used to boost engagement and encourage audience engagement. They help brands to stand out in crowded social fields. 

Below, we outline some of the most effective types of interactive social media posts. Then, we offer tips for creating and measuring your content. 

1. Polls

Polls allow brands to gain insights into user opinions, spark conversations, and boost engagement with minimal effort. The concept is simple. Users quickly vote on a topic with a simple tap or click. The result of the poll either appears after you vote or when the time limit expires. 

Polls work well as basic entertainment for engagement and reach, but that’s not all. Strategically curated questions work well for market research and product feedback. 

Best suited for: X, Instagram Stories, Threads, LinkedIn, and Facebook. 

2. Quizzes

Quizzes are an engaging form of interactive content. They encourage users to participate by posing a question, usually based on knowledge, personality traits, or preferences. Again, they take a second or two to complete which is enticing to a social media user. 

The key benefit of quizzes is that they keep users on your page for longer. They’re generally used purely for engagement but can be useful for growth, reach, lead generation, and product or service feedback. 

Best suited for: Instagram Stories, Facebook, or TikTok. 

3. Q&A sessions

Question and answer (Q&A) sessions are live broadcasts, hosted by a brand, where they address queries and answer questions in real-time. They allow brands to engage directly with the audience live but may also be saved for publishing after the session has ended. 

The live element encourages audience input, which can lead to positive conversations, customer interest, feedback, and other insights. Q&A sessions are a great way to build relationships with social users. 

Best suited for: Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Instagram Live, Facebook Live, TikTok, and YouTube.

4. Comment and reaction-based engagement

Caption contests and reaction-based engagement invite users to write creative or funny captions for an image or video or vote vie leaving reaction or emoji in the comments section.

They tend to perform best when you offer a prize or officially announce a winner. 

Best suited for: Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), TikTok, and LinkedIn. 

5. Games and challenges

With games, brands have to get a little creative. If you get it right, you can encourage regular, if not daily, interaction from followers. The main advantage of game-style posts is engagement, eventually leading to increased reach and brand awareness. 

Popular games on social media include spot-the-difference images or brand-related trivia. Again, games generate more traction if you offer an incentive, like a shoutout, discount, or prize. 

Best suited for: Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), and TikTok. 

6. Contests and giveaways

Contests and giveaways are essentially an exchange of prizes for participation. There are several ways to run social media contests, but each platform has its own set of rules, so be sure to check them out, or you could run the risk of having your account suspended. 

Common contest and giveaway formats include liking, commenting, sharing, tagging friends, or a combination of all three. Contests and giveaways have the potential to go viral, especially those that require sharing. 

Beware of “compers”, who are social media users who seek out competitions all over social media. It’s common to experience an influx of followers when you run a competition and a decrease when it’s over. 

Best suited for: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X (Twitter). 

7. User-generated content (UGC)

UGC involves sharing content created by your audience.

It can include photos, videos, testimonials, reviews, etc. It’s an excellent method for creating a community feel with your brand. Sharing UGC works best when you combine it with a contest or regular feature. 

Before you share any content, it’s imperative that you have permission from the owner. Rather than sourcing the content yourself, request that users send it directly to you, and secure their permission to share it. 

Chobani, the yoghurt brand, ran a successful UGC campaign, mainly on TikTok, using the #SwitchTheCobaniFlip hashtag. The campaign was simple. Users filmed themselves flipping Chobani yoghurt in various creative ways to a particular song. The hashtag accumulated over 1.7 billion views on TikTok. 

Best suited for: TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. 

8. Interactive infographics and sliders

An infographic is a visual-based way to present information, data, or insights, often in the form of a graph, diagram, or a combination of the two. They’re not always interactive.

However, by presenting interesting information, animations, or questions, infographics can gain significant traction through comments and shares. 

Best suited for: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and X (Twitter). 

Gather All Your Social Media Engagement Into One Report With Sendible

Create your report now

9. Interactive calculators

Interactive calculators let users input information to receive personalised results.

Common examples include cost estimates, fitness metrics, or recommendations of some kind. Calculators are unique in that they provide value while driving engagement and conversions. 

A great example of an interactive calculator is Sephora’s “Shade Finder” tool. It allows users to input details about their skin tone and undertones to find their perfect foundation match. They promoted the tool heavily on Instagram and Facebook.

Source: Sephora Instagram

The interactive element encouraged social media users to share their results and discuss their experiences in the comment sections. This approach not only increased engagement on socials but also drove traffic to the Sephora website. 

Best suited for: Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), and Faceook

10. Live videos and interactive Streams

BTS content offers a look into a company’s culture, events, product creation, or day-to-day operations. The best way to promote this is through live videos, where you get to take your followers behind the scenes in real time.

This approach builds transparency and trust while making brands more relatable. BTS content can be built upon with further interactive posts, like Q&As, polls, or contests. 

Best suited for: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. 

11. Memes

Memes are a form of digital comedy, created by internet culture. Although it’s possible to create your own meme, you’re likely to gain more traction by using an already-established image or video along with your own caption.

While the meme post itself is not interactive, you can use the caption to invite users to add an emoji to confirm that they've experienced the same situation or share their take on the meme.

While memes may not significantly affect your bottom line, they can make your brand more relatable, leading to a more loyal community over time. 

Best suited for: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn. 

How to create high-performing interactive social media posts

• Know your audience: Tailor your interactive content to posts that resonate with your target demographic. Otherwise, you might see an increase in engagement, reach, and other metrics but no change to the bottom line. 
• Keep it simple: The idea behind an interactive campaign is to increase engagement without too much effort. Avoid complex instructions and keep it simple. 
• Leverage visuals: Focus on creating eye-catching visuals to capture attention. Sendible’s Canva integration makes it easy to create quality visual content. 
• Post at the right time: Schedule interactive content when your audience is most active. You can use Sendible’s analytics to identify peak engagement times. 
• Encourage participation directly: Sometimes social media users need a push. Prompt them with your copy and offer incentives, shoutouts, features, or prizes for getting involved. 
• Stay consistent: Post regularly to keep engagement numbers high and maintain a consistent and reliable presence. 
• Track performance: Measure success using key engagement metrics (more on this below). Sendible’s reporting tools provide detailed insights to help you with this. 

How to measure the success of interactive social media posts

Normally, it’s best to avoid putting too much weight on vanity metrics. Marketers are advised to put more emphasis on impactful data, like ROI and conversions. Since interactive social media posts operate a little differently, so-called “vanity metrics” are important. 

To gauge the effectiveness of your social media posts, here are some key metrics to focus on. 

• Engagement rate: Measures likes, shares, comments, and interactions. High engagement indicates your content is resonating with the audience, which is key for interactive posts. 
• Click-through rate (CTR): Shows how many users clicked on a link or call-to-action within your post. A high CTR means your content drives action, which is key to having your interactive content impact your goals. 
• Reach and impressions: Reach indicates how many users saw the post, including non-followers. Impressions show total views. If you experience follower growth with high reach and impression metrics, your content is working, at least in terms of growth and brand awareness. 
• Conversions: Tracks actions, such as sign-ups, downloads, purchases, etc. While the goal of your interactive campaign may not be to convert, achieving action based on your content is a major plus. 
• User-generated content participation: The number of users submitting content signals audience involvement. 

Most social media platforms offer built-in analytics, allowing you to monitor the performance of your interactive content. However, they have limitations. Furthermore, if you run campaigns across multiple platforms, you will have to compile the results yourself. 

Using a social media management platform like Sendible solves the tedious aspects of overseeing social marketing. Plus, it provides quality features to help you excel with your content and work more efficiently.

How Sendible helps you create and manage interactive social media posts

Managing interactive social media content requires planning, execution, and analysis. Having the right tools on hand helps streamline all aspects of your social strategy that go beyond interactive social media posts. 

The good news is that marketers have ample resources available to them.

With Sendible, you can efficiently create and manage interactive campaigns while unlocking new growth opportunities as a whole on social media. Sendible is designed with marketers in mind, allowing you to perform all the necessary tasks across major platforms for multiple clients.

Let’s take a closer look at how Sedible can help with interactive social media posts as well as other content. 

• Content scheduling and automation: As we mentioned, content tends to perform best when posted at optimal times. Sendible’s scheduling tools allow you to plan posts in advance and schedule them into your calendar at optimal times. While you can't publish your content directly, you can draft the post and set up a reminder notification to ensure you'll post it at the right time.
• Engagement monitoring and response management: Keeping up with comments and responses is crucial for interactive posts. The main idea is to drum up engagement which is often a two-way street. Sendible’s Priority Inbox allows you to scale community management by consolidating all interactions in one place.
  You can even prioritise certain messages or assign them to members of your team to ensure prompt responses. 
• Collaboration tools: For businesses with multiple team members, Sendible makes collaboration seamless. The tool provides workflow management, approval processes, and more features, ensuring content gets signed off by the right people and remains consistent. 
• Content creation: Interactive content must be eye-catching. Sendible’s Canva integration allows you to create and edit quality visuals with ease. This will increase the speed of your content creation process. 
• In-depth analytics: Track the performance of your interactive posts with Sendible’s analytics tools. Use the data to learn what’s working and what isn’t, before making any necessary changes.  

Interactive social media posts are powerful for increasing engagement and fostering connections with audiences.

If you can find a balance between interactive posts and other quality content, you can gain a significant edge in the market. With Sendible, your business can simplify content creation, track performance, and manage engagement efficiently. 

If this sounds like something your business could benefit from, try Sendible for free with our 14-day trial.