How to Use Interactive Elements in Your Articles to Maximize Engagement

Meet your presenter

Shachar Orren, VP Content at Playbuzz. As head of the editorial team and trusted coach to top-tier publisher partners, Shachar will share her expertise in using #PlayfulFormats for driving engagement

Don’t take notes!

We will send you the resources at the end of the webinar!

Have a question?

Please ask questions in the question boxor Tweet at @PlaybuzzPublish

What’s on the agenda?

1. How do we define engagement?2. The cake engagement method3. Main Dish vs. Side Dish4. Matching the right format to your engagement objectives5. Examples

Why #PlayfulContent?

Snackable

Interactive

Mobile-first

Cross-platform

Optimizedfor social

Visual

Content consumption has changed

It’smobile

It’ssocial

It’s constantl

y disrupted

The Homepage is dying

Source: Atlantic, 2014

Users don’t read through entire articles(at least 78% of them)

Source: Slate, 2013

Social drives content discovery, not publisher brand loyalty

Social Media

Users visit

60% Web publishers get

of traffic through referrals from

Facebook on average

of internet users now discover brands via

social media

40%

12per month. The rest they stumble upon

via social media

URLs

Sources: Wall Street Journal, Forrester, Pew Research

Digital consumers:Always on & always on-the-go

43Check their

smartphones

times a day

Mobile

Most stories on the Internet are told “the print way”

VS.

SnackableTL; DR

1. Elvis had a twin.On January 8, 1935, Elvis Aron (later spelled Aaron) Presley was born at his parents’ two-room house in East Tupelo, Mississippi, about 35 minutes after his identical twin brother, Jesse Garon, who was stillborn. The next day, Jesse was buried in an unmarked grave in nearby Priceville Cemetery.Elvis, who spoke of his twin throughout his life, grew up an only child in a poor family. His father, Vernon, worked a series of odd jobs, and in 1938 was sentenced to three years in prison for forging a $4 check (he spent less than a year behind bars). In 1948, the Presleys moved from Tupelo to Memphis in search of better opportunities. There, Elvis attended Humes High School, where he failed a music class and was considered quiet and an outsider. He graduated in 1953, becoming the first member of his immediate family to earn a high school diploma. After graduation, he worked at a machinist shop and drove a truck before launching his music career with the July 1954 recording of “That’s All Right.”

2. Elvis bought Graceland when he was 22.In 1957, Elvis shelled out $102,500 for Graceland, the Memphis mansion that served as his home base for two decades. Situated on nearly 14 acres, it was built in 1939 by Dr. Thomas Moore and his wife Ruth on land that once was part of a 500-acre farm dubbed Graceland in honor of the original owner’s daughter, Grace, who was Ruth Moore’s great-aunt. The Moores’ white-columned home also came to be known as Graceland, and when Elvis purchased the place he kept the name.The entertainer made a number of updates to the property over the years, including the addition of music-themed iron entrance gates, a “jungle room” with an indoor waterfall and a racquetball building. After finding out President Lyndon Johnson enjoyed watching all three network news programs simultaneously, Elvis was inspired to have a wall of built-in TVs installed in his home. In 1982, five years after Elvis was found dead in a bathroom at Graceland, his ex-wife Priscilla Presley opened the estate to the

The three pillars of engagement

EmotionalExperience Define the

CTAPersonalizatio

n

Make the user part of

the experience

Like, Comment,

Share, Spend time

Surprise, anticipation, affirmation

Emotional experience: set the mood

Emotions of surprise and anticipation are frequently evoked by viral content.

Source: hbr.org/2013

Personalization: make the user part of the content

Personalization: make the user part of the content

vs.

Call to action: What do you expect your user to do?

#PlayfulContent formats

Gallery QuizTriviaPersonality QuizListFlip CardsRanked List

Countdown ListPoll

Open List

Photo Caption

Video

Soon

Soon

SoonSoon

Not replacing long form but enhancing It

VS.

Side Dish

Main Dish

The Dress

The Cake

Don’t make a cake and then add the sugar on top -Bake the sugar with the cake

What do we mean? Plan the engagement while planning your article

The Cake continued

Classic formats for in article engagement

Classic formats for in article engagement

Flip Cards• Add drama and surprise• Challenge without a final result• Users flip 83% of every card they’d

been exposed to• More time spent, interactive

experience

Classic formats for in article engagement

Ranked List• Let users rank

something they care about

• Democratize the listicle

Classic formats for in article engagement

Poll• Provide users with an outlet to

voice their opinion• Look for controversial content• More time spent, emotionally

involved

Classic formats for in article engagement

Trivia• Creates more impact than just a

challenge• Great for education, humor or

proving a point

How much time do you have?

10-20minutes

1-3hours

Less TimeCommitment(Lower impact)

• Flip Card Listicle• Listicle• Gallery quiz• Trivia quiz• Personality quiz

• Poll• 1 Flip Card• Ranked List

More TimeCommitment(Higher impact)

Mix n’ Match

Match Engagement

to Format

• Shares: Trivia, Personality• Comments: Poll, Rank, Personality with

CTA• Time on page: Poll, Flip Cards, Gallery,

Ranked• Votes: Poll, Ranked

Let’s summarize

1. Engagement from the first moment of item creation

2. Identify the type of engagement you desire

3. Determine the user experience

4. Experiment with different formats for different results

Additional Tools

Additional Tools

Additional tools

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