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Interactive video content is an underused format with serious potential. Whether you're a marketer looking to launch a campaign that stands out or a content creator who wants to harness the power of interactive videos to build his brand, you must understand the fundamentals of interactive content.
To leverage interactive videos, you should learn to gamify your videos, write scripts with "if" and "then" conditions, and shoot multiple clips. You also need to use an interactive video creation program that can help you map out your customer journey and create the final video.
In this article, you will find 10 different ways to harness the power of interactive videos alongside examples of interactive video campaigns. You will also discover the best practices for creating interactive content. But first, let's go over how interactive videos work.
Interactive Videos: How Do They Work?
Interactive videos work with an input-choice-output methodology that can be executed with different technology stacks. You can create an interactive video entirely with your script. You can also create one using different clips in an interactive video player.
Interactive scripts feature the speaker asking the audience to follow a single instruction. "Buy now," "Click the subscribe button," and "Think about a time when you were on vacation" are all requests that can be considered interactions.
But with interactive video players, you can actually make video interactions multi-tiered. Not only can the viewer make a choice or take action, but he can also get a different result based on the action. This, of course, is a very useful technological stack.
However, many marketers and creators worry that they can't find the right use for it. In the section below, you can see how different tiers of interactive video technology can be used to create brand loyalty, generate revenue, and even hire employees.
Possible Uses Of Interactive Videos
If you can make any clip that is contingent on a choice, you can use interactive videos. From "Would you like to see my new studio?" to "Click on a product in this showroom to add it to your cart," there are so many possibilities that content creators and the market can leverage. Here are some creative ways to engage, educate, and entertain your audience with interactive videos.
Sell More - Clickfunnels And Video Sales Letters
The most accessible examples of interactive videos are video sales letters that have been a thing since the infancy of Youtube. You do not need fancy software to record a video that can sell a product. All you need is a good script and an accessible "buy now" button.
The most rewarding interaction that a video can generate for a business is a sale. ClickFunnels has leveled up the interactive video sales letter game by including second and third-page options for subsequent upsells. You can use pretty much any platform with video embedding capabilities to create a customer journey similar to click funnels.
Whether you want to use a single video embedded on a standard sales site or a series of videos peppered into online sales funnels, you have to make your content interactive.
Other examples of interactive videos that sell products include webinars and direct marketing ads. If you've bought our content multiplying program after watching our ad, then you've interacted with our video. This is the basic tier of interactive video content.
Create Video Quizzes
By going up a notch in interactive video technology, you get interactive video players. The last version of interactive videos would require multiple pages. One could embed videos with internal links in their site and have each option take the customer to a different clip.
With interactive video players, though, the process is much smoother. You simply click an option, and the video switches to the relevant one almost instantly. This is helpful in video quizzes and other interactive games. Multiple options can be presented, and the viewer's choice can dictate which video plays. "Good job, that's the right answer," one video clip can say. "I'm sorry, can you give it another try," could be the script for the second clip.
Entertain - Use Mind-Reading Tricks
You can use interactive videos to create mind-reading tricks. Almost all "think of a number" tricks that follow specific calculations can use interactive video technology to bring the viewer along for a ride. If you look up "mind reading tricks" and "online mind reading tricks," you'll have plenty of material to entertain your audience. The drawback of picking this content type is that it might not align with your brand.
Build A Following - Get Viewers To Subscribe
For a content creator who can't resort to mind-reading tricks for his content, alternative interactive avenues include guessing games. The best part about guessing games is that you do not need technological acumen to pull them off. NewWorldReview is an excellent example of a content creator who uses guessing games to build a following.
He reviews One Piece Media and often poses a question at the beginning of the video. If a viewer gets it wrong, said viewer must subscribe to his channel. And if they get it right, they get congratulations. It is indeed an excellent way to keep people interested in a subscription request.
Showcase - Let Viewers Explore A Space Or Product
If you're a content marketer, one of the things you can do with interactive video is to turn it into a product showcase. Car brands have successfully used interactive video players to let viewers explore different aspects of new cars.
Art galleries have also used virtual tour technology to walk viewers into and through their exhibitions. Both of these instances are examples of combining interactive video technology with the value of vision/sight in the human exploring experience.
Real Estate consultants can use this technology the best with virtual open houses, especially when selling vacation homes and other remote properties. But ultimately, anything that can be visually examined can be made remotely explorable with interactive videos.
Gamify Your Content - Let The Viewer Become The Protagonist
Quizzes and guessing games are examples of turning an interactive video into a game. But you can also use gamification to turn your video into a more interesting narrative. Children often request changes in bedtime stories.
One moment, Little Red Riding Hood is going to her grandma's house, and the next moment, your daughter wants you to make her fly.
Humans get interested in narratives that they can shape. While previously impossible, now you can hook viewers into a story by making them the protagonist. Netflix's mega-hit movie Bandersnatch is a great example of interactive video for storytelling.
As long as you can write a story with multiple endings, you can give your viewers the option to choose the ending they want. It can even create the illusion of being in direct connection with the creator.
Livestream - Interact With Your Fans
Instead of simulating interactions, you can also have direct interactions with your fans and followers. Superchat and other methods of rewarding creators on live streams have created new avenues for interactive video that require very little technological acumen.
As long as you can go live and read what your followers are typing in the comments/chat, you can interact with them. That said, you have to be prepared with games, trivia, and questions.
Livestream interactive games:
Guess the correct answer - Asking your audience to guess the right answer in a live stream can help make the broadcast more interactive.
Audience poll - You can also ask your viewers for their opinions. The specifics can vary depending on where you go live. On Instagram live streams, they can use specific emoji to vote for different options.
Crowdsource live content ideas - Crowdsourcing ideas can help add variety to your content. If you feel like your videos are getting more repetitive, you can crowdsource ideas on your live stream. You can also upload a request for ideas in a pre-recorded video by attaching a Google Docs form to the post.
One way Truth or Dare - Finally, you can play Truth or Dare with your audience, though the game has to be one way.
Recruit - Use The Quiz Functionality
As mentioned earlier, interactive videos can be used to provide engaging quizzes. Deloitte leveled up the stakes by using interactive videos to receive job applications. The gamified version of the preliminary interview is quite an interesting and immersive experience.
You can recruit applicants for your company or take customers through the sales process with interactive videos. Whenever the process is lengthy and the questions repetitive, you can shorten it with an interactive video.
Context Switching - Give Your Viewers The Power To Decide
A very creative approach to interactive videos is to give the viewers as many options as you can. Context switching has become a need with shrinking attention spans. That's why people skip videos halfway through.
Interactive videos can allow viewers to not just engage with the content more deeply, but they can also contain their attention by offering relevant distractions. The interactive video for Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone music video is perfect. In the video, viewers can flip through different "channels", where people in different content formats are shown lipsyncing to the song. From the History Channel to a spoof of The Bachelor, there are several varieties you can browse, all the while continuing to listen to the same song.
It is impossible to get bored enough to skip the content because you have your distraction right on the video player. Keep fidgeting and browsing through the channels to keep seeing people in different contexts "sing" the song. This can be done for movie genres as well.
Promote Virality - Use The Principles For Your Own Unique Idea
Finally, you can use the potential of interactive videos and put your own twist on them. Interactive videos make it possible for you to have multiple interactions with your audience. Understanding the possibilities of "if" and "then" options with video opens up doors for unique content that can not only captivate your viewers, but can also turn them into brand ambassadors.
Because of the novelty of unique interactive video campaigns, almost every new idea using the technology goes viral. From Netflix's Bandersnatch to Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone: The Interactive Video, most firsts in the interactive video space go uber viral. People share interactive content simply because they think others will find it just as interesting as they do.
Best Practices For Interactive Videos
With interactive videos, you can ensure interest, if not virality. But to make the most of your interactive content, you should avoid overusing or underusing "choice." In this section, you'll find the best practices for interactive videos that will help you balance shot continuation with interactiveness.
Declare the interactiveness - Never assume that the viewer understands how interactive videos work. Declare that the viewer can interact with the video right off the bat. And make the declaration in the video.
Allow them to have an early start - A "hotspot," or the point of choice, is where the viewer can interact with the content. Having one early on ensures that the viewer is engaged early on.
Minimize forced interruptions - In videos where the narrative changes based on choice, the video pauses to let the audience choose an option. With such videos, you should let the shots run longer. In videos where only the visual changes Eko Music Videos, having a continuous hotspot with no forced pauses is ideal.
Don't overwhelm your audience - Whenever you give the audience a choice, avoid giving more than 2 options. Even in the Bob Dylan Eko video, you don't get to choose from one of 60+ channels. Instead, you can flip through the channels one at a time.
Include a reward - Finally, you can make the interaction more enticing by adding rewards to the video journey. Any discount you might think of giving out generally is a discount that you can position as a reward for getting most of the questions right in an interactive video quiz. You can even film it in a gameshow type of format.
Final Thoughts
Interactive videos can improve your audience engagement, amplify your message, and generate more revenue. But you cannot make interactive videos just to make interactive videos. Your interactive content must have a purpose and should follow the advice in this post. For best results with interactive videos, you can also get a crash course on game theory and design.