One struggle I see marketers dealing with on a consistent basis is driving social traffic back to their websites. A lot of content either performs well on your domain or performs well in the social world, but bridging the gap is difficult.
One solution is to create quizzes, which are highly share-able on social media but can also drive traffic to specific pages on your main website. Here are three ways of using quizzes to drive social traffic back to your domain.
3 ways to use quizzes
Provide more information on your site.
A quiz titled “Which Cake are you?” is responsible for driving 10,000 new visits back to Food52.com from Facebook and Twitter.
Each result of the quiz was a different type of cake, and included a link to check out the recipe for that cake on the Food52 website. It was a subtle but effective method for driving people from social media to the quiz and then to the Food52 main site.
Explain the quiz personalities in detail on your site.
Personality quizzes are great fun because we learn something about ourselves while also being entertained. Grist.org took those elements one step further by encouraging quiz takers to learn more about their personalities by clicking through to the main website from social media.
Their quiz “What Type of Environmentalist are you?” results in one of several different environmentalist types. In each result is a link to learn more about your environmentalist type, which leads to an article on the Grist.org site.
In one week, the quiz was shared 1,700 times on Facebook and led to over 5000 new visits to pages on Grist.org which were direct follow-ups of the quiz results.
Provide an opportunity to connect.
Worth Global Style Network does analytics for fashion brands like Puma and Tommy Hilfiger. Their customers are large brands that are always interested in increasing their bottom lines.
WGSN created a quiz “What’s your customer type?” and shared it out on social media. In each result of the quiz was a short description of the company’s customer type along with a call to action to “get in touch” and learn more.
Of course that call to action led back to the WGSN website where potential customers could learn more. In just one week this quiz drove 1500 visits back to the WGSN site from Twitter and Facebook, resulting in 300 new leads.
How to go about making a good quiz.
Picking a topic.
In order to maximize the exposure your quiz gets in the social world and in turn maximize traffic back to your website, you need a quiz topic that resonates with your audience. Here are a couple of tips for accomplishing that.
- Write for one group of people. Don’t try to reach everyone in one fell swoop – it won’t work. For example, the Grist environmental quiz certainly won’t appeal to anyone who isn’t passionate about the environment, but the people who are passionate about the environment will thoroughly enjoy it. Don’t be afraid to exclude people from your quiz, even a small group that is very excited about your quiz can spread it very far.
- Talk to a single person. Think of one person who would really enjoy your quiz and write to them. This will not only help with coming up with topics, but also with the overall tone of your quiz. Also, if you can’t think of one person who would enjoy your quiz topic, it’s probably no good.
Writing a quiz title.
80% of people will choose to click on your quiz based on the title – show the title some respect. After looking at over 1500 quizzes, here are some template that consistently perform well.
- The “actually” title. “How Much Do You Actually Know About World Cup Soccer?” This quiz is really just a knowledge test, but by adding a challenge aspect to it, the quiz becomes much more fun.
- The Celebrity Comparison title. “Which Celebrity Would Play you in the movie version of your life?” We are naturally wired to compare ourselves to celebrities, so this quiz template plays right into that. To make one like this, you start with the Meyers-Briggs personality quiz and then swap the personalities with celebrities.
- The Which Blank are You? Title. “Which Type of Cake are You?” from Food 52 got 20,000 views in two days, “Which Yoga Pose are You?” from StyleCraze has amassed 40,000 views. We like to find out what we are. Again, this is just a personality quiz with the personalities replaced by whatever your quiz is about, whether that’s cakes or yoga.
Creating quiz questions.
The questions of a quiz are what sets quizzes apart from the loads of other content produced every day. In quiz questions you’re able to speak directly to your visitors and carry on a conversation unlike articles and videos where you are addressing a large audience all at once. Here are a few tips to maximize this advantage.
- Let your personality shine. One way to build a connection is letting your personality shine. People enjoy talking to one another, and by making that conversation fun, you’ll establish a stronger connection.
- Get personal. We enjoy talking about ourselves. A full 40% of our everyday conversation is about ourselves, and when we talk about ourselves it actually stimulates our brains. Don’t be afraid to ask personal questions – just not too personal.
Building quiz results.
The results of a quiz is where you get to use the information you know about the quiz taker to provide them with a personal and powerful outcome. The goal here is to pique the interest of your quiz taker so they’ll be more likely to click through and check out your website. Here’s how to pull that off.
- Be positive. A big part of the reason the Food52 quiz got shared so much is because every result was very positive. First off, each person was a kind of cake, which is pretty good to start with. Then, the quiz writer made the cake descriptions both personal and very positive to the point where people were proud to share their cake result.
- Controversy is okay. The Grist quiz was met with some serious controversy. Some people were very happy with their results and others were angry. The quiz racked up hundreds of comments with people getting in heated debates. However, the result was over 2200 total social shares. It’s okay to be polarizing – it will get the conversation flowing.
- Tell a story. Specifically tell me my story. After quiz takers answer your questions, you have some valuable information about them. Use that information to tell me my story. Stories are a natural form for humans and will make your results both memorable and share-able.
- Prepare to be shared. There is a specific formula that works best for sharing quizzes. It works like this: “I got (my result)(title of the quiz)” which would look like “I got chocolate decadence – which type of cake are you?” When creating your results make sure to have result titles that work well with this formula.
Source: [socialmediaexplorer.com]
