What is an interstitial?
Until a few months ago, I'd never digested this word. An interstitial is the act of occupying a very small space between two things.
Why should you care?
Why should you care?
Because, if used properly, an interstitial can help you generate more leads when you share content on social media.
Allow me to explain with a real example.....
Essentially, we are talking about that short amount of time between when a person clicks on an article you have shared, and when the article actually loads and they land on the article and begin reading it. (Keep reading. I'll show you in detail what I mean.)
Professional content creators are taking advantage of this space and generating lots of connections (aka leads) for their businesses. CityBlast recently brought this concept to the real estate space and it's changing the way real estate agents can generate connections for their business through social media.
Allow me to walk you through an example from a Facebook Business page that Ben Kinney (ActiveRain owner and real estate agent in WA state) has connected to CityBlast.
This article is from the Seattle Times. It was probably shared by many, many real estate agents in and around Seattle when it was published. Instead of sharing the article directly to his Facebook Business page (which he absolutely could have done), Ben uses CityBlast to share the content. CityBlast's Content Manager (a real person) went out and found the article because it was relevant to Ben's market and his business. Then, they loaded the article in CityBlast and automatically shared the article on Ben's business page.
What Happens When Someone Clicks the Article?
If Ben had simply shared the article from the Seattle Times on his Facebook Business Page (or personal page), and someone clicked.......they are taken to the article on the Seattle Times.
But with CityBlast, an interstitial is placed between Facebook and the reader landing on the article. It looks like this:
It gives the reader a call to action, relevant to Ben's business, and also a path to skip that call to action and just be taken to the article.
The vast majority of the people will click on 'not right now' and move on to the article. However, the more you share relevant content with your audience, the more you will end up with something like this in your inbox (we got 2 in the first 12 hours and 4 total from sharing this one article)
(Just as a total side note......you can see above that this article was shared by 16 people. 3 of those people were other real estate agents in Ben's market. I almost felt bad when I saw this.....but who shares stuff without actually clicking on the article? Had they clicked, they would have been met with the interstitial and realized 'maybe I shouldn't actually share this with my own followers')
Seller Leads
(The black boxes are there to make sure some other agent in Ben's market reading this didn't just get their own new lead as this is a real person, who indicated if the price was right, they would consider selling)
Above is the first lead that came in. Note the portion that says 'would consider selling this year for the right price'. That's a great seller lead.
The second lead that came in, responded to the automatic email that goes out from Ben. That email asks what condition the property is in, and if there is anything he should know about the property that would help Ben get a more accurate valuation, beyond the automatic valuation the prospect was shown immediately by CityBlast. He basically wrote 5 paragraphs about the property and all of the upgrades they have done in the last five years. They've already set an appointment with this potential seller.
What If They Don't Want To Find Out Their Value?
Then they are wisked over the article.....where Ben continues to offer them a way to get a value for their home.
In fact, if they start clicking around on any link on this page, Ben continues to follow them with that header in place, offering them the chance to see their home value.
CityBlast Has Partnered With ActiveRain
You can try out CityBlast for 14 days for free (although it will require a credit card, but I promise if you cancel before the end of the trial, you will not be charged). You can also get a 30% discount on the life of your subscription should you choose to continue after your 14 day free trial. Use the code: AR30
When you sign up for the trial. That code will discount the price from $99/month to $69/month.
What Other Social Media Sites Does CityBlast Work With?
It's not just for Facebook Business Pages. You can also use CityBlast to provide content to your Facebook personal page, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
What Else Does CityBlast Do?
- They find all the content for your local market. A real person goes out and finds relevant content, based on what you tell them you want to share.
- They allow you to determine how often you want content posted. Once a week? Fine. Every day? Fine too.
- They track how many clicks, comments, likes and shares that your posts receive (something shocking to me, has been how many people click on the articles, even though they may not like, comment or share the article)
- They allow you to pull in listings from other agents (who have given permission to let their listings be shared) and possibly generate buyer leads on other agent's listings. You can also choose to allow other agents to share your listings on their wall, giving your listing more visibility in your market
Give It A Try
(When you sign up for your free trial, make sure to use the CODE: AR30 so that if you decide to keep using CityBlast after your trial, you get the 30% lifetime discount they are offering to members of ActiveRain)
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