What are you wearing?
Oops, sorry, an awkward pick-up line…
Well, that was pretty much the phrasing from a fashion brand with a further call to action to buy more organic clothes on Instagram.
Yep, that’s how it used to be a couple of years ago. You could ask your audience a daring/astonishing question like that, and—bam!—there you had them: surprised, emotionally charged, and ready to engage with your content or product even more enthusiastically.
But not in 2025, and not at any time in the future. Today and on, you need to dig up smarter strategies for increasing user engagement in any digital habitat rich in users: blogs, social media, email, SaaS, etc.
A tiny spoiler: to improve user engagement in 2025 and beyond, you’ll have to balance creativity, innovation, and tools (we’ve got them all in a bonus list). Drill into the article and learn from brands that have already started doing it cleverer and more innovatively.
Your Ultimate Guide to Improving User Engagement for 2025 and Beyond
Involve conversational AI
Let’s face it—artificial intelligence (AI) transforms everything and everywhere in virtual and physical spaces.
Under these circumstances, AI-built chatbots, virtual assistants, and other conversational AI tools will be just at the epicenter of user engagement in the future. Users can virtually “come up” to an AI chatbot, type in an individual question or concern, and get personalized assistance round the clock, without nine-to-five (or seven at best) “our-working-hours” restrictions. Hats off to AI-driven personalization and self-service.
Read How AI Is Changing the Way We Predict Consumer Behavior
In fact, 74% of internet users give preference to chatbots to receive quick answers to simple inquiries.
So, a conversational AI bot can become your most reliable partner in engaging users, whether on your website, social media, or in-app.
For example:
A HiBob Bot is an AI companion used by HiBob to engage B2B users and generate quality leads on the website.
Read Top 7 B2B Marketing Tools
Or here’s another case of Kia Motors using Kian, an AI-powered assistant via Facebook Messenger.
Strive for interactivity
Remember the following equation: engaging content = interactive content.
In fact, interactive or dynamic content generates 52.6% higher user engagement than motionless content. Users typically spend 13 minutes on it, compared to roughly eight minutes on static items.
To engage your audience even more, involve them in a physical interaction, too. It means they should be able to “touch” your piece of content in a digital way by:
- Clicking
- Swiping
- Dragging
- Typing
- Sharing, etc.
Let’s review several examples of user engagement with interactivity on various channels.
Social media
When asked about the best method to engage social media audiences, Alistair Flett, Managing Director at Pronto Hire, spelled it out without hesitation:
“There’s no smoke and mirrors here—we just organize giveaways to improve user engagement on social media. It’s usually a single-click action (follow to win), yet it has enough power to attract and involve users into interacting with our brand and—ideally—renting machinery from us.”
Also Read How to Enhance Your Social Media Presence
Website
Consider the following interactive content ideas to improve user engagement on your website:
- Calculator
- Quiz
- Before-and-after slider
- Clickable social feed
- Click-to-reveal content
- Pop-up form
For example:
At Mailmodo, an engaging “Click to spin” form (a great hack for lead generation, by the way) pops up once you start browsing the website.
Software or application
One of the cleverest ways to reinforce in-app engagement is to create a poll or survey that also captures user feedback (score two goals with one kick!).
For example:
A smiley face rating shows up in Hotjar to engage app users and assess their experiences.
Source: Hotjar.com
You can likewise engage app users with a pop-up to offer a subscription upgrade. See how Taimi does that within the mobile application.
Be more human yet imaginative when telling stories.
Nope, storytelling isn’t a “dead” tactic.
Read Examples of Brand Storytelling in PR
It will still assist brands with engaging users in 2025 and beyond, but only with a slight tweak. Whether textual or visual, it should also carry a very human touch and be extraordinary.
- Textual (or text-only) story
“Even when it’s text-only, storytelling can serve as a smart technique to improve user engagement via email,” Murtaza Oklu, Owner of OMO Transfer, who often tells personal anecdotes and life stories to existing/potential career program participants in his emails.
Read The Email Marketing Mastery Guide
He adds, “While telling your stories, be yourself, be honest, and don’t worry about sounding too straightforward or overly emotional. Human emotions are natural links between people. They build the strongest personal connection and involvement.”
For example:
Grant Aldrich shares a soul-crushing, empathetic dialogue with a Preppy’s program participant in one of the email newsletters.
- Visual story
When it comes to visual storytelling through pictures or videos, Samantha Brown, General Manager at Shout Media, firmly assures:
“The more original, vibrant, and creative your visual story—the better user engagement. Today’s users are tired of prosaic infographics or videos. So, I’d say never impose constraints on creativity. Give it a full burst-out instead.”
For example:
While featuring their street poster of The Nun II, the Shout Media team made an attention-grabbing, spine-tingling video story for Instagram user engagement.
Source: Instagram
Read How to Develop a Video Marketing Strategy
Make your content “click” with your audience’s values.
What do your users care about the most? What content resonates better with their needs and interests?
Read Creating Relevant Content with Determ
As of now, the most vital values and ethical standards for users are:
- Authenticity and transparency
- Social justice
- Inclusivity
- Healthcare (with a sharper focus on mental wellness)
- Sustainability
Bringing the last one up—
It looms as one of the topmost brand principles for Matthew Channell, Owner of TSW Training. He says, “With eco-consciousness high on the business agenda, we try to put environmental sustainability first in everything: courses, articles, social media posts, and so on. Yet, it’s more than just a fleeting content trend for enhancing user engagement. It’s about building a greener future, which should be a moral compass for all of us.”
Read The Best SaaS Marketing Campaigns
For example:
The TSW Training content writers post eco-conscious calls to action, such as “Let’s make a difference together” or “Create a sustainable future,” on social platforms and publish more environmental blog articles.
Source: TSW
Use the superpower of edutainment.
If earlier, it could have been enough to produce any entertaining content to engage your audience, but today, you must go the extra mile to achieve a similar effect.
You must edutain.
What’s that, and how do you create the so-called “edutaining” content?
Grant Aldrich, Founder of Preppy describes it as “a marriage made in heaven between education and entertainment.” He explains, “Drawn from the teaching realm, edutainment has ceased to be a prerogative of educational institutions alone. It has become a major lever in increasing user engagement for all businesses. And in any business sphere, an edutaining piece of content is true to its name—it educates and entertains the user simultaneously.”
Also Read How to Write Trending TikTok Hashtags
FYI: 80% of users come to TikTok for both discovery and entertainment, which makes it a perfect digital spot for brands to edutain users on any topic.
Alternatively, if you need to engage in-app users, you can create edutaining content like mini-games or playful animations to introduce new product/service features.
Create immersive experiences with extended reality (XR).
Have you ever stepped into XR to engage users even more effectively?
If never at all, no more sitting on the fence and letting your legs dangle!
It’s time to jump off and move on—there can be no excuse for overlooking extended reality today and in the future of user engagement.
But first, some explanation might be necessary here. Actually, three other “realities” hide under the umbrella abbreviation of XR:
- AR (augmented reality)
- VR (virtual reality)
- MR (mixed reality)
Often marching alongside AI, they reshape the way we use services or consume products.
Read 6 Trends Driving Consumer Behavior in 2025
Standing at the forefront of cutting-edge technology, Max Tang, CMO at GEEKOM, sees a titanic potential of the AR-VR-MR trio in improving user engagement. He says, “You can’t turn your back on the technological capacity of XR. It redefines user engagement with multi-sensory immersion. But before doing that, it naturally piques the user’s curiosity. Users are more likely to engage with fresh and innovative content.”
Indeed, whether AR, VR, or MR, it immerses users by stimulating their senses and enables active participation rather than passive observation.
For instance, in SaaS, you can let users “step inside” your software and explore its interface and features in a virtual space with VR glasses. It’s also possible to gamify users’ experiences with AR/VR quests or challenges: let them unlock rewards or earn badges in-app.
Or—
Make an AR product demo like this, with a scannable QR code for social media users.
Source: LinkedIn
Best Tools to Improve User Engagement in 2025
So, here’s a bunch of helpful instruments to assist you with engaging users across all digital channels:
- For self-service with AI chatbots: kAIron, Cxgenie.ai, or Norby.io
- For website pop-ups: Wisepops, Poptin, or Involve.me
- For in-app surveys: Refiner.io or GetFeedback
- For video creation: InVideo or Animoto
- For AR/VR experiences: ARToolKit or XpertVR
- For social listening: Determ
For example:
With a huge high five to Determ, you can easily monitor social media conversations and understand what content matters most for your users, what topics appear relevant at the moment, and what emotions they evoke in your audience with sentiment analytics.
Plus, thanks to Synthia AI, Determ provides a smarter and faster way to summarize insights and create data-driven reports.
You’re All Set to Increase User Engagement
It looks like you’re ready. You’ve mined the most innovative ideas and tools to engage users more effectively in any digital space.
And if you want to stop drowning in social media data at last, use Determ to help you hear your audience’s voices and create resonant content in line with their values and needs.
Schedule a demo today so as not to sink in social noise tomorrow.
