BBC Proms, a music festival put on by the BBC, created a quiz to promote the eight-week-long music festival, and it was a hit on Twitter.

In just a few hours, the quiz was viewed more than 10,000 times, and it prompted fans to post screenshots of their quiz results to share proudly with the world.

BBC is just the latest in a string of brands having great success running quizzes.

However, for every success like BBC's quiz, there are many more failures—terrible quizzes that have fallen flat.

Quizzes are a content type fundamentally different from, say, articles or videos: You aren't broadcasting your knowledge to an audience; instead, you are having a conversation with each individual quiz taker in a one-on-one setting. That's a big part of the reason that quizzes have become so popular, but that also means quizzes have to be created in a new and different way.

After helping more than 2,000 brands create quizzes at Interact, I've crunched a lot of numbers to discover the best methods for building amazing quizzes that generate response and traffic.

Here are the insider secrets for how to create a quiz.

Part 1: How to Create a Great Quiz

1. Pick a quiz topic that resonates with your audience

Before you even begin writing any quiz content, you need a topic worth making a quiz about. The key is to understand your audience members and speak to them. Here are some specific pointers on how to do that:

• Write for a smaller group of people. The temptation is to try to reach everyone with your content. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there's no way all 7 billion people on this planet will take your quiz. The best quizzes go after a targeted group of people who will really care about them.
  
  Consider the BBC Proms quiz: The Proms festival attracts a crowd of 300,000, which is realistically the maximum amount of people who would be interested in a quiz titled "Are you a BBC Proms Pro?" However, the quiz was able to reach a large percentage of that audience because anyone who had attended the concert would be very interested in the quiz.
• Talk to one person. Think of one person who would really enjoy your quiz, and write to him or her. For the BBC Proms quiz, that could be a mate who really enjoys the festival. Create the entire quiz with that person in mind, and it will set the tone for speaking one on one.

2. Give your quiz a title that demands clicks

A full 80% of people will decide whether they want to take your quiz based on its title. With the way quizzes get shared, the title and short description are really all a new quiz taker will see before deciding to take the quiz. Luckily, we've found a few title templates that do well every time:

• The "Actually" title: Though one word may seem inconsequential, it can change the way a quiz is perceived. Consider the title "What type of traveler are you?" It sounds intriguing and gives you an opportunity to learn about yourself. However, change that title to "What type of traveler are you actually?" and it becomes a question of what you think about yourself, and it presents a challenge that you're likely to accept.
  
  We found that quiz titles containing the word "actually" received 1305 views on average compared with an average of 770 for quizzes without the same word (data from a subset of 1,375 quizzes created on the Interact platform).
• The "Which [noun] are you?" title: "Which Strategy Hero Are You?"is an example. This is a standard personality type quiz that has the personalities replaced by people or products.

• The Celebrity Comparison Title: "Which celebrity should play you in the movie version of your life?" We are all exposed to the same celebrities, and in a test we ran, we found that titles including the word "celebrity" got 50% more clicks than those that didn't.

3. Write quiz questions that connect with visitors

Quiz questions are what set quizzes apart from every other type of content. This is where you get a chance to speak directly with visitors in a one-on-one format rather than address a large audience all at once. To maximize this opportunity, follow these guidelines:

• Use your personality. The best quizzes all have their own voice, a distinct way of speaking that identifies the content as originating from a human. Let your personality shine.

• Follow the pub rule. Don't ask any question that wouldn't be appropriate in a pub setting. This rule comes from the Irish Post, which is famous for creating a quiz that reached a full 25% of all Irish people living in London when only 50% of those Irish people even got out to vote for the national party!

4. Craft quiz results that get shared

Once you've gotten someone to click on your quiz and answer all the questions, it's time to show the results. This is where you get a chance to amplify the reach of your quiz through social sharing; get it right or your quiz will go nowhere. Here's how to get it right:

• Be kind. We share things that make us look good. The most viral quizzes use uplifting language to describe every result.
• Be honest. Even though you want to be upbeat, quiz takers will know if you're just blowing smoke. To retain your integrity, focus on the positives of your quiz and expand them into the result text. For example, even if you tell someone they are a truck, focus on how reliable and strong it is and overlook the part about being big and bulky.

• Be ready for sharing. There is a formula for how quizzes get shared. It goes "I got (my result) (title of the quiz)" so make sure your quiz results are prepared for this so that when you do get shared the shares will show up nicely.

Part 2: Three Ways to Use Quizzes in Your Content

1. To provide personalized content recommendations