Is your brand telling visual stories?
Are you empowering your fans to create and share visual content for you?
Brands who create and curate visual content are seeing wider reach, more shares and traffic to their real or virtual doorstep.
When the Internet just began, it was all about words, and coding. Fast forward to today with sites like Pinterest which has exploded with visual content as the digital medium of choice.
Twitter started as a place to post short and simple messages, now has images for a more visual experience. Indeed, the future of digital media is upon us — and it’s rich with visual content.
Videos and photos are more likely to get clicked and shared on social media.
Increasingly, photos and videos are driving customer engagement on social media. On Facebook’s top brand pages, videos are shared 12 times more often than text and links, and photos receive twice as many likes as text updates. Meanwhile, Instagram is growing faster than Facebook did. And Pinterest now refers more traffic to outside websites than Twitter.
VISUAL MARKETING CONTENT – IMAGE TIPS
If you haven’t noticed, when it comes to online marketing nowadays it’s all about images. People are taking and sharing a whole lot of photos; 500 million photos are shared each day!
If you haven’t already, it’s time your small business started marketing with stunning visuals.
- Be authentic
- Provide value
- Create content that educates your users and helps them to improve their game – they will become loyal followers and genuinely engage with your content. It also helps you to become an expert in your field.
On that note, here’s a quick design tip:
- Ensure consistency throughout all of your visual content – your fonts, colors, photo filters, image style and the personality you project.
- It will make your brand is easy to recognize and more memorable.
WHY BRANDS CHOOSE VISUAL SOCIAL PLATFORMS
Two great reasons…
1. There’s less competition. Just about every business, B2B and B2C, is on Facebook. While not as many, there are still plenty on Google+, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Once you move into lesser known platforms like Snapchat, however, you’re looking at far fewer competitors.
2. If your business targets young adults, you’ll want to be where they are. This chart shows that after Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, the next top social platforms for 18 to 29-year-olds in the U.S. are Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and Tumblr.
Pinterest allows us to chronicle and share what we love.
- Our Desires
- Our hobbies
- Our aspirations
You can enjoy Pinterest without reading anything. Let that sink in for a moment. In a world where text based status updates and tweets have ruled for years, you can now can fully immerse yourself in a powerful community experience that is 100% visual.
A picture may worth more than a 1,000 words, and when the vast majority of the population began possessing a camera at all times via their mobile phone, this type of photo-driven culture was a natural byproduct.
SNAPCHAT
If you hadn’t even thought of Snapchat as a potential platform for your marketing campaign, here are a few reasons to consider it. Pew Research estimates Snapchat has 26 million active users in the U.S. Other interesting facts include 70 percent of users are women and 77 percent of college students use Snapchat every day.
Finding brands on Snapchat is a bit difficult, outside of the articles on sites like Social Media Today sharing some of the top Snapchat tips and examples of brands using it.
People love brands on Instagram, and it shows when you look at the top brands. Not only do the top brands have millions of followers, but they also have millions of posts to their branded hashtags. Talk about engagement!
How many ways can you turn coffee into visual content? Tons if you look at Starbucks. The love they have for coffee—and the people who drink it—shows when you look at the images throughout their Instagram account.
10 Interesting Stats About Visual Content – Source Hubspot
1) The brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than the time it takes for the brain to decode text.
2) Visual content makes up 93% of all human communication.
3) Your content can generate up to 94% more views if you add compelling visual elements and graphics.
4) 14% more views can be generated by press releases if they contain photos when published.
5) You can see a 37% increase in engagement from targeted customers if your article is optimized by adding more compelling visual elements.
6) With detailed images, you can get the attention of up to 67% of your targeted audiences.
7) 40% of users online will provide better and more favorable responses to a particular piece of visual content than other plain and text-based content.
8) 85% of internet users in the United States watch online video.
9) 26% of the 25 million smartphone users around the world watch online video at least once per day.
10) Use of visual content in Facebook campaigns generates 65% more engagement after only a month’s practice.
HOW TO CREATE GREAT VISUAL CONTENT
Fortunately, getting great visual content doesn’t mean that you have to be a skilled graphic designer using Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom. Or that you have to hire one or that you have to invest in expensive software.
Here are a few great tools that can help you get in the visual content game.
- Canva – Free tool to create images for Pinterest pins, social media updates, Facebook cover photos, blog graphics, Twitter header images, and blog graphics.
- PicMonkey – Okay, let’s say you don’t have the budget for Photoshop and feel somewhat limited by PowerPoint’s visual editing capabilities … what are you to do? If you want to spruce up your images — recolor them, add borders, add text, and even insert graphics on top — all without downloading yet another program to your computer, check out PicMonkey.
- Aviary – Mobile app to make smartphone photos even better.
- Infogr.am – If you’re looking to make interactive infographics — not just plain visuals — check out this free tool. Easily add graphs, maps, text, and even playable videos without diving deep into a design program.
- GoAnimate – Simple do-it-yourself animated video creator.
The keys is to remember:
1. Your audience on visual social platforms is not expecting perfect design.
2. They’re expecting to really get to know the real people behind your business.
3. Don’t focus on perfection, but on what will make your fans excited about your business!
Check out the infographic below to find out more about how visual content is shaping the future of social media:
Be sure to check out our upcoming seminars.
SOCIAL MEDIA SEMINAR SERIES
1. Google My Business – Better Search Results in Google! [Sept. 17]
2. Tools & Apps for Business – Gain more hours. [Sept. 24]
3. YouTube & Video – Business Branding [Oct. 15]
4. Blogging – Generate leads & get new customers [Oct 29]
5. Twitter for Business – The fastest way to spread content [Nov. 11]
6. Facebook Ads – How to create, implement & gain sales [Nov. 19]
About Blair
Blair Evan Ball is a Social Media Coach and founder of Prepare1, a company that works with businesses, individuals and non-profits. He is a former executive with a Fortune 50 company, and his national division did $1.3 Billion in sales annually.
Blair has written three e-books: Facebook for Business Made Easy, Facebook Pages for Business Made Easy, and WordPress Blog Setup Made Easy.
Blair also educates, trains entrepreneurs and business professionals how to amplify their brand, increase revenues, and raise more funds.
The Race is ON! – Get into the Game and WIN!
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