Social media is becoming more and more popular, making it harder for businesses to get noticed. You’re always competing with others to get people’s attention. Also, people are unpredictable. Using pictures and videos can help you get your message out on social media. So, if you want people to see your posts, you should use visual content.
Bob Cargill says that pictures and videos are really important on social media. They get more attention than just words. When you mix cool pictures and videos with interesting words, it can help your business a lot on social media.
Here are some facts:
- A study showed that using pictures and videos can make people believe you more. They can make your point 43% better!
- WebFX says that almost all of the first impressions people get from a website come from how it looks.
- Movable Ink says that most of the information our brains get is from what we see. It’s about 90%!
- Visme says that many marketers think pictures and videos are super important for their business. About 32% of them do!
- Prostcon found that lots of people on Twitter like to share posts with pictures. About 34% of them do!
So, using pictures and videos is really smart. Whether you’re making a presentation, writing a book, or writing a blog, these tips can help make your stuff interesting.
Table of Contents
Get Ready with Your Pictures and Videos
Before you make your post, think about who you want to see it. Different people like different things, so you need to know who your audience is. This will help you decide what pictures and videos to use. Here’s how you can plan your visual content strategy:
- Understand Your Goals – Why do you want to use pictures and videos? How can they help you reach the people you want to reach? What do you want to achieve with them?
- Keep Up with What’s Popular – When you plan your pictures and videos, think about what’s trendy. You can use not just pictures but also GIFs, go live, or make interesting infographics.
When you think about your pictures and videos, consider how much you can show without using words. This can save time for your readers. So, before you add pictures and videos, plan carefully.
Make Your Content Look Smart
If your pictures and videos aren’t interesting or don’t look good, they can actually make fewer people like and share your posts on social media.
So, be clever about how you make your pictures and videos. You can use stock photos, make infographics, charts, videos, GIFs, and other things. Bob Cargill explains how to make different kinds of visuals to get more people interested in your brand.
He says, ‘When you’re making pictures and videos for social media, you should make sure they’re the right size. But apart from that, you have lots of good choices.’
When you make pictures and videos, remember these rules:
- Use nice colors so your posts look good.
- Use pictures that show a lot without words.
- If you can’t make pictures and videos, hire someone who can.
- Use different kinds of pictures and videos, like stock photos, clip-art, charts, and more.
Here are some tools that can help you make your content look nice and be easy to understand. Some of the most popular ones are:
- Canva – This is a free website for designing graphics. You can just drag and drop things to make your designs. They have lots of pictures, graphics, and fonts to choose from. Both regular people and professionals use it.
- Skitch – This is an app from Evernote. It helps you share information like you would in real life. You can take pictures of your screen and write on them easily.
- BeFunky – This is a strong photo editor that works online and on your phone. It’s like Photoshop, but easier to use for regular people. With BeFunky, you can make really nice pictures with just one click.
- Snappa – This is an online graphics editor that you can use for social media, personal projects, or marketing.
Now, let’s see how you can use pictures and videos to get more people interested in your posts on social media, just like the pros do.
Tips for Engaging Visual Content for Social Media
1. Use Pictures to Show What Your Taglines Mean
To make your brand tagline really noticeable, you should add pictures or videos to it. If your pictures and words look good together, more people will notice and share them. Look at Amazon’s cover photo for an example.
2. Try Using Different Kinds of Infographics
Posts with infographics can get up to 180% more likes and comments than just words. Infographics are great for showing information in a clear and easy-to-understand way. You can use them to explain things like data, studies, lists, or facts.
Even if you’re a small business and don’t have a lot of money, using infographics can help you get noticed by the people you want to reach.
The most useful kinds of infographics you can use are:
Data visualizations – These are flexible infographics. You can use different things like bar graphs or pie charts. If you have a lot of data to show, you can use a mix of graphs and charts.
Comparative – This infographic is handy for comparing two or more things that matter to your audience. For instance, you can use it for buyer’s guides to help people compare different products.
Lists – These infographics are great for showing quick tips and top lists. They’re the easiest kind of infographic to make for any kind of content.
Timelines – If your content has lots of events or changes that happened over time, you should use timeline infographics. They’re easy for readers to understand because they show things in order.
Process – Like a timeline but showing steps instead of events. It’s a simple flow with arrows, numbers, and pointers.
Anatomic – You can explain anything that has parts, like cars, computers, or plants, with an infographic. You can even explain abstract things, like strategies or ways of thinking.
3. Make it Funny!
Have you ever thought about making your brand funny? It can be hard, especially if you’re in a serious industry like accounting or banking. But adding humor to your marketing can really make your brand stand out on social media. Making people laugh is a great way to connect with them.
When you use humor in your social media marketing, it’s easier to get people interested. Social media users are smart. They know if you’re just trying to sell them stuff. If you can make them laugh, it shows you care about more than just making money.
Don’t worry if your business seems boring. Humor can show the fun side of what you do. People will be more interested in your posts and your product.
4. Use Pictures to Show What You’re Selling
If you’re not sure what to post, use pictures. Just find a simple picture that goes with your brand or product, add a few words, and post it.
5. Encourage People to Visit
Just like how restaurants or stores attract people to their places, you have to do something on social media to get customers interested.
To bring more people to your business with social media, use nice pictures and interesting information that make people want to respond. Also, remember to add your location to your posts when you can.
6. Add Words on Top of Your Pictures
Your success on social media depends on how well you connect with your fans through your posts. It’s important to show people what your brand is all about.
One easy way to do this is by using phrases that people commonly use to relate to what you sell.
7. Get Your Customers Involved
To boost engagement on social media, consider using user-generated content. This is when your customers or users create content about your brand. Encouraging them to participate in your visual content marketing can show potential customers how excited people are about your product.
User-generated content can be very effective, especially on platforms like Instagram. When users like and comment on your posts, it can make them more visible to others.
Buffer is a good example of using user-generated content on Instagram. They started a campaign with the hashtag #BufferCommunity, where users share their workspaces. This has been very successful in showcasing the diverse places where Buffer users work.
To use user-generated content, your brand needs to have a strong personality that encourages users to share their experiences with your product or service online. If you have a great product and provide good customer service, customers will naturally want to share their positive experiences.
In short, your customers can help boost your social media engagement by sharing their experiences with your brand.
Conclusion
Making visual content for your social media marketing can be tough, but if you do it right, you’ll get a lot of engagement. You can begin with the tips we talked about in this article and see how each post does.
Keep an eye on your social media stats and use the information to figure out what kinds of visual content your audience likes best. Then, you can focus on making more of that kind of content and maybe get rid of stuff that doesn’t work as well.