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Whether you're reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar or a blog post, the lesson remains the same. For one, visual content increases memory recall. What's more, articles with images every 75-100 words tended to get double the social media shares of articles with fewer images in a BuzzSumo analysis. So needless to say, visuals such as infographics, videos, or images should be integrated into your content marketing strategy. There are a few hurdles to creating and promoting visual content, but there are big payoffs, too. Venngage surveyed 300 marketers to learn about their visual content marketing strategies in 2016 to predict trends for 2017. Overall, the marketers surveyed recognize the immense value of creating visuals to increase content quality and engagement but struggle with finding the time and resources to do it well. Read more marketing statistics and trends for the year ahead in the infographic below....
If you’re working to build up your social media presence, you know that images are essential to boosting your online engagement. In fact, content with images gets almost twice as many views. If you’re not sharing images your audience loves, you’re missing out on serious engagement.
You need visual content, but figuring how to get it can be a challenge.
- Which images are best for your business?
- How can you find or create them?
- How can your images stand out among the avalanche of others on social media when Facebook alone sees more than 300 million images shared every single day?
In this post, you’ll get three great tips on how to up your social game so you can get more clicks, likes and follows. You’ll learn the elements of shareable images, what works on each platform, and design tips to create engaging images for social media....
We are hardwired to be visual. Science has proven vision is the most powerful of all our sensory systems for cognition. 90% of all input in our brains is visual. People remember 60% of what they see, but only 40% of what they read. What’s different nowadays is the shift from functional charts and graphs to more beautiful, interactive infographics. Boring designs increasingly fail to engage our audience; people crave for more art-like visuals. For the vast majority of non-designers out there, the challenge is to strive for a balance between beauty and functionality. In our quest to learn how to make sense of all the information out there, we asked 25 experts for their best advice on how to tell visually compelling data-driven stories. We hope these experts’ tips will help you communicate data-driven information in an engaging way....
Suffice it to say, images are a critical tool in the storytelling toolbox. So take a break from optimizing your keyword strategy for robots, and finding the perfect content voice for your brand, and smell some graphic roses with me. There are a ton of tools available to help you hone in your visual craft (and – bonus – a lot of them are FREE).
According to Buffer, visual content is more than 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. And if you need any more evidence to convince you visuals are essential to your content marketing, just consider all these stats.
But honestly ... who's got time for all that? And I don't know about you, but I don't exactly have a degree in graphic design, or the budget to hire someone who does. So, what's a design-impaired marketer to do?
Luckily, over the past couple years, we've been on a mission at HubSpot to make visual content creation much less of an obstacle for the average marketer. How, you ask? Templates, my friends ... templates. And what's great about these templates is they're all built for software you probably already have on your computer: PowerPoint.
I'm going to walk you through all the visual content marketing templates we have available for free to download, and show you how we've used them ourselves to create awesome visuals right in PowerPoint....
This can be broken into three phases as we enter the age of visual culture and language.
Phase One: Massive increase in photo creation
Ten percent of photos taken by humankind took place in the last 12 months
Phase Two: The Rise of Image Centric Social Networks
Photos are becoming the “universal language”.1 The fastest growing social media networks are not surprisingly Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram.
These social networks are the names on everyone’s lips as they have embraced the visual medium and have made it easy to upload and share images and photos online.
Phase Three: Images become Interactive
Pinterest is one of the first platforms that allows you to interact with static images and Luminate’s image apps (which are used by more than 100 million consumers) is also an example.
So how and why should you use images in your business communications, marketing and social networks?...
Basically, you could have the best, most interesting and engaging written content, and it could still get lost and ignored because it looks the exact same as every other piece of content. Visual content prevents this, though. Visual content gives you free reign to customise your message, use different techniques and mediums to get your message across, it’s really an infinitely useful tool.
So, as a part of our endeavour to make the whole design process smoother, simpler and easier for you, let’s discuss 10 types of visual content you can create right now to get that attention you and your brand deserve....
Having your post go viral on social media – getting hundreds of Likes, Shares or Retweets as a response to your efforts – is the one thing that excites every social media administrator. But in order to get one step closer to achieving that, you have to understand what triggers people to share in the first place.
The New York Times Customer Insight Group published a fascinating study called the Psychology of Sharing, and defined 5 top reasons that motivate people to share content with others online:
- To Inform and Influence - 49% say sharing allows them to inform others of products they care about and potentially change opinions or encourage action
- To Show Your Identity - 68% share to give people a better sense of who they are and what they care about and to reinforce the image they would like to present
- To Connect with Others - 78% share information online because it lets them stay connected to people they may not otherwise stay in touch with, and 73% share information because it helps them connect with others who share their interests
- To Feel Valuable - 69% share information because it allows them to feel more involved in the world
- To Show Support - 84% share because it is a way to support causes or issues they care about...
We’ve all heard it before … a picture is worth a thousand words.Why? Images have a powerful effect on our mental faculties. In fact, a recent MIT study found out that our brains process images that our eyes see in as little as 13 seconds. In other words, the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than it does text on a page.
According to the study, “while the images are seen for only 13 milliseconds … part of the brain continues to process those images for longer than that.”Images are not just eye-candy, they help us make decisions. Today’s post is going to help you figure out what type of landing page images work best at persuading customers to click your call-to-action button.
First let’s see what you can accomplish with your landing page images....
The dawn of the digital marketing age has changed the way that businesses large and small build awareness and promote themselves. The growth of social media, blogging and email marketing as vital business tools, means that businesses are now expected to be publishers, graphic designers creating regular and dynamic content.
The benefits of content marketing mean that businesses that are successful with their online marketing, become skilled at creating and posting a variety of different types of images. The types of image that you might share include, product pictures, infographics, event shots, team pictures, action shots and behind the scenes updates.good This is because images have a positive impact on a number of different aspects of digital marketing....
The posts on this blog are typically 2,000 words long. Would you honestly read them if they were nothing but text? Sure, some of you would (and that’s amazing, thank you), but I could never blame anyone for not wanting to read a giant block of text.
This is why articles that include images get 94% more total views than articles that don’t.
Remember though, that stat is just an average. If you use images well, your traffic could increase even more.
It’s a win-win: you get more pageviews, and your readers get to enjoy reading more digestible content.
While social media isn’t the same as your blog posts, it illustrates the power of great images.
Posts on Facebook that include an image get 53% more likes than posts without an image. Additionally, they also make up 93% of the most engaging posts....
A woman being accosted by floating hamburgers, a man with an eyepatch holding an abacus, and an astronaut feeding a horse in a harem costume may seem like scenes out of a dystopian sci-fi novel, but they are not. They are examples of the bizarre world of stock photos, where images are as ridiculous as they are useless.
While these may be extreme examples, the fact remains that stock photos do not depict reality. They show a world of homogeneous families, smiling employees in offices, and couples frolicking on beaches at sunset. Consumers do not connect with these generic, out-of-touch images, and brands that use them risk coming off as generic and out-of-touch as well....
To deal with this overload, we adjusted our behavior by filtering out the noise and consuming only the information that made sense.
Visuals help to overcome that need to filter as they offer something we can digest and understand easily. Several studies show that our brains are hardwired to consume visuals, and that they help us improve understanding when accompanying text....
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It’s only a few months into 2017, but brands are already making their presences known – in a big way. Concepts and visuals are stronger than ever in this year’s content marketing efforts. “We’re in a golden age of visuals, and content is king,” says Pam Grossman, Getty Images’ Director of Visual Trends. “2017 is all about images that are bold, impactful, and evocative. ”Each year, Getty releases an annual trends report on the types of images that most resonate with viewers and leave lasting impressions. Here’s a look at the 2017 list, inspiring examples from brands, plus tips on incorporating these new visual cues into your content marketing. ...
What about e-commerce brands or other companies that drive engagement and sales through their social channels with visual content?
A 10x content post doesn’t really help there, but if visuals are more your style, then there are plenty of ways to 10x your social graphics to boost your content strategy and capture your audience’s attention in the middle of their browsing....
These days, it’s no secret that high-quality images are important for any marketing strategy, particularly when it comes to social media. Images not only help brands stand out in busy social news feeds, but they also boost engagement and build brand awareness—and their importance is growing.
According to a WebDAM infographic, 84% of all communication will be visual by 2018. So, there’s no better time than the present to ensure you’re creating and sharing top-notch imagery. And that starts with following sizing best practices for each channel.
To help you do just that, below is a quick cheat sheet for sizing your images for optimal impact, complete with dimensions and some examples. In addition, you’ll also find some helpful tools that can help your resize, edit or create images....
So, what do you think? Let’s end that cycle today.
First, you need to tidy up your Twitter timeline. (stop tweeting crap no one wants to read)
And second, you're going to start using visuals on Twitter the right way.
Deal?
Here’s 21 ways you can use visual marketing to brand your business and captivate your Twitter audience.
A powerful picture is an incredibly efficient tool: The human brain can process an image in just a few milliseconds, so the right picture can spark someone's interest and convince a viewer it's worth exploring a new show in a single glance. Which is why, in 2014, Netflix began gathering consumer research specifically about the images on its service.
The research indicated that looking at images not only prompted users to watch content, but accounted for a whopping 82% of their time spent browsing (as opposed to, say, reading movie titles or descriptions). In other words, the images mattered almost four times more than the text describing the storyline. Members also spent only 1.8 seconds considering each title. "We know that if you don't capture a member's attention within 90 seconds, he or she will likely lose interest and move on to another activity," says Nick Nelson, Netflix's global manager for creative services. "Images become the most efficient and compelling way to help them discover the perfect title as quickly as possible."
Recently, Netflix—which is famously tight-lipped about its own data—has been doing experiments to better understand which images capture our attention and why, and shared some of its findings with Fast Company as well as in a post on its blog. The effort was both science and art: Data scientists analyzed user statistics, while creative teams considered the colors, emotions, and words that appear on pictures. The company tests several images for a single show or movie to try to discover what makes members click. Its first lesson was that images had to be high quality in order to draw viewers in. "We saw one clear thing," Nelson says. "Using better images to represent content significantly increased overall streaming hours and engagement."...
Fun fact of the day: the human brain processes imagery 60,000 times faster than text. Despite this, we’re still seeing lots of professional sites whose only image content is their header and ads.
Visual spectacles like Tumblr and Pinterest are simply taking advantage of how the human brain works, making them not only extremely popular but also significantly more engaging than your average blog.
Don’t get me wrong, people are clearly using visual elements. The larger problem is that a lot of people aren’t investing in their image content because they either think their copy is good enough or they really don’t realize they’re costing their site.
Finding the best visual content for your site starts with understanding how powerful an image is, acknowledging your mistakes and finally moving in the direction to make better image choices....
This past year, we've seen the importance of visual content emphasized by the changes that occurred across almost every major social network, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. At the same time, both video and infographics have become powerful tools for brands looking to communicate more easily with their readers.
To help you keep pace with these trends, let's take a look at some statistics that demonstrate the impact visual content has on reach, engagement, and sales....
Just take a look at your social media feeds and you’ll see that even traditionally text-based platforms like Twitter have started to look more like image-based platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest.
Why?
Because 90% of the information we receive from the world is taken in with our eyes and is stored in our great memory bank of images. It’s not for no reason that 30% of the entire brain cortex is occupied by optic nerve fibers–much more than any of the other four senses.
To aid you in your mission to become more visually literate, we will go over the basics of visual grammar and provide some exercises to help you not only train yourself to really see the visual messages around you, but also learn the tools to create them yourself....
How much more memorable are visuals compared to text?
One oft-referenced answer is that people remember visuals 6 times better than text—an answer referenced in Buffer’s article on the anatomy of a perfect blog post and an answer that led to a lot of great discussion. After reviewing the original research, it’s clear that pictures are more memorable than words. So the next question became:
People remember visuals better than text. But which visuals exactly?
I’ve spent some time collecting the best research and science on pictures, images, infographics, and more, and I’m excited to share with you what I’ve found—along with some specific ways to use these insights in your marketing!
In fact, according to Buffer, tweets with images receive 18% more clicks, 89% more favorites, and 150% more retweets. And if you need any more evidence to convince you visuals are essential to your content marketing, just consider all these stats.
But honestly ... who's got time for all that? And I don't know about you, but I don't exactly have a degree in graphic design, or the budget to hire someone who does. So, what's a design-impaired marketer to do?
Luckily, over the past couple years, we've been on a mission at HubSpot to make visual content creation much less of an obstacle for the average marketer. How, you ask? Templates, my friends ... templates. And what's great about these templates is they're all built for software you probably already have on your computer: PowerPoint....
Thinking about taking your content up a level? Want to add more visuals but not sure where to start?
In this post I share some simple ways to level-up your visual content, no matter what level you are currently at.
One of the biggest reason marketers don’t try new things with visual content is that there are so many options available that even starting seems impossible.
To help break it down, I created a “visual hierarchy” to help you get started at the level most suited to you (and there’s an awesome Visual Content Booster to download if you scroll on down!). Here’s the Hierarchy:..
Everyone likes to say a picture is worth a thousand words, but those who do are really underestimating the value of a good visual.
For instance, Oreo was able to gain 1 million Facebook fans by posting creative images each day for 100 days as a part of a campaign for its 100 year anniversary. On Instagram, Heineken got customers to drink up its content by having users search for a certain individual in a crowd photo from the US Open for its “Crack the US Open” contest. And after Chegg targeted college students with promoted tweets featuring memes, the brand drove 13,000 purchases from Twitter users.
For more awesome examples and statistics about how brands are benefiting from good visual content, check out the rest of the infographic....
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![How Visually Literate Are You? [Quiz] | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/9WLBYBrJnXVeNsI67UU69Dl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
Plan your editorial strategy for the coming year with key statistics and surprising trends in content marketing.