A picture is worth a thousand words and your content should be too. Online social and web content is becoming more saturated and it is becoming increasingly difficult to capture your target market’s attention. There are multiple opportunities for a brand to optimize their content and gain visibility, but creating a strong image to accompany your content is key.
Get Holistic Results
When scrolling through social media feeds or blog content, utilizing effective visuals will help improve metrics across the board for your business. The Next Web shares that our brains process visuals 60,000x faster than text, making the integration of high-impact images in your marketing channels all the more important. It helps:
- Disrupt the online marketing noise
- Increase click-through rates to your website
- Heighten engagement
- Users retain and transmit your content after they have read it
Visuals = Engagement
The world of content marketing has transformed the way businesses brand. Companies are utilizing social and web platforms to tell a story and position themselves as thought leaders in their industry. Integrating imagery into your storytelling strategy increases engagement because followers can envision themselves in your narrative. In fact, according to Forbes, blogs with images receive 94% more views than those without, and social content with relevant images receive more likes, tweets, and shares than their non-visual counterparts. It’s undeniable the powerful effect imagery has on content. Taking the time to strategize and create impactful visuals to coincide with your web and social content should be an integrated component within your content marketing strategy.
The Transformation to Imagery
With the use of social media platforms more popular than ever for both personal and business use, the proof that online marketing is shifting towards visuals is more apparent than ever. Social communities are constantly changing the ways their algorithms rank and display content For example, Neil Patel shares that live video content on Facebook receives 3x more views than recorded videos due to changes in Facebook’s algorithms. Live video has become a new category for visual content, and is a powerful and emerging form. Besides adapting to shifts in algorithms, these social platforms have been visual pioneers in showing that images are here to stay, according to MGD Advertising:
- The Pinterest Effect: Pinterest is a visual wonderland. This platform’s content is centered around enticing pictures that lead the user to click and share. Pinterest is growing exponentially and really highlights the positive impact high-quality photos can have on content.
- The Debut of the Timeline: Facebook is constantly updating its algorithms and interface. When this platform switched to the timeline view, a greater emphasis was put on imagery. Larger pictures and cover photos showed that visuals were emerging and here to stay.
- Becoming Instagram Worthy: Instagram started as a small start-up photo sharing platform. Transforming into an image-based social giant, Facebook acquired them for a huge purchase price. The popular use of Instagram is another example of the powerful shift to visual.
Does your brand integrate strong visuals into their content marketing strategy? The team of specialists at E-Power Marketing can help create, optimize, and implement visuals into your online marketing efforts to grow your brand’s visibility and increase engagement. Contact us today to learn how we can power your content marketing!
