Why Social Media Needs A Visual Strategy

Why you should not underestimate the pulling power of visuals to boost audience engagement and build brand awareness.

Whether you’re a social media marketer looking to increase audience engagement, a business owner trying to grow a company brand, or simply just one among the millions of social media users wanting to increase social media presence, you already know that capturing the attention of people – especially the younger people – takes a lot more effort now than ever before.

Creating social media content has now evolved from simply written blog posts to well researched, value-driven posts that must provide value to the audience using Why you should not underestimate the pulling power of visuals to boost audience engagement and build brand awareness essential social media tools.

But even before you start generously providing value-packed content, you need to be able to get their attention first. Value-packed content doesn’t matter when no one is reading your posts!

Studies on Visual Learning

Consider the following information snippets from shiftelearning.com:

1. The brain can see images that last for just 13 milliseconds and get a sense of that visual scene in less than 1/10 of a second.

2. The brain processes visual images 60,000 times faster than text.

3. Memory recall is better when information is paired with meaningful images.

4. The human retina is linked to about 40% of nerve fibers to the brain.

5. Emotions are triggered faster and deeper by visual images faster than words

For you, this means that the key to capturing the attention of your reader is to provide a powerful visual image that immediately resonates with their current interests, desires, and needs. A person scrolling through his or her newsfeed will first react to an image that he or she finds relevant rather than a well crafted set of words.

Now don’t think you can just start slapping any visual image or video in your posts. You need to understand that there is a correct way to implement this.

The power of a good visual strategy

Below are strategies you absolutely need to apply for your social media content:

1. Provide an image that immediately captures the interest of the reader.

This requires you to know exactly who your target audience is and what their current pain points are. You need to drill down and get niche-specific.

If you run a business about pets, what specific pet? Dogs, cats, fish, birds, etc? If it’s about dogs, what about them? You may be offering chewable toys to help people having problems with their dogs destroying stuff around the house. What’s unique about your product that separates it from the rest of the other businesses offering the same thing?

Once you have this figured out, you have to look for that image that conveys all of this information and use it together with relevant text that provides value to the reader.

2. Consider visual content that engages your audience.

If you want to build and grow your social media presence, you need to get your audience to engage your posts. The key here is to make them feel comfortable enough to start a conversation with you.

How? By providing interactive content paired with visual images in your posts. If you correctly identify your reader’s interests and pain points, it will be easy to get them to participate in social media activities.

Some great examples of interactive content that continue to be popular are surveys, quizzes, games, contests, and polls. These are simple but “fun” activities that the readers can take and even share with their network.

You’ve probably taken some sort of quiz or survey yourself!

3. Visual engagements must be followed by value-rich content.

Providing a great image that gets your reader’s attention is one thing, but getting them to value your succeeding posts is another. Your posts must be able to provide the reader with relevant material that piques their interest and make them come back for more.

To do this, you need to keep abreast of recent trends in your market. Make sure you are up-to-date by doing regular research specific to your niche.

Social media statistics from 2019 show that there are 3.2 billion social media users worldwide. 54 percent of social browsers use social media to research products they have an interest in. You need to provide suitable, meaningful and effective posts to your readers to make them feel you’re an expert in that field or niche.

4. Use high-quality infographics that convey your message.

Using Infographics is a simple but effective way to present relevant data to your audience. You can quickly show your audience a significant amount of data in an easy-to-understand visual image.

But you have to be careful. There are a LOT of infographic styles out there so you need to choose the correct infographic to use. You want to use infographic templates that readers can easily understand.

A good infographic tells the information quickly and to the point. Unfortunately, some put too much emphasis on the aesthetics of the image, taking the focus of the reader away from what is important – the data. Infographics work well with professionals on sites such as LinkedIn.

Image source: Oberlo.com

Remember, it takes only a few seconds to capture your reader’s attention. Your infographics may be visually appealing, but if the reader fails to understand what it is you’re trying to convey, then he or she will quickly bolt from your post and go looking elsewhere.

5. Use video content to keep your audience engaged.

Studies have shown that by 2022, online videos will make up more than 82 percent of all consumer internet traffic. It’s pretty obvious that video content is considered to be king in social media platforms.

Compared to a still image or text, videos can connect better to the audience at an emotional level. A video combines music, visuals, and words in a single medium. And if done correctly, you can build a strong connection with your audience.

The importance of integrating visual content into your social media strategy should now be pretty obvious. The power of visual content cannot be underestimated, especially now that social media is integrated into the lives of billions of people.

Author Bio; Currently working as a Marketing Executive at Design Wizard, Claire is passionate about creating amazing content and bringing people together. Having recently graduated with her masters degree in Marketing she is keen to impact the digital world. Outside of work you can catch Claire taking photos of her rescue dog Storm and checking out social media.