Why is it important to make sure your social media marketing strategy is visual?
We as humans, are like magpies to silver, when it comes to visual content on social media. Having said this though, our attention spans are incredibly short. We seek visual stimuli and if we don’t like it, you’ll loose us immediately. With that in mind, it’s now essential for you to know that if your content isn’t visually compelling or stimulating, it’s going to be ignored. It could be the greatest written content around, but if your article or website is being promoted with a terrible image or even worse, no image, then no one is going to be paying any attention. It’s said that you have approximately 8 seconds to draw attention to your article. This is because, with the advancements in technology, our standards for being visually stimulated are getting higher and higher. So this means when promoting your service, you need to be paying more attention to making your social media marketing strategy visual.
Imagery
Imagery is crucial for attracting people to click through to your site. If you don’t have the resources or time to create a video, then an image is absolutely essential. People scrolling through their newsfeed are less likely to click on a link which isn’t accompanied by an image unless the hook line is really gripping. In case you’re not quite convinced, here are a few stats:
- Tweets with images receive 150% more retweets than tweets without images (article)
- In an analysis of over 1 million articles, BuzzSumo found that articles with an image once every 75-100 words received double the social media shares as articles with fewer images
- Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images (article)
- Eye-tracking studies show internet readers pay close attention to information-carrying images. When the images are relevant, readers spend more time looking at the images than they do reading text on the page (article)
Video
According to Cisco, by 2018 video will account for almost 82% of Internet traffic
It’s the natural progression. Social Media is constantly adapting and so is the way that companies are reaching out to their audience. It’s becoming essential that companies and organisations start incorporating video as part of their online marketing strategy. Facebook is changing its algorithms to ensure that videos reach the wider audiences therefore giving them more exposure. Furthermore, it’s far more engaging and direct, it adds a human element to it and boosts the customers trust in your brand. This can also be linked to the rise in influencer marketing, those who are pushing their own personal brand in order to inspire people and come down to their level which makes them likeable and more relatable and ultimately making the viewer more likely to buy into their brand. But it’s also about value, brands can’t simply post about their product anymore. Customers expect value from content, it needs to elicit some kind of emotional response whether it be anger, happiness or humour.
Here’s a few stats about the effect of video on social media:
- Facebook users watch 8 billion videos per day (article)
- Facebook video receives, on average, 135 percent more organic reach than a Facebook photo (article)
- Videos up to 2 minutes long get the most engagement (article)
- Organic Facebook engagement is highest on posts with videos with 13.9% and photos with 13.7% (article)
Live
You may have noticed a surge in social networks adding live video applications to their services. Obviously, video is the king of content on social media now it’s so easily accessible from our phones. The average adult consumes up to five hours a day of video content, one hour of which is online. The reason for the rise in this kind of content is simply because it’s real. It completely squashes the stigma that videos are heavily edited and produced, in order to make as much money as possible. Live video is raw, anything goes and that’s what’s so fascinating about it. The big social media corporations such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have all jumped on the live streaming bandwagon. It’s a new and more easily accessible way for people to broadcast their lives. So when it comes to your marketing strategy it may be worth considering live video. Whether it is showing the customer reaction to your product, reviewing it or showing an inside preview into your business/institution.
With a wealth of expertise and experience in marketing, get in touch with us and see how we can help with your social media strategy.
