Generally speaking, consumers prefer visual content. Humans process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. Our brains are wired for visual content. Just think about how we’ve used visual cues for thousands of years in order to survive, learn, and thrive.
Visual content is 40 times more likely to be shared on social media. Given how important visual content is, good visuals vs. bad visuals can be the difference between getting a sale and losing a sale. Let’s talk about why visuals are important in digital marketing.
Why you should be creating visual content
Studies have shown that content that features relevant images gets 94% more views than content without. If you want to get your message across to a wider audience, it’s quite simple; you need to create content that’s visually appealing.
The right visuals can support your key messages as a brand and business. Visual content is a powerful motivator and can help social media users to engage more with your content. Facebook posts with images see 2.3 times more engagement than those without. The more engagement you get, the more your organic reach will increase.
Building your brand’s personality
The images and video content you use will form the basis of your customer perception. You want to use imagery that is immediately recognisable and on-brand. That way, when potential customers find your visual content, they’ll recognise your brand before they’ve even read what you have to say.
Let’s take a look at the different kinds of visual content you can create.
Video
In the immortal words of George Michael, ‘if you’re gonna do it, do it right.’ Look at your video marketing as an investment. It’s important to create this content in a way that earns you a return.
In 2021, people are bombarded with advertisements in both the online and offline world. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you need to put effort into creating content that will grab the attention of your target audience.
When it comes to video, it’s important to consider how your target audience will consume the content you’re creating. For example, a five-minute video will work well on YouTube, but you might want to consider editing it into shorter snippets for Instagram (unless you’re uploading an IGTV). Thinking about the channel you’re posting to and how people use it is so important.
The long form vs. short form debate is never-ending in the digital marketing world. Creating content that works for the platform you’re posting to will go a long way to help increase engagement.
Images
We’ve recently talked about how you can create content that’s authentic. People are becoming experts at filtering out posts and stories that aren’t relatable or obviously a hard sales pitch.
Creating content around the people you work with can help social media users feel more connected to your brand. You can take this up a notch by working in some user-generated content.
If a potential customer can see already established clients and customers using your product or service, you’ll earn their trust. Using pictures in this way allows you to show to the world that you’re a reliable investment; whether that’s time or money, the same principle applies.
GIFs
GIFs have become a formidable force in driving engagement, particularly when the subject is more lighthearted. There’s something about GIFs that people can’t get enough of. If your business has a statistic it’s proud of, a GIF can be a fun addition to your message.
Keep design clean when it comes to creating GIFs; they are there to enhance a message. You don’t want to overwhelm a design with excessive text. Too much colour and too many other visual elements can result in the information being difficult to digest.
Infographics
When you’re planning visual content for your social media output, you might not instantly think about using infographics. But when you consider that infographics are the fourth most used type of content marketing, you might want to think about including them in your strategy.
Infographics are great for educational content and to share information about your product or service. The beauty of using this method is that you can include lots of information in a way that’s easy for your audience to understand and digest.
You can pack a lot of detail into an infographic. You can show people the benefits of becoming a customer without overwhelming the reader with giant walls of text. And when you take into account that platforms like Canva have free templates available for this kind of content, you’d be a fool not to use it to your advantage.
As you can tell, visual content creation is about standing out from the crowd. Giving users something extra to engage with helps to build brand awareness.
Now that you recognise the importance of visual marketing, talk to Bobble Digital today about how we can help you implement an effective visual content plan that boosts your strategy.
