We constantly evolve with each day and after so many years, we’ve come into the ‘visual age’ but did you know that we have been ‘visual beings’ from a very long time? Technological advancements have given us multiple platforms for social interaction and social networking. With social marketing and a boom in social networking sites, everyone wants engaging information in the fastest way possible without any glitch in the process. The main question thus extends as to how can one share or provide information in the fastest way possible and make sure that information is retained too? There is rather a simple answer to it: visual content.
Visual content is easier to comprehend as compared to reading (for most people). The human brain’s ability to process images and colors is faster in comparison to comprehending plain text. According to Xerox, it is believed that the people’s willingness to read content increases by 80% if they are in color. The social media sites are exploiting this fact to increase their online social marketing strategy in terms of reach. So just how important is visual content in social media marketing? Let’s find out:
- Visuals Increase Information Retention And Creative Thinking
Just like we prefer social interaction, our brains prefer visual information. The goal of any social media marketing professional is to ensure that their information is not just conveyed but also retained. In the existing visual world, it is very easy for information to get neglected or disregarded. For the same reason, social networking sites prefer adding a relevant visuals to the text, especially in color, as it boosts the reader’s interest and ensures that the 65% of the content is retained even after 3 days. It is important to create good content too as spamming the viewers with random content can decrease the confidence and brand value of the organization. Content marketing with relevant visuals is crucial in strengthening the brand value and also for driving the sales up.
- Visual Content Engages Viewership
The main aim of social networking sites especially Facebook, Twitter and Instagram is to make sure that their content is alluring and attractive enough to maintain the viewership and increase it. A decade ago, the concept of long articles with one or two images was a standard norm, whereas the present day trend for social networking has evolved into the list blogs, par example ‘5 ways to protect yourself from the Summer heat’,’10 places to see this Monsoon’, etc. followed by an image or an engaging GIF. This mode of social marketing makes sure that the target audience is engaged with minimum text and interesting visuals.
- Infographics Increase Website Traffic
There is so much information available on the social media sites that there is an overload of information. Everyone is in a hurry to grasp as much information as possible in a short span of time. To simplify the process of information sharing, incorporate infographics in social networking and marketing as this helps reduce the burden of information overloading. Following simple steps can increase traffic to your website. In fact posts with infographics have a traffic growth of 12% more than those without infographics.
- Video Content Has Better ROI
Videos tend to garner more attention and are shared more often on social networking sites. People nowadays prefer to have access to information while on-the-go and the best way to get that information is through videos. Visitors actually spend 100% more time on pages that have videos embedded in them. Marketing professionals all over the world find that videos have the best ROI (Return on Investment) as customers believe that the visual content on videos provides them with complete information and insight required. The impact of videos is so much that it is observed that shoppers who view videos are 1.81 times more likely to purchase a product than those who do not.
- People Can Relate To Images And Photographs
The best way to have returning visitors on social sites is by posting images with which people can relate to emotionally or have a moving effect on. If a customer is constantly engaged with a particular brand or site, it is very likely that they would refer the same to someone else on their online community. So, engaging people with images which strikes a chord with their emotional side, is very essential for the success of social media marketing.
Though we are progressing on the technological front, our brains are becoming lazier and less comprehensive of text. The average human attention span has come down to around 8 seconds (that is shorter than the 9-second attention span of a goldfish!). It’s no surprise that visual content is going to be the future of social media marketing. As our brains process visuals 60,000 times faster, it is easier not just for the social media marketing professionals to add images/visuals to social media sites but it makes the viewer’s lives easier too. Having better reach shapes conversation around, builds awareness of the brand, drives sales, increases leads, drives people to action and so on. Using some social media marketing tips, one can easily increase the potential reach of their organization. Incorporating visual content in social marketing will ensure better viewership and better accomplishment of various goals for the progress of any organization.