Social media marketing is not only for providing your followers with superlative articles they want to read. It’s also about producing eye-catching videos and pictures that people will share among their networks. Every campaign needs to have great social media images to go along with it.
And there’s good reason why this is so. Images are a short-cut to getting your message across. There are numerous studies that back this up.
New York University psychologist Jerome Bruner cites research that demonstrates that people only remember 10% of what they hear, 20% of what they read and 80% of what they see and do.
Social Media Images are a simpler and sometimes more effective way to engage prospects. And if you do have a lot of things to say they are a great way of sugaring the pill by breaking up long reams of text.
Image is Everything
In the real world image is everything, and the same is true in the digital realm. Photos and videos are fantastic eye-candy that can make your posts stand out in crowded Facebook newsfeeds or email inboxes.
They increase your visibility by improving the look and feel of posts, thereby keeping attention focused on your message.
When it comes to socialmedia marketing, interaction is key and people love to interact with visual material. An image-based post is more likely to be shared than a text-based one.
Maximum Exposure
As many companies are discovering, social media photo and video sharing is worth a lot of money.
An analysis of 25,000 Shopify online stores in the UK, US, Canada and Australia revealed that consumers are 10% more likely to make a purchase when referred from the photo-sharing juggernaut Pinterest than other social networks.
What’s more, with an average order of $80 they are spending more than customers coming from Google, Amazon and Yahoo.
The social media marketing potential of great images hasn’t escaped the notice of Sony Electronics.
The multinational has created a colourful mix of boards on Pinterest featuring lifestyle and fun pages as well as product pages.
One of the most popular is Gorgeous Rooms and Tech where consumers post pictures of the dream places they would like to inhabit where Sony products are parts of the décor.
Although hard ROI figures haven’t been widely released, there was an 800% increase in traffic from Pinterest to the Sony Store website within the first few months of launching the brand page.
Big businesses aren’t the only ones who are winning by electing to use strong visuals in their social media campaigns #SocialMediaCampaign.
Seattle-based jewellery store Elephantine sells its wares on Etsy an online shopping platform. After using Pinterest to highlight new products, page views to the company’s website increased by 22% per week and sales by 20% per week.
Choosing the Right Pictures
Not all pictures are created equal and you cannot use any old image in your social media campaigns.
In an ideal world you would whip out your own camera and start snapping, but often that’s not feasible as many people don’t have the skills and experience to take excellent shots.
Just because your smartphone or camera is packed to the gills with megapixels it doesn’t necessarily follow that the operator is going to shoot something wonderful.
You will also need a range of great social media images to promote your company, not just shots of the office, key personnel and products.
One of the smartest strategies is to subscribe to photo libraries such as Getty Images and alamy to use their vast stores of beautifully shot images.
MavSocial, a company supplying social media software to business provides its clients with access to BigStock’s 17 million world-class images and illustrations.
They cover every conceivable genre and situation from all corners of the globe, and are helping companies of all sizes to raise their profiles.
Increase Visibility
Don’t settle for boring shots, be inspired and focus your attention on using powerful and beautiful social media images to make your social media endeavours stand out from the crowd.
