In recent years, one of the most significant trends in social media marketing is the creation of image-centric social media posts or content. In the digital age, where our consumers are spoiled with an array of contents on many social media platforms, capturing your customers’ attention requires clever tactics. It doesn’t help that our consumers have an attention span shorter than a goldfish. Thus, creating image-centric posts is the only way to rise above the competition.
Whether your social posts are complemented with quotes, creative infographics, colorful graphic designs, or beautiful images and photographs, the chances of people clicking to read the copy or find out more about an offer or product are much higher. As a consumer, image-centric posts and content can also make purchase decisions much faster and marketing efforts effective.
According to Trend Reports, between 65 and 86 percent of people describe themselves as visual learners. With thousands of content on social media, the ones that stand out and jumps at you are probably those with captivating images, creative graphic posters, or infographics. When leveraging on the power of ‘a picture tells a thousand words,’ your image-centric posts will have an advantage over your competitors who publish only text content.
Don’t get me wrong. Well-written, persuasive content is definitely a draw, but including a suitable image can help drive your point better. Pictures can help break your copy and allow people to choose either getting the message from a creative idea or continuing reading the whole text.
Why are images important in social media marketing?
Here’s the deal. It is a fact that people are drawn to pictures. That is why platforms such as PinInterest and Instagram are so popular with several types of businesses. One statistic indicates that articles with images receive 94% more views! Adding images to your social media content helps grab attention, connect with your audience, break down information in a friendlier manner, and improve engagement.
Here are some other ways your images can help in your social media marketing.
- Act as a storytelling tool
A PR News study revealed that online content with suitable images gets 94% more views than those without. Images act as a useful storytelling tool. It helps to evoke emotion, inspire, educate, or provide quick insight into an idea. An image that is well-placed, alluring, creative, and pretty can make your customer decide on whether to buy your product or service.
Images draw the attention of your audience to your story
- Grabs your customer’s attention immediately
Image-centric posts (especially food and make-up products) tend to grab your customers’ attention quickly. Our Facebook, PinInterest, and Instagram are crowded with images, and posts that are accompanied by images are ten times more likely to get engagement. However, do note on the right images to go with the post. If you target a particular audience group for your product, make sure that it resonates with them. If your target audience is moms with toddlers, you would not want to include moms’ images with youth.
Image: Momandbabiestuff Instagram
- It helps your customers remember you
We all know the importance of branding. Branding is how you want other people to perceive you and what they will say when you are not in the room. This means images containing a consistent logo, colors, style, and design help your customers remember you and affiliate you with a certain product or service. Ensure that this brand identity is carried across all your social media platforms and marketing collaterals for easy recognition.
Image: LemaqSG Facebook
- Images are important for search engine optimisation (SEO)
When you include images, infographics, and designs in your content, it helps to increase your SEO. Images tagged with the right and highly searched keywords can help your website rank better and and lead to more visitors. When you tag your images, search engines understand what your content is about. Who doesn’t love web traffic? Remember to include high quality and original content, include an Alt text in the image description and caption them as well.
From Why to How
Now that we know why images are important, how do we create them? For companies that have a dedicated design team they can tap on their specialist team. For solopreneurs and small-medium enterprises, you can use free applications and resources such as Canva or Crello, royalty-free, or low-cost images from Shutterstock and PNG. Best of all, these days, all you need is a little creativity with a phone to take stunning photos too.
However, if all fails and you do not have the time or expertise to create a compelling and engaging copy with images, try outsourcing them to a freelancer or a boutique digital marketing agency who can help you do the thinking for you.
