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Let’s Get Visual (Content)

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HMG Bounce

Did the animated bouncing graphic at the top catch your attention when you opened the page? Of course it did. That is the power of visual content. It can easily bring content front-and center.

It’s no secret that visual content is very quickly becoming king in the social media space. It forces the users eye to gravitate to an area or react to different elements on a page or in a post. An image, video, or graphic of some form will naturally lead your attention away from other elements, especially simple text.

Text (content of said text aside) is monotonous. It is, in essence, line after line of (usually) one color taking up roughly the same space in terms of height and width per line as it runs down the page. If your copy is not exciting on its own, you will surely lose readers to boredom at best and snores at worst. Visual content can help break that up, adding a splash of color to your post and emphasizing or reinforcing a previously-mentioned idea. Visual content can simply be a photo that carries the message along, a way to pull an important quote from the copy, a graphic that illustrates your point, or a video that can do the explaining in a completely different way.

The fact of the matter is that the brain prioritizes visuals to text, which is something that has been true from before the start of the internet age. In 1986, a 3M-sponsored study at the University of Minnesota School of Management found that “presenters who use visual aids are 43% more effective in persuading audience members to take a desired course of action than presenters who don’t use visuals.” The human brain processes visuals up to 60,000 times faster than text, making it key for you to start using other forms of content in your posts.

This doesn’t just apply to blog posts either. Social media, which has become a major part of the way we conduct business (personal or professional), has been been massively influenced by visual content. Take your twitter feed for example. It is, in its simplest form, a constantly-updating text stream that offers short but occasionally informative or interesting (depending on who you follow) information. Using graphics to really push your promotions is key and can drive the viewer to the places you want them to go. Which of the two tweets below grabs your attention more?


The same goes for Facebook and LinkedIn. In a sea of text-based status updates, it has become increasingly important for your content to stand out. Facebook has been prioritizing visual content since the launch of the Timeline in late 2011. A statistic from Simply Measured illustrated the impact that the move had:

  • 14% Increase in Fan Engagement
  • 46% Increase in Content Engagement
  • 65% Increase in Interactive Content Engagement (Video and Photo)

Facebook is going through another redesign, slowly rolling out new features to users as you read this. The updated look is putting an even bigger emphasis on visual content, bringing photo and video-based posts and links to the fore. You can look at Facebook’s plans for Pages here and notice the plan for photos is to keep them organized and to keep them large.

februaryimpressions

When we implemented the strategy for Haley Marketing back in mid-February we saw the results almost straight away. There is a noticeable upward trend in impressions on LinkedIn and the same goes for clicks. On top of that, we compared the figures to February of 2013 and the results were staggering. Haley Marketing saw a 34% increase in Facebook followers, an 81% increase in LinkedIn followers, social referrals to our website were up by 275%, and unique visitors to the website were up 50%.

Fresh content is essential for your company’s success and now it’s up to you to make sure that it stands apart even more from the competition.

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