In the last several years, we have seen a noteworthy shift towards visual content on social media. The power and evolution of visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest have highlighted the requirement that businesses need to think in terms of images and visual content. Facebook and Twitter are the main social media platforms which have redesigned the news feeds of online businesses to focus more on images and visuals. Did you know that photos on Facebook generate 54% more likes than a post that is based on text? This clearly means that when businesses post links that contain only text, it is not likely to gain much engagement.
Images have hence become immensely popular as they have the ability to engage the maximum number of users. Now that people are able to click pictures on smartphones, incorporating them into a social media strategy has become easier. WordPress even offers Lightroom presets through which users can speed up photo retouching sessions as well.
The new shift to visual social media
No one can deny the fact that there has been a huge shift in the way we communicate with people online, particularly through social media. It began as only websites and now it has become dynamic websites. Previously blogs lured comments, interactions and building of communities through posts which were 500-1000 words in length. Eventually, posts got shorter and people embraced Facebook and Twitter where ‘tweets’ became limited to 140 words. So, we see that we’ve journeyed from blogs to micro-blogs.
Why images generate increased social media engagement
Images are simply pieces of content which grab attention and which users can easily engage with. The images we use in social media are more likely to evoke emotional reactions among viewers because the human mind communicates better visually vs. seeing written text. Consumers are constantly getting bombarded with content so more businesses are changing their strategy towards visual social media to engage users in an exciting manner.
Attracting the attention of users
The ultimate purpose of creating visual content on social media is to gain the attention of an audience. As a social media engager, it requires being original and making the content as amazing and focused to the readers as possible. Some ideas for attracting the attention of an audience include the following:
- How-to ideas that can discuss step-by-step procedures
- Quotes which offer motivation and inspiration
- Checklists which simplify action, steps and tasks
- Tips to assist your readers with a problem
The images which businesses post on social media can help a in telling its story and sharing a message. Do not be afraid of adding a specific personality to the content as people will interact and engage more this way. Also do some retouching through Lightroom presets from WordPress in order to make any images look professional.
Lastly, don’t stop after making a single image as it’s important to create a list of them to ensure a business always has some kind of content being published regularly. Also put such images within a content calendar as this is an impressive tool to let companies manage their social media platforms and create interesting content of high quality.
