“A picture is worth a thousand words.” This 100-year old truism remains as pivotal in modern marketing strategy as it does with billboards, printed ads and pictures on the sides of buses.
In today’s social media madness, businesses who understand the importance of integrated visual content will play well in the customer arena dominated by images. Here is a 2-step approach to using visual content in your social media strategy:
CAPTURE & STORE
- Snap Away – with the capabilities of smartphones, not to mention the availability of high quality digital cameras, you should never be caught without a lens. Capture the candid moments as well as well-positioned posed shots. Get plenty of wide shots with minimal background (you’ll want these so you can put text around the image), a good number of striking head shots (you’ll grab my attention better with a single subject rather than a large group photo – unless the group is doing something memorable), and lots of shots of inanimate representations of your brand (some of your products, but also of your workplace surroundings so customers can have a feel what it will be like to step inside your shop).
- Online Storage – uploading bulk photos to social sites makes perfect sense (i.e., a customer appreciation day, a product release, promotional events, etc. There are many photo sharing sites like Photobucket, SmugMug, Dropbox, and Flickr (here’s a good article comparing the best ways to store your photos online). When possible, tag or categorize the photos so you can find individual shots 6 months later when you need that “perfect” picture.
- Stock Up on Stock Photos – while not as authentic to your brand, there are times when stock photos make sense (and plenty of times when they should be avoided!) My favorite sites for inexpensive royalty-free images are iStockphoto and Stockfresh. You can find great quality free images at stock.xchng, in the Creative Commons area of Flickr and at Photopin.
SHARE & REPURPOSE
- Frame It – not literally, but digitally. I like to frame out most of my website images with a template created in Photoshop. This way, all of my images will have a consistent look to them that I hope my audience will come to expect. You can use editing software to crop it to the right size and add any special effects you would like. Sometimes a rather dull image can pop off the page by giving it a sepia tone or blurring out some of the background. Instagram has so raised the bar with photo effects that many other smartphone apps have sprung onto the scene to allow images to be enhanced. Have some fun, be creative, but avoid overusing cheesy effects.
- Post It – in addition to uploading bulk images on the photo sharing sites, I also post the best single images on web pages or blog posts. Rarely do I include an article on my site where there’s not an accompanying image (this is primarily because I have my Pinterest strategy in mind. Not on Pinterest? Read “A Pinterest Strategy without Pinboards“).
- Facebook It – because I like to manually share my articles on Facebook (in lieu of them being automatically linked or fed from a third-party site), I always use the same photo in my blog post and share that photo on Facebook with a link back to the article. If I were to just include a link to the article, Facebook would generate a tiny thumbnail image. I want a larger image, so I work with a visual content strategy in mind. I post photos with article links in the description. Facebook audiences tend to overwhelmingly prefer images to text or links, so that’s why I do it this way.
- Tweet It – I don’t often tweet images about blog posts. Because it shows as a link, I don’t want my followers to confuse the image link with the article link. But this is a great time to offer Twitter followers a visual peek into your workplace. Have some fun and showcase your personality with Twitter pics. Capture visual evidence ensuring that your potential customers’ experience in your shop will be something worth talking about.
- Instagram It – having a strong photo library will allow you to readily share a stream of high quality visual content for Instagram followers who want to see the “behind-the-scenes” or flip through a social “scrapbook” of what is going on with your customers. Instagramming your company’s participation at charity 5K is not about business, but it says a lot about your brand. Just like many of these sites, space out your posts so that your followers receive a consistent feed throughout the day/week/month rather than a barrage of 25 photos posts all at one time. That’s annoying on a mobile device.
- Pin It – I prefer Pinterest to Instagram simply because of the back link I get from every image I pin. This is why I create strong images on my website and blog – because I know I want to pin them on any of my various boards. Whether my images are repinned elsewhere or a follower clicks through to my blog, I get a win. I use images on Pinterest as lead generation magnets. One day I will even create my own illustrated graphics for my website because I am addicted to pinning these large infographics like this one about visual content!
I loved what John Jantsch recently wrote on his Duct Tape Marketing blog, “it is far easier to look at a thousand pictures than to consume a thousand words.” A contemporary twist on this adage reflects the pace of our culture and our attraction to visual content.
About Randy Vaughn
Randy Vaughn is currently Dallas-Fort Worth's only Certified Duct Tape Marketing Consultant. Living in Fort Worth, Randy loves to help Christian business owners grow their business and stop wasting money! Randy and his wife, Kelly, have 4 children. The most unique thing about Randy is that he also spent 10 years as a missionary in French-speaking West Africa. Randy is also an identical twin and works alongside his brother, Donny, in their creative marketing agency (see WEB below) - also, Randy offers consulting with private schools (preK-12) - connect with Your School Marketing on Twitter @schoolmktg
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