I love Instagram and kind of hate Twitter. Why? Twitter is pretty boring – it’s all hashtags and unenlightened comments. But Instagram is full of awesome pictures by people and businesses I actually care about. I like seeing pictures.
The cool thing is, most people love seeing pictures. That’s why visual is king. And what that means is your business should post pictures anytime you’re updating your blog and/or social media accounts. It’s called visual content marketing, and it works like a dream.
Here are the stats, courtesy of blogging guru Jeff Bullas:
- Articles with images get 94% more total views
- Including a Photo and a video in a press release increases views by over 45%
- 60% of consumers are more likely to consider or contact a business when an image shows up in local search results
- In an ecommerce site, 67% of consumers say the quality of a product image is “very important” in selecting and purchasing a product
- In an online store, customers think that the quality of a products image is more important than product-specific information (63%), a long description (54%) and ratings and reviews (53%)
- Engagement rate on Facebook for photos averages 0.37% where text only is 0.27% (this translates to a 37% higher level of engagement for photos over text)
Read more here.
Now, the visual content marketing how-to.
The beauty is, it’s easy.
On your tablet, download the Canva app, or create an account with their online app.
You can upload your own images or use the ones they provide, although most of Canva’s images cost $1.
Now, add text, icons, shapes and lines to make your image look cool. That’s how I made the image on this blog post (and this one and a few others).
Done!
Is there a better way?
Sure! In fact, there are tons of free resources out there, including FREE infographics that you can use in your blog. Platonik’s guide to 247 free infographics is one of the best resources out there.
Don’t want to do it yourself? Cool, we’re happy to help. Get in touch and ask how!