Every minute, Facebook users share 684,478 content pieces. Every day, more than 500 million Tweets are processed on Twitter, while 80 million photographs are uploaded to Instagram. With so much material on social media, brands are finding it more challenging than ever to stand out and get noticed.
Getting and keeping your audience’s attention on social media is a race against the clock. Visuals are no longer an afterthought; they are an integral component of a successful social media strategy.
Strong social media engagement is a sign that a modern brand with an online presence is making an impression in the market.
It’s not just about appearing popular: it’s about creating genuine connections with current and potential consumers, which will help your brand (and ROI) both online and offline.
Social engagement is important, and no, we’re not talking about that critical face-to-face contact — that’d be a different story. Social engagement on websites like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook is driving conversions in today’s digital world, and as a brand, you want to increase that engagement as much as you can.
Much like other aspects of digital marketing, increasing social engagement involves careful planning and strategizing. There should be research and calculated moves instead of doing something you think is right, and then hoping for the best.
How Can You Double Your Social Engagement?
Using photos is a terrific method to boost your social interaction, and this trend does not appear to be going away anytime soon. Some people believe that employing photographs to visually display your business is an important component of social media.
At the end of the day, it makes no difference how important a component some blog post purports to be because the numbers speak for themselves. According to a recent Buffer study, tweets with graphics garnered 89 per cent more favourites and 150 per cent more retweets. Furthermore, tweets with images receive 18% more clicks than those without.
While we’re on the subject of Twitter, it’s not unexpected that they’re pushing users to contribute photographs and videos to their platform. Prior to this adjustment, when posted images were separated, social media scientist Dan Zarella discovered that tweets with pics.twitter.com links were 94% more likely to be retweeted.
This rise in social engagement caused by the introduction of photos is not exclusive to Twitter. According to social media analyst Jeff Bullas, Facebook posts with photographs earn an average of 37% more interaction, while Buzzsumo data suggests that adding an image to a Facebook post increases engagement by 2.3 times.
The figures don’t lie; they demonstrate that adding visuals is an excellent approach to increase social interaction with your brand. The actual question, though, is how does a company maximise their usage of images in order to enhance social engagement?
It’s fairly straightforward. To improve engagement with visuals, we can divide it into three parts.
Use Historical Data to Your Advantage
As with most things in life, you should conduct some study before delving into something new. Analytics are available on your social accounts for a purpose, and while they may appear intimidating at first, they are the best approach to determine what has worked in the past for your company in order to make judgments moving forward.
There is also a wealth of information available online. Don’t be hesitant to look at what has succeeded outside of your own experience. Contrast your social movements with those of similar, successful firms. What are they doing correctly? What steps can you take to make that yours? What imagery do they use to best represent their brand message? Use the resources at your disposal, as they provide a lot of information on your target audience.
With this information in hand, we proceed to the following stage.
Create Engaging Visuals
Images can be sourced in a variety of ways, whether they are created by you, someone else on your team, or even outsourced to a freelancer or organisation. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you maintain your image creation in-house or outsource it to a third party as long as the quality and branding are consistent.
When contemplating the instruments required to generate your graphics and photos, keep in mind that even little equipment modifications can make a significant impact in terms of quality. Some assume that all you need is a smartphone with a high-quality camera.
There are many free or low-cost resources available online for folks who do not have a large budget to deal with. A short Google search will yield a plethora of information such as advice for teaching yourself design skills, free graphic design tools, and even strategies for maximising the usage of software such as Adobe Photoshop.
Design, like most things, is a skill that can be self-taught, and the internet is a fantastic resource where other designers are eager to assist you on your journey.
Ensure the Engaging Visuals You Created are Accessible
Assume you’ve created the ideal infographic to post and increase your social engagement. There are a few more things to think about before you broadcast this image to the world, and the majority of them have to do with whether or not the image is accessible.
First and foremost, ensure that your audience can read your image. Did you use proper grammar? Is the font you’re using appropriate and legible? Are your images properly labelled? Finally, are your colours well contrasted? Consider whether this fraction of the population would have difficulty distinguishing between portions or details on your images, as 1 in 12 males and 1 in 200 women are colourblind.
Furthermore, you want to ensure that your image is noticed; it’s more than just publishing it to any platform and hoping for likes or shares. Is the image the right size for social sharing? Remember that in 2016, they discovered that approximately 80% of social media time was spent on mobile devices. That being said, not all social media platforms are created equal. Is your photograph properly formatted for sharing on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn?
Ask yourself this question when you’re scrolling down a feed, does your visual make people want to stop and engage?
Finally, some people regard “capturing and sustaining your audience’s attention on social media [as] an all-out competition.” Visuals are no longer an afterthought; they are an integral component of a successful social media strategy.” This isn’t a passing trend, though; according to Google Trends, “social photographs are so high demand that the search phrase “social media images” has been constantly expanding for years, with no sign of slowing down.”
Summing-up
Visual content makes it easier for viewers to consume content by digesting information in pieces. Simply put, it makes it easier for users to understand your post or ad message than text-only information. What’s more intriguing is how imagery helps in information retention. Users begin forgetting about text-only advertising and postings just three days after a specific piece of information is released, with only 10% recalling the brand or message. Users will have a 65 percent post recall if they see a relevant visual linked to the same information.
To get a true competitive advantage on social media and start dialogues that can lead to a true value, you must embrace the usage of graphics, and with the tools we’ve provided, it shouldn’t be difficult to begin to scale your process.
With that in mind, it’s time to curate some quality images and garner that hike in social engagement! Need help with your efforts to double your social engagement? That’s what Shergroup is here for — we provide social media management services, and we have designed fantastic digital marketing packages so that you don’t have to worry about low engagement. Give us a call and speak with one of our digital marketing experts today!
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