Nowadays people are scrolling through social media in a slightly distracted way – sometimes for only a few minutes at a time. So, the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words” has never been more accurate.
It’s true – our brains were built for visual information. In fact, humans recall information 55% more efficiently when it’s paired with a graphic. This means that, as marketers, we have the responsibility of creating graphics that drives engagements and brings brand awareness.
Here’s a quick guide to better understand the different types of social media graphics that can have a powerful impact on your brand and skyrocket online engagements in your business.
GIFs
If you’re in marketing, you’re aware of the high social media engagements that GIFs produce. There are limitless creative avenues you can go down with them - they have a wide variety of uses. Here’s a list of possible GIF concepts that your brand name could benefit from:
Branded GIF
Show your product off! It’s an easy and graphic way to present what you have to offer.
Try creating a contest that challenges your customers to make a GIF of them using your product! Not only will you be creating both employee engagement and customer engagement, but you’ll also have some great content to share. Everyone will want to showcase their own creativity and potentially win!
Reaction GIF
Incorporate some excitement about your brand in a fun and recognizable way. Many reaction GIFs are short bits of videos that are looped together. These are typically used when commenting back to people – stray away from normal responses with emojis…people appreciate a good GIF response!
A fun and easy way to increase your social media presence is to ask a question to your community and ask them to respond with a GIF. Social media users are GIF crazy!
Cinemagraphs
Is there something special you want to show off about your business? This is a unique way to reveal specific qualities by using a still image with a section that continuously moves.
Video
It’s no surprise that video is the leading source to creating social media engagements. In fact, views of video content have increased 99% on YouTube and a whopping 258% on Facebook between 2016 and 2017. Twitter has also seen the benefits of video with video tweets being 6X more likely to be retweeted than photo tweets. While, when used correctly, photos and words can be great marketing tool, it’s clear that videos communicate feelings and messages most effectively.
In regards to video creation, make sure that you’re testing different types of marketing strategies when it comes to messaging. Do your customers engage with emotional videos or comical videos better? Maybe your followers prefer to watch testimonials. After you’ve figured out which type of content to produce, figure out how long the video should be. This depends on the platform you’re using. Here are the ideal video length times broken down:
Facebook: 1 minute
Instagram: 30 seconds
Twitter: 45 seconds
YouTube: 2 minutes
Another area to be aware of is that 85 percent of Facebook video is watched without sound. This could alter the route that you take with video creation. If you have a message that can’t exactly be given without words, we urge you to add subtitles. Platforms like Facebook and YouTube make it easy to add subtitles manually or upload and SRT file.
No matter which platform you’re utilizing or what message you’re trying to communicate, remember – putting time and resources into video content will drastically increase your business growth and bring great brand awareness. Having trouble knowing where to start? Read our blog about the marketing steps that you need to follow when creating your content.
Related Post: How to Use Video to Increase Online Engagement
Photos of team
It’s always welcoming to show visitors who you are as a company and give them an inside scoop to the office’s daily life. Helping your customer feel a part of your brand gives them an even better understanding of what the your company is all about. Not to mention, on Instagram, pictures with faces have a 32% higher chance than other photos to receive comments.
Try snapping pictures of employees during fun themed weeks to showcase your office culture or get employees in their natural habitat of working. Don’t forget to brand the image with your logo so that viewers correlate the laid-back atmosphere to your brand.
To really get your customers to engage with you, show them that you’re more than just a company trying to sell them something – you’re a team who is passionate about their work and culture!
Quotes
Graphically presenting a quote is a great way to back up your brand’s message without being too pushy. Using someone else’s words helps to switch up the typical verbiage, and ultimately reinforce the importance of your marketing message. After all, you want people to be engaging with your graphics, so really try to find quotes that emphasize the point you’re trying to make.
You’ll also want to stray away from long quotes – you want to get your brand’s message across as quickly as possible. Also - Including the author is a must, and if you use a quote from someone well-known, all the better! (Using a quote from a professional in your industry will get you major brownie points!)
At times, it can be confusing to know which colors, fonts, and visuals to add to content pieces like these. Thankfully, we made a blog post that helps you choose the perfect visual combinations!
Visual tips
Educating customers is one of the major aspects to marketing, so why not do it in a creative, graphical way? Giving tips on how to use your product or explain why your service is important is a great way to communicate with your community. If they find the tip or advice useful, they’ll share it with others which ends up bringing you even more brand awareness. Take a step back and think about your audiences’ pain points.
What are common questions that they seek answers to?
What are their core needs?
Giving small, graphic tips on your social media pages will help viewers remember your brand in an effective and creative way!
Infographics
https://visme.co/blog/best-infographic-examples/
Do you have an important point or statistic that you want to share on social media? Try using infographics to simply get a message across. They help break down information that is difficult to digest. Again, people remember what they saw more than what they read.
Not only are infographics attractive to look at, but they’re also shareable. The simplicity that they bring encourages viewers to share the information that is on it. Did you know that search engines prioritize infographics when displaying results? This is great news if you’re trying to make it on the first page of search engine results and increase brand awareness. Overall, the simpler, the better. People are more likely to engage with content that is quick and easy to understand.
Visual Statistics
In today’s world, numbers have a big influence on people. Creating and sharing a visual statistic is an effective way to get a point across. Is your company on an upward trend with sales? Show it graphically! Is there a statistic that emphasizes why your product is going to be useful for them? Create a simple chart, graph or table to display your facts! Customers are much more interactive with visuals than they are with words – developing eye-catching visual statistics will increase your brand’s engagements.
Series or Theme
Consistency is key. Have you ever considered making your posts a part of a theme or series? Unifying your content allows you to create excitement and generate momentum. Not to mention, viewers will start to easily recognize your association after seeing such consistent posts. Also, designing a template saves you time when it comes to content creation. (Score!) You could even try making a theme out of any of the graphic types that are listed above - get creative!
So, which content ideas are you going to try? Remember – give your testing a bit of time. If you’re testing your new content ideas as ads, let them run for at least 3-4 days. This way, you can gauge whether your audience are engaging in the right way. Also, look at your analytics to identify any trends occurring. Creating solid social media content and keeping an eye on what’s driving engagements will end with a successful content marketing strategy.
Download our guide to up your digital marketing strategy
Creating effective social media content to share with your target audience is a crucial part to your marketing strategy.
Using our expertise in content creation, we’ve created this guide to help you cultivate a more engaged audience and, ultimately, help you grow your business.
In this download, you’ll receive:
The steps you’ll need to follow in order to create social media engagement.
4 essential elements to add in every content piece.
Information on different types of graphics your business can post for brand awareness and engagement
Key strategies for lead generation