It’s been said countless times that a picture is worth a thousand words, and as this infographic from dci shows, that adage is especially right when it comes to lead generation. The science backs it up. People process images far faster than text – 600,000 times faster, to be exact. Not only do we understand visuals more quickly, but we remember them better, too. People can recall 80% of what they see, but only 20% of what they read and 10% of what they hear. That’s already a pretty strong sell for adding visual content to your online marketing. But what if you also found out that larger product images and video content can increase your sales by 46%? It seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? Visual content will also increase your exposure, since it is shared 3x faster than text. Visualization tools such as infographics make complicated ideas easier to understand, and they are extremely shareable – 39% of B2B buyers in 2014 frequently shared infographics on social media, and publishers that use them grow in traffic by an average of 12%. Memes are another popular online tool for spreading messages. An interesting or humorous meme has a chance of going viral, and can be created easily using a free online generator.
So, let’s say that you’ve decided to take this infographic’s advice, and you want to start using visual content to boost your audience and grow your conversion rates. Which sites are most useful? As the infographic notes, there are a lot of websites ideally suited to visual content.
YouTube
- Over 100 hours of video posted every minute
- Currently the second-largest search engine (next to Google)
- Processes 3 billion searches per month
- Makes it very easy for users to share videos on other sites, including Facebook and LinkedIn
- Google Hangouts option lets you stream live video to your audience
- Over 14 million articles pinned every day
- Great in terms of generating inbound links
- 300 million monthly active users sharing an average of 70 million photos per day
SlideShare
- 60 million unique monthly visitors uploading more than 15 million files
- Can greatly improve your Google visibility
- 87% of the most-shared content includes photos
- Visual content results in 180% greater engagement
- 35% of retweets contain photos, while 28% include video.
- Image tweets result in 150% more retweets, 18% more clicks, and a whopping 89% higher chance of being selected as a Favorite
Optimizing your designs for use on all of your social network platforms can save you time and energy. You don’t necessarily have to break the bank on hiring a design firm, either. There are a number of free and inexpensive tools out there to help you get started. What tools can you use to make your visual content pop?
- Crop, add borders, or make cosmetic fixes with BeFunky
- Create infographics with infogr.am and Piktochart
- Resize images for social media profiles with Social Image Resizer
- Add profile pics to Pinterest boards with Pinstamatic
- Make a trendy collage with PicMonkey or Photovisi
- Use Recite or Quozio to turn quotes into images
- Edit images on your mobile device with Instaquote, PicSay Pro, or Word Swag
So what do you think? Will “show, don’t tell” become your new social media motto? Are your meme-generating skills already up to par? Join the discussion below.
