The Power of Visuals in Social Media Marketing: 5 Strategies to Engage your Audience

Scrolling through a wall of text can be dull. Even with neatly marked sub-sections, promotional messages containing large paragraphs of text can demotivate users from going forward.

It is especially vital in social media marketing. Are text-based promotions likely to produce any impact on platforms marked with images, videos and other visual media?

Source: Medium

If your answer is no, you echo the sentiments of several customers. A study concluded that 40% of brand engagement through social media happens due to infographics. Customers are more likely to be attracted by innovative graphics or moving images that create a sense of mystery and invite them to explore the brand further.

That is not to say that words have no value. Successful social media marketing is achieved using a mix of graphics and words, albeit with an unequal ratio.

Curious to find out more? Here are some strategies to help you maximise visual content on social media to attract audiences.

Use Images to Narrate a Story

Social media is often associated with exaggerated lifestyles that do not represent reality, so it is essential to stay authentic. Using perfect stock photos for marketing will not resonate with the audience.

Source: Aspiration Blog

Instead, supplement your brand identity by showcasing the ideas behind your products. Capture employee moments or behind-the-scenes activities to make your brand feel more humanized to the viewers. Capture specific moments and narrate a tale around them to provide deeper insights into your company culture, helping users relate better.

Using images is also a validated method to improve shareability among individuals.

Maintain Consistent Shades

Colours are one of the most impactful ways to communicate or express the idea behind your brand. Apart from the consistent colours associated with your brand identity, experiment with several shades depending on the goal of your marketing campaigns.

Source: Smperth

Experimentation aims to identify the shades that resonate the most with your target audience. Use data-driven analysis to recognise perfect shades for specific areas based on the viewing and response rates.

Depending on the geographical targeting of your campaigns, colours can also stand for specific emotions or holidays. Ensure you perform adequate research to utilize colours to their maximum capabilities to ensure robust brand positioning.

Incorporate Data Visualization

Large and complex datasets usually require dedicated paragraphs to convey. But when undertaking social media marketing campaigns, incorporating these datasets into text can rapidly lead to fading interest among prospects.

The alternative is to convert this detailed information into easily readable forms. Data visualization offers an exciting way for individuals to understand the point conveyed by your brand. Simultaneously, the use of creative structures and different appeals to their curiosity.

Infuse your social media posts or stories with bar graphs, pie charts, histograms or heatmaps to cultivate interest in numbers. Showcase your brand's performance and reach using a data storytelling effort and employ the most suitable method to prevent confusion among the viewers.

Source: Flowingdata

A perfect example of data visualization is this infographic displaying how certain foods have risen in popularity within the US. This infographic is an ideal tool to attract the attention of laypersons who have yet to learn about the topic. The creator has also infused it with personal elements and comments to make the visual details more fun to browse.

Don't Underestimate Video Marketing

Gone are the days when high-quality videos required access to expensive equipment or specialists who possessed this equipment. In the modern era of readily available 4K videos, video marketing is mandatory to create awareness and promote visibility among the audience on social media.

Such is the popularity of video marketing that 88% of marketers have a dedicated team for creating videos.

Source: Marketingprofs

Social media marketers' primary aim must be developing social videos and encouraging users to share them. Each video must be tailored according to specific social media platforms to improve click rates and increase traffic to your social media page.

The best video marketing brands in the business prioritise the following factors.

The video should capture the user's attention within a few seconds. Invoke a sense of wonder that convinces them to watch the entire clip.
Create a video of a limited duration. You should wrap up the video in under a minute in most cases.

Combine these with the comprehensive promotion of these videos, and witness a rise in users who view your marketing posts and videos. You can draw more customers to your products by creating a distinctive brand identity.

Add Visible CTAs

You must harness the power of visuals appropriately with a dedicated CTA option that redirects the user to your page.

Most social media marketing campaigns get discovered through recommendations on platforms like Instagram or Facebook. Hence, adding an accompanying call-to-action graphic at the end of your images or videos is vital to direct the user to your page or services.

Source: Red Website Design

Think of it this way. Introducing users to impactful visual content might make them more inclined to browse through your brand or explore your brand identity. If you do not add CTAs along with your visuals, you may lose a potential customer who wants to search for your services later.

Encourage them to take specific actions using impactful CTAs with relevant shades and witness increased organic traffic to your pages!

Final Thoughts

Social media campaigns can be challenging to execute, especially without additional assistance. You can outsource social media marketing to produce the best results at times like these. Outsourcing also saves you the hassle of spending significant resources on an in-house team and connects you with professionals possessing expertise in the domain.

Regardless of your decision, adopt visuals for all brand communications on social media. Eye-catching images and other media will entice potential customers and convince them to engage with your brand. Scale your brand growth with the power of visuals in social media, and never look back!