FAILING IN SOCIAL MEDIA? I MAY HAVE AN ANSWER

Pictures are often used to grab attention, but an interesting experiment done in the healthcare shows that doctors (and in this target group, radiologists) were more meticulous and thorough while examining a patient’s file when a photo of the patient was attached to the file. But even though radiologists rarely see and interact with their patients face to face, they still said that they felt a lot more connected to the patients whose photos were attached.

Just the alteration of a single inclusion of a photo of a patient made these medical professionals behave differently. This might have implications for how medical records are kept and transmitted, but how can marketers use this knowledge?

REASONS TO USE IMAGES:

This advice is specifically for people who either don’t post content at all for their social and those who just put out text updates. Images can be a great stepping stone for creating consistent content and then once you get the hang of it, moving on to video based content.

• Articles with images get 94% more total views than those with just text. Creating visually appealing images is getting easier by the day. A part of your content strategy could be putting out value posts, informational posts, quote based posts, funny quotes, memes and even reposting good content posted by someone in your niche.
• 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. But that doesn’t mean that every single photo on your page should be about your brand. For business pages, I often use a 70:20:10 rule. This means that I create 70% of posts to be informational and value based, 20% to be viral/quotes/reposted content and 10% to be subtle hints to the services my client offers. This could also be a framework which you could use for your business.
• In an eCommerce site, 67% of consumers say the quality of a product image is “very important” in selecting and purchasing a product. If you have such a site, product photos should be of utmost importance to you. Having high quality pictures and videos complimented by good Ad and website copy will dramatically increase the perceived value of your 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%) This shows that having really compelling images from all angles will really help boost your conversion rates.
• 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). So those of you who are not posting regularly, you can start posting, reposting and adding quotes on all your channels to increase engagement and improve your audience base.

DOUBLE YOUR AUDIENCE BASE AND ENGAGEMENT:

? FIND IMAGES WHICH RESONATE WITH YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE:

You don’t have to start from scratch in this regard, you can identify a few competitors or leaders in your niche and see what type of images are resonating with their audience because their audience will be similar to the audience you are trying to build/you already have. Emulate their winning content and create ads around those pieces of content. But consistency is the key here. Make sure you post 1-3 times a day initially.

? SOURCING/CREATING IMAGES:

You can do this either by outsourcing your content or creating them in-house using tools like canva.com and unsplash.com to create some pretty good graphic designs.

If your business revolves around visually appealing content, you could invest in a smartphone with a good camera to capture your audience’s attention.

Else, you could buy images from sites which are of high quality and incorporate them in your social media and website content strategy.

I really hope this post will inspire you to create more content consistently and then make the transition to video. Wish you the best of luck with your content and if you have any queries regarding this, feel free to ask. Cheers.