In today’s competitive landscape, social media visuals have emerged as the key to brands being able to effectively communicate their stories to a digitally distracted audience.
That makes sense, as people are inherently visual beings, naturally drawn to beautiful imagery: from a neurological standpoint, our brains use images to absorb large amounts of data quickly and can process images at a much faster speed than words alone.
Studies also show that when people hear a piece of information, they are likely to recall 10% of it three days later; but when that information is accompanied by a picture, people are likely to remember a whopping 65%.
When you combine our natural tendencies with the way our brains are wired to absorb and retain information — it’s obvious just how powerful imagery is, especially in what looks to be the age of visual culture.
One only needs to look towards the success of Instagram stories with its 300 million daily active users – that’s more than Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumblr — to realize that people want to see before they believe.
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Use Great Social Media Visuals to Create Brand Loyalty
Why are images so powerful?
Because of their ties to our memories and its ability to elicit an emotional response.
And, as it turns out, we are far more influenced by emotions than logic when it comes to making decisions: this means that visuals can set the stage for emotions that can persuade.
Creating a consistent visual aesthetic in your social media channels helps you cement your brand identity and establish trust and comfort among your target audience.
If you commit to your brand colors, typography and filter style to deliver a consistent narrative, emotional connection from your audience will follow suit, paving the way towards loyalty.
Boost Engagement Through Visual Storytelling
Customers engage most with brands whose stories they can relate to.
But remember that not all images are created equal, so it’s important to nail down the type of social media visuals that work best for your brand.
Consistently sharing authentic and well-designed content can reinforce your brand story.
Streetwear brand Off-White is an example of this ideology: simply look at their Instagram account and you’ll see exactly what kind of story they want to craft with their audience.
While eye tracking studies have shown that purely decorative images along with stock photos of generic people are often disregarded, there’s no doubt that high-quality social media visuals can generate more likes, shares and comments.
Social media posts that include images have a 650% greater engagement rate than those without!
The bottom line is that if you want to boost your engagement and make your brand story endure, it’s important that you optimize your posts with relevant and well-thought-out visual imagery.
Create Compelling Social Media Visuals to Accompany Your Content
Humans form a first impression in a mere 50 milliseconds — and you have a maximum of 2.5 seconds to grab the attention of readers before they leave your page.
In such a context, having a consistent visual style in place with eye-catching imagery spells the difference between being able to hook and deliver your brand message versus being swiped over.
When locking down your visual style, remember that visual components — such as texture, color, shape, style, readability and usability — can be linked to positive or negative feelings.
So use those components carefully to express the emotion you want to associate with your brand.
For instance, it’s good to know that:
- The use of warm colors like yellow, red and orange tend to evoke positive emotions such as happiness and optimism.
- Arranging pictures in a symmetrical manner helps create a feeling of order and predictability, while images with asymmetrical arrangements stir up feelings of chaos and unrest.
- Close-up shots show integration and intimacy whereas shots taken from afar show isolation, independence, and seclusion.
Generate Awesome Social Media Visuals Like An Expert
There are a wide variety of tools available which you can leverage to create attractive images.
Instasize is a mobile photo editing app that lets you curate your images and videos through unique collages, and crop and filter images.
Not only that, Instasize also includes tools to create more engaging visual content, from editable, professionally designed typographic layouts, text overlays, down to border-packs and more.
Here are just some of the ways you can use Instasize to supercharge your visuals:
- Use filters to create a brand aesthetic.
- Add text styles to tell your brand story.
- Inject some variety through the use of collages.
- Apply borders for symmetry.
Regardless of how you choose to style your social media visuals, be sure to have a strategy in place for your brand: factors like image quality, consistency and timing all impact success.
In essence, the quality of content you create determines engagement and conversion rates, and compelling imagery greatly increases the quality of your content.
This social media guest post was brought to you by the great team at Instasize: you can download Instasize for free on iOS or Android (and eventually upgrade to Instasize Premium).
