Visual Trends Leading The Way In Social Media

Today’s society is turning into a visually mediated one. For the audience, it is much simpler to get the message through to an individual via images as compared to reading text. Not just that, visual content defies all language barriers. And that’s the reason why visuals are playing a key role in driving content marketing in social media.

Platforms like Instagram and Pinterest driving visual content
With the popularity of Instagram and Pinterest, visual marketing is becoming a core part of social media marketing. Brands that work wonders with images can successfully use Instagram and Pinterest as a platform while sharing news about the brand. Pinterest traffic is proving to be the longest lasting social media post, so taking the time to create a pin in the perfect size is well worth the time. 42% of all Tumblr posts are photos. Not just that, Pinterest users follow more brands than Facebook or twitter users. Now that in itself proves why visual content is key to a brand’s social media marketing strategy.

Telling the brand story through pictures
The popular saying ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ applies aptly for brands on social media. When it comes to their products, businesses are learning to show, not tell, and visual content sites are fuelling our desire for beautiful photography and sensational design. Two years ago, marketers were spreading the maxim that "content is king," but now, it seems, "a picture really is worth a thousand words."

And why not? The numbers support that a brand story unfolded through pictures has a larger reach and impact. According to data shared by Mindshift Interactive: 40% of visual content is more likely to be shared by users on social media than text content. Not only that, 80% visual content is always recalled by people, leading to a better way of tapping the target audience.

Zafar Rais, CEO, MindShift Interactive, says, “The ability to make your viewers watch an advertisement, share it and talk about it is when the true return on investment in visual marketing is seen. With diminishing attention spans amongst the youth, brand messaging needs to break the advertisement clutter and speak sense to the viewer within a shorter period of a few seconds. Instagram has increasingly shown success in creating and disseminating such brand messaging, allowing it to also break cultural barriers through a visual journey."

Why pictures work better?
Science supports the fact why pictures have a stronger impression on people’s mind than text content. Scientific studies establish that coloured content stays better in a person’s mind than black and white and 90% of information that is sent to the brain is actually visual. This clearly helps a brand in getting its message to the consumer.

In fact, a study conducted at Wharton School of Business states that 67% people were persuaded by the brand person who supported the conversation with related images. Moreover, pictures convey the message in a much shorter time than text and thus it is more effective. The average attention span of a person is eight seconds and a visual content takes just one-fourth of a second to register that is quite helpful for a brand looking to catch attention of the consumers.

Making brand message easily shareable and spread faster
An interesting visual help people connect better with it and as mentioned earlier, people tend to share it further. This makes the message shareable and spread faster than a text content about the brand.

Design matters
When focusing on visual content for social media, It is important that brands focus on having a consistent design and theme. For instance, it is important to have a specific colour palette as it is an instant visual cue to the audience and they connect it immediately to the brand across different social media platforms. While designing the visual content one should focus on having two or three colours as that is the maximum amount recommended for a colour palette.

In marketing, they say it is all about telling your story, with visual marketing in social media, we can say it is all about showing your story.
Image: Thinkstock