The content marketing landscape has changed significantly over the last few years. In the early days of content marketing, getting any content out to the audience was enough, but that no longer holds true.
While writing good text content is still vital for creating engaging social media content, with the decreasing attention spans of internet users, you need to rely on more than strong writing skills. People’s lives are busy, which is why many don’t have the time to stop and read articles. The ever-increasing stream of content that users encounter also makes it difficult for content creators to reach their audience.
Additionally, because the internet is suffused with content, users have a hard time filtering out what they do and don’t need. So, if your content isn’t engaging from the get-go, you are unlikely to reach your target market. Which is why you need to focus on optimizing your visual content, which can help you preserve your online revenue.
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Here are a few notable ways to scale your content marketing using visuals.
Consistent Visual Identity
Once you have a good idea of what kind of content you are creating, whether it is developed in- house, or by using content writing services, you will have a fair idea of what kind of messaging you want to send out to your audience. And you should adopt the same ploy for your visual content.
Just as you wouldn’t write a post about sports if you are a fashion blog, you wouldn’t want to post an image featuring cartoon characters when you want to talk about revenue increases. Your visual identity needs to be as consistent as your messaging.
The best way to achieve consistency is by creating visuals according to your brand identity. Your content teams need to be well-versed with your brand guidelines and visual strategy. Your brand colors and typography should be featured on your visual material, whether they are social media posts or business flyers, so they are easily recognizable as belonging to your brand or company, as in the example below where the brand identity is made clear.
You should also make it a habit to regularly use visuals with your posts. Avoid sending out posts solely with text, unless they are replies or comments. If it is a post from your business’ account, there should be an accompanying image.
High Quality Imagery
The kind of images you use will make a significant impact on how much engagement your posts receive. High quality images are not only attractive but easily shareable. With the rise of Instagram, beautiful photographs have become the currency of the digital sphere. As you can see in the visual below, the use of a photograph gives the message more emphasis.
Relevant imagery has become so important, that many brands are now hiring visual content marketers or managers whose primary purpose it is to source visuals that are consistent with the brand and messaging.
While a number of brands, particularly small and medium businesses, have turned to stock photography, as it is easier to access, and not extremely expensive, this is not always the wisest option. Users have become far more educated about visuals and can now easily spot a stock image. While stock photography still has its place in visual marketing, more and more businesses are using authentic photography with their content marketing.
Though a somewhat expensive proposition, photography agencies and in-house photographers have become the norm to source high quality visuals that best convey the brand message. These photographs are not only of excellent quality, but are more likely to be unique. This is particularly true with regard to in-house photographers, who better understand the company’s ethos and thus, photograph their subjects accordingly.
Repurpose Existing Content
What many businesses don’t realize is that when a piece of content has been released into the world, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be used or adapted ever again. The world is constantly changing, and your messaging needs to be updated to reflect those changes.
The way to do this is to repurpose existing content for your visual marketing. For example, you can make gifs from video content. Snippets from your podcast can be juxtaposed on a simple visual for a short Instagram video.
If you have an article about viral content, you can use the information to create an infographic. Infographics are great shareable content, and you can choose to break one into smaller visuals that can be shared across multiple channels over time, such as the below infographic on coffee drinking.
An old social media post may become relevant again, and you can share it with a different, more updated, visual. You can break your blog post into smaller posts and share the text with visuals on Twitter or Instagram.
Essentially, when it comes to repurposing content, the possibilities are as endless as your imagination.
User Generated Content
Creating visuals in-house or through agencies can be time-consuming and taxing on your budget. But you don’t need to create all the content yourself to capitalize on visual marketing.
The brands who are winning at content marketing are doing it through their user generated content. The great thing about content from users is that it is one-of-a-kind and authentic. People enjoy seeing photographs and videos of real people, because it makes them feel more connected to the subject, which is why visuals from fellow users works.
Another important aspect of user generated content is that it shows how connected the brand is to their audience. Your target groups will feel more in sync with your brand if they feel that they can be noticed and featured on your social media pages. It will also give them a reason to share your brand with their friends and family, in the hopes that they too can be featured on your brand page in some way or form. As a result, you kill two birds with one stone – you can enhance your visual marketing while growing your following.
Conclusion
Visual marketing is here to stay and it has already proven to be extremely successful in reaching target audiences. Beyond social media, creating engaging content can also help your google rankings which is why you should be following these methods to scale up your content marketing with visuals. Good visual content is a great way to create posts that are relevant and exciting for internet users. Once you adopt visual marketing into your content strategy, you will quickly see how it improves your engagement.
Featured image source: Freepik
