You might not realize it, but a wide array of options exist to boost your brand's social media engagement through on-brand images. Images represent a powerful form of visual content marketing that social media users prefer when learning about a new product offering and making purchase decisions. After 3 days, information accompanied by an image has a 65% retention rate compared to only 10% without.
Your first thought may be to use stock images, but customized visual content would help you create a unique brand identity among your social media followers and on social media sites in general. The goal is to create and share on-brand images without being too pushy or imposing.
From Instagram to Facebook to Twitter, make sure you’re aware of the best practices and technical rules. For instance, square images are ideal for Instagram, while vertical images are more suitable for the Twitter platform.
Social media strategy encompasses many aspects, but ultimately aesthetics are central. You can always play around with filters, frames, and features to capture customers' attention with your social media posts.
The key, however, is to use image-oriented elements that resonate with your followers. In fact, the better your on-brand images blend in, the more customer engagement you can expect. Essentially, you have to figure out the general feel and look your followers prefer.
Contrary to popular belief, social media engagement is more than just a straightforward measurement of likes and follows. If you want to increase your total followers through on-brand images, you will have to be more engaging.
When it comes to brand awareness, you should focus on quality content rather than quantity to strive for perfection. When you launch a new small business, it resembles more like throwing a party on social media platforms. You have to create conversations and push followers to think about you.
Engagement works both ways, and your brand images should prompt social media users to go beyond just the "like & follow" - this includes genuine comments, shares, mentions, and retweets with their own comments.
In the age of digital marketing, active social media engagement is all about creating a brand experience through visual content. You’d be surprised how the integration of specific images can build robust and meaningful customer relationships.
If you’re not established as a brand and are just starting, you should opt for unique and customized images. The right combination of images will communicate a message and help people identify with your brand. As much as the use of gifs, emojis, infographics, memes, screenshots, and short live videos matter, images and photos should be the bread and butter of your brand and marketing strategy.
Customized images will leave a lasting impact and help you grow your following on social media channels. Often, brands simply need to be active on their social media pages to engage, promote, and communicate. It is a great way to grab the attention of followers who don’t follow you.
Along with the nature of distinct on-brand images and ideas, make sure you have a unifying theme throughout your social media accounts. For instance, a minimalist color palette says that your brand has a simple and design-oriented philosophy. Bright pops of color and design elements in your images might suggest humor and liveliness. Custom images can help you create a brand personality, and it is how new customers visiting your page will perceive you.
Create and post engaging images that people can relate to on Facebook and Twitter. Usually engaging means eliciting a form of emotional response, something that resonates.
Engaging images tell a story, either that of your brand or something relevant. If you are looking for a particular emotional response from your followers, make sure you choose the right color scheme, visual style, and even fonts. They can range from funny to touching!
Engaging images not only get likes and shares but, more importantly, build brand loyalty as it is a means for your audience to connect and understand you.
Are you sure you know enough about your social media followers?
You have to figure out the interests, preferences of your audience. For instance, what topics do they care about, does a specific style appeal more?
Remember, you can always experiment with numerous types of content to garner more engagement. Nonetheless, focus on creating and sharing custom images that have performed well without becoming too stagnant or boring.
It is no secret that Facebook posts manage to gain more online engagement on social media platforms, 2.3 times more in fact.
Images grab more attention than plain text when your online customers scroll down the Twitter timeline or Facebook wall. The inclusion of relevant images to each post will unequivocally lead to better social media engagement. Brands can exponentially increase their engagement rates through custom images.
This is a great opportunity to promote branded content - perhaps quote and link some blog content, or include a photo of your product (with a partial body part?).
If you want to create social media engagement through images, you will have to be more participative. It means when users leave a comment or message on your social media post, you should take it as an opportunity to create more engagement.
Whether it’s a negative or positive comment or message, focus on a quick response to every follower, especially when starting out. Often, brands post customized images to showcase appreciation for the positive feedback and thwart negative resolution.
Often, brands forget to integrate a call to action into custom images. Remember to include CTAs and encourage your followers to leave a comment, like, and share with others. Great CTAs can come in the form of giveaways - many influencers use this to get their followers to engage.
If you want to jumpstart your social media engagement, you will have to post more than one image a week. On Facebook, across all brands, there is a median of 0.97 posts per day. If you're posting less, other brands are getting more screen time. Using multiple images on several social media accounts consistently will help you build better engagement.
However, make sure you don’t cross the thin line of posting images to the point it becomes a nuisance for your audience. Ideally, you should establish the preferable time to post images on different social media platforms.
Often, brands are reluctant to direct questions to their followers. As a result, it creates a radio-silence between the brand and the target audience. Thus, be open and ready to ask questions on your social media accounts.
Your objective should be to ask your followers about what elements would make this post better. You can do this indirectly and playfully by incorporating questions within a custom on-brand image or on Instagram stories.
In addition to gaining insights about your social media profile or new products, you also generate more engagement from your followers! Remember, it does not have to be in the form of a serious survey.
Contrary to misguided perception, the visual and textual representation on a social media platform is not just about creating art. Instead, it has to do with a brand’s ability to grab attention.
If you can view social media engagement through this same lens and post images consistently while taking a proactive approach to spark conversations with followers, you'll find success on social networks.
Followers are already interested in your product or service, and you just have to give that nudge to keep the conversation going.
There are several social media tools that can help you track and improve your engagement. Some help you to create beautiful, aesthetic social media posts, while others focus on automating and measuring your activities on different platforms.
You can, for instance, use Canva to create custom templates for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter covers. Think of it as a simplified version of Photoshop without all the editorial headaches.
BuzzSumo is a tool you can use to identify top-performing content across the internet. Better understand what content is getting engagement and inspire your own social media strategy.
Sproutsocial has a quality social media listening tool that allows you to follow meaningful conversations about your brand on social media. From monitoring hashtags to your share of voice, you can now find out exactly what your audience is saying.
Hootsuite, on the other hand, helps you to manage various aspects of your social media accounts on a dashboard in real-time. You can schedule multiple posts, curate content, manage various team members, and even measure ROI.
The last thing you want is to press pause on your social media engagement efforts. It is a continuous task that requires time and undivided attention to win followers' hearts, both old and new. In essence, the more you learn about your targeted audience, the more you can implement on-brand visual content strategies that would work in your favor.
Most brands use analytics to determine what elements lead to positive social media engagement. It is a great way to assign your valuable time to the activities that dramatically improve your social media engagement and make more informed on-brand visual content decisions.
If you would like to improve your social media strategy with on-brand images, StudioNow will give you the help you need to refresh your marketing campaigns.
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