Whether building your brand or promoting your product or service, using images can have a huge impact on your business.
To learn how, download the Small Business Trends eBook “Innovative Tips to Make Your Marketing Sizzle“, brought to you by the Brother Creative Center.
Brother Creative Center is a free service allowing businesses to create visually appealing business cards, brochures and more in minutes.
You’ll also want to check out the new Small Business Trends SlideShare which contains a sampling of some, but not all, of the tips from the eBook.
In the meantime, here are some of the tips to keep in mind:
1. Use Visuals to Increase Views and Engagement
Whether in social media or elsewhere, visual content leaves a huge impression. Remember that articles with images usually get 94 percent more total views than those without, according to Valentine Belonwu of Business Gross.
And, in a blog or social media, Curt Finch, CEO of Journyx says his company has found use of images raises engagement by 56 percent.
No matter which statistic you choose to consider, it’s clear your content is more powerful with visuals than without them.
2. Boost Your Brand with Consistent Profile Shots
You know your profile is important. And adding a great profile image goes even further toward establishing your brand. But being consistent with that image, no matter what channel you use, is also critical.
As Miranda Marquit of Miranda Marquit Freelancing, LLC explains:
“Keep your profile avatar consistent across social media accounts and outlets. A professional headshot that is recognizable multiple places online ensures that you are easy to spot. Potential clients, partners, and others will see who you are,
and feel as though they already know you.”
3. Encourage Your Followers to Share
There’s no need for you or your team to post all the visuals in your online marketing campaigns either.
Encourage your followers to do some of the work.
For example, do you have a product that works well in photos? Encourage customers to take their own photos and share them on social media. They can pose with your products or take a photo showing how they’re using them. If you have a popular service, perhaps your customers could post images showing how they benefited from it.
You can encourage your followers to post their own photos via Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. Then, publish those images instead of some boring product shot, suggests James Clifton, social media manager at GetApp.
4. Avoid Stale Stock Images Like the Plague
Yes, there are plenty of sites with free images out there. So finding visual content for your blog, website or even a flyer might not be hard.
But let’s face it, if they’re that easy to find, your competitors have probably used them already.
Instead, Larry Kim, founder and chief technology officer at Wordstream, suggests looking for eye catching images, saturated in color and not too busy.
Try your own take on a popular meme, for example. Unusual and even “carzy” images are recommended. But you’ll also want to make sure those images look good … even on a smartphone screen.
5. Spice Things Up with Some Video
Finally, when talking about visual content, video seems like a natural consideration.
Not only is video a great way to add that “Wow factor,” says Deborah Anderson of Social Web Café. It’s not even hard to create these days.
Anderson suggests simply setting up a Google Hangout with others in your niche. The resulting video will be great content for you to share.
Image: Small Business Trends
Aira Bongco
This is the generation of images. It is the time for infographics and image sharing websites. I think that the next trend will be on videos. What do you think?
I’ll have to agree on that one. Facebook is (somewhat forcefully) implementing videos in their current timeline trends, plus there are Snapchat, Vine, Instagram and many more. It’s very interesting seeing the video which has been there so many years, slowly overcome images. I’m very curious to see in which direction will this video trend continue to grow in the next couple of years, but it’s safe to say that using it for marketing purposes can be a very smart thing to do.
joshmathews
Marketing is something which requires a technique to capture the attention
of the audience/viewers. Today visual content are the best methods to draw attention and hence businesses are implementing infographics, animated videos about their products/services to draw attention and in turn leading to a conversion.
Shawn: Thanks again for including my printing media tip:
“Add a caricature / avatar of yourself on your business cards! You will stand out from the crowd, and the same time you have created a picture of yourself with a twist, that
the receiver of the business card will remember and can relate to.
Individuals should do business according to the trader principle, so a caricature / avatar that embodies your individuality could
create a special “wow” factor.” – Martin Lindeskog of Ego NetCast
Hi Shawn,
I’ve added video to my recent 3 posts. Night-day difference with engagement. People like to see humans, chatting, and engaging, as this builds the trust factor. Folks dig seeing someone chatting on video. Adds that human touch which makes us stand out from the crowd. Thanks for the fab tips.
Ryan