We all know a picture is worth a thousand words and many businesses appreciate the importance of compelling online visuals. With more companies using social media, the competition to be seen is getting fierce. Better visuals can help you differentiate your business.
But how do you go about adding visual “oophm” to your social media presence? Visuals need not be elaborate or sophisticated. The human eye seeks out images subconsciously as a means to quickly define context of a given situation. If you provide clear, well thought out visuals, your stakeholders will respond, delivering better engagement to your business.
Here are some tools that you may like to consider to bring your online presence to life.
Infographics
We’ve written about these before and will probably do so again. Why? The answer is – they work. They do the heavy lifting and convey a lot of information in a graphic format that is readily understood by your stakeholders.
Video Slideshows
Instead of a standard slideshow, consider video slideshows to convey your corporate messages and offers. Animated Video
To add interest to your business content you can use animated video to bring your presentations and product demonstrations to life.
Consider content
At Fatpublisher we are passionate about content as well as design. Without good content the tools above just remain that – tools without meaning. So what content can you apply to bring your business messages alive visually?
Story telling
Your business has a story to tell. It’s what your sales efforts are all about. Your sales team, every day tries to convince prospects and customers to “buy” your version of reality so that they will buy your goods or services. That makes story-telling or your corporate narrative very important.
You can use visual tools to make that narrative more compelling. Just think of the number of times you’ve heard “I didn’t read the book but I saw the movie”. Well, that sums it up – people love visual content. And what drives movies? Emotion. Without emotion your stakeholders will resist ongoing engagement because they feel nothing about your company or your brand.
It’s important therefore to invest emotion into your visual content via social media. Find the human side to your messaging and corporate must says and convert it to visual assets using the tools above.
Conceptual visuals
Social media works when content is compelling enough to share. If the message you want to convey doesn’t readily convert to an existing image such as a photograph, you can create images from concepts or quotations (from venerable sources or your own business such as customer quotes). These can be overlaid with graphic elements to create an image that can enliven a post or a tweet.
Carpe diem – seize the day
More like – seize the moment! In this fast-moving world business conditions change and you need to be able to respond quickly to capitalise on any opportunities via social media.
Visual communications can help. It’s also important to have someone within your company who is alert to such opportunities and can drive the creation/selection of the right visual for that particular moment.
This requires a bit of finesse to balance branding considerations and human personality in your social media interactions.
Build Community
Extend an invitation to your community to share images to foster engagement and a sense of belonging. Take care and do in a relevant way to avoid degrading your brand with any outcomes that may seem too contrived.
Value –added product demos
Consider the low quality instructions that come with a cheap imported appliance. Now think about how you can save your customers time and retain brand values through an easy to understand product demo video. Also invest these with emotion to retain interest.
Ensure the content is written from the perspective of the user not with an “encyclopaedia” approach to the product features. You are trying the help your customer not bury them with details they probably don’t need.
After all, the sale is made, so you can stop selling and start value-adding!
Fatpublisher provides a range of website design services to our clients. If you are interested in finding out about our web design services, please contact us.
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