We’ve all heard it before, “A picture’s worth a thousand words.”
As true as these words were years ago, they take on a new – and perhaps more literal and potentially even more important – meaning in the digital age. Photo sharing has become a huge part of our personal lives in 2015, with apps like Instagram dedicated solely to taking, editing and sharing your favorite pictures with friends, family, and the world at large.
But for businesses, the art of sharing photos takes on an even bigger role. Research has shown that posts with photos get more engagement across a wide variety of social networks, providing even more incentive for businesses large and small to start snapping and, more importantly, to start sharing.
In honor of National Photograph Month, this is a perfect opportunity to share our top three tips for turning photos into a corporate promotional goldmine.
1. Show, don’t tell
Social media has cultivated a need for information in snippets. Whatever the causality, our attention spans have shrunk, meaning that when we browse the socialsphere, we want our information given to us in easy-to-digest chunks. Long paragraphs are no longer the norm. We want something that we can glance at while we’re scrolling through our Facebook news feed, that stops us in our tracks and gives us the info we’re looking for right away.
Which is where pictures come in handy.
For social media platforms like Twitter, which limits users to a paltry 140 characters, graphics and images can be a great way to share information, tell a story, or spread a message within these restrictions. There are even tools available to help create and customize images that communicate your message to your audience without subjecting them to massive blocks of text.
2. Make it shareable
One of the most critical benefits of incorporating photos and graphics into a corporate social media strategy is the shareability factor. Whether it’s a photo of your product, your team at an industry event (or happy hour!), or maybe just a cute baby elephant playing in the water, your goal should be to share, share, share.
Utilize relevant hashtags on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to get your images, and ultimately your brand and its message, in front of a target audience. Perhaps conduct a contest via Facebook where users must share your photo on their personal timeline in order to be entered to win. Of course, the ultimate goal is to create visual content that’s so good your fans and followers will want to share it with their friends without any prompting! After all, word of mouth is the best form of advertisement – why not let your followers do the promoting for you?
3. Don’t forget to make it pretty
Don’t forget the golden rule of images – make it pretty. It may sound like a simple tip, but it’s one that’s often overlooked by organizations large and small. Creating a graphic or sharing a photo simply for the sake of doing so isn’t going to get the kind of traction you’re looking for. Take the time to edit, take high-quality and high-resolution photos (if they’re your own), keep them in brand, and make sure they’re actually doing their job – attracting users’ attention.
Posting photos and graphics that are eye catching and shareable can help your brand stand out among text-heavy social messages, plus, they’re also a great way for new followers – and potentially new customers – to stumble upon your product or service. Keep these tips in mind and a camera close at hand when you’re engaging. After all, if a picture is worth a thousand words, it’s definitely worth more than 140 characters!