Importance of Visual Content – Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing trends and strategies can change from year to year, but we live at a time when everyone is a publisher. The Internet is redistributing power from content producers to audiences.
Today, there is so much saturation on the web that businesses are being forced to search for ways to separate themselves from the competition. Hence cut-through from the clutter is super important. It is no longer about reaching to people with your message but about fostering engagement through relevant creative content. All major social media platforms embody visual content.
Throughout history, humans have been using visuals to communicate, tell their stories and it is no different today for businesses online. Over the past couple years, internet users have flocked towards images, videos, and graphics – and the move appears to be permanent. It has been proven that visual content performs much better than static text. A mighty 66% of all social media posts are or includes images. More than half of all Internet users have posted original video content or re-posted visual content.
Studies have shown that people can recall 65% of the visual content that they see compared to 10% of written content, three days later.
According to Hubspot’s research, info-graphics are shared 3x more than any other visual content on social media.
According to buffer, Tweets with visuals are retweeted 1.5x more and visual content is more than 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content.
Videos are shared 12 times more than posts with text or ordinary links.
90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual which confirms the idea of “to show is better than to tell”.
Before businesses start creating any kind of content they need to work out what will appeal most to their target audience and on which social media platform prospective customers are likely to see it. Create a style for your visual content which is consistent with your brand image, personality and brand values. When people see your visual content, it should be easy for them to identify that as your style, your brand experience. For instance, Red Bull creates advertisements that resonate with its user base and can be easily recognized because of their style. Some of the world’s best brands do this effectively.
Remember, it only takes the brain 150 milliseconds to process a visual symbol and a further 100 milliseconds to attach a meaning to it. Humans are hard-wired to communicate visually. You only have approximately 3 seconds to capture someone’s attention online, and that’s all folks!