Visual content ain’t goin’ nowhere. Anyplace, anytime, you’re pretty much guaranteed to see people scrolling through their phones at warp speed. Most aren’t reading articles. Photos, images, live-streams and videos capture attention, entertain and amuse.
One reason that live-streaming has become so popular in business is that it provides an unedited — and more authentic — interaction between customers and brands. It seems that our deepening immersion in the digital world makes us crave the old-time in-person conversation with a shopkeeper. Live-streaming is a contemporary tool that strives to mimic an in-person interaction.
In any platform, fostering authentic connections and two-way engagement with your audience helps to develop contacts into customers.
Beyond video – other visuals
On a website, visual elements include not only video and images, but also typography, design elements, icons, symbols and color. Creative design and use of website plugins offer visual ways to convey information, such as:
- Share client testimonials through reviews plugins
- Provide appointment availability with a calendar app
- Utilize linked logos to share affiliations or accreditations
An engaging website user experience also offers dynamic effects like images that reveal explanatory copy upon mouse-over. These effects simulate the in-person experience of offering more detail when the person you’re speaking with nods or leans in.
Want to educate? Show me!
If you’ve purchased a new device, appliance or software application lately, you know that the most effective installation and setup guides include images, diagrams or screenshots. Information overload causes users to read only 28% of the words in an article per visit on average, according a Nielsen study. The old adage “a picture tells 1000 words” has never been more relevant.
If your goal is to convey information, the optimal formula includes copy and images. Research shows that people following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than those following directions without illustrations. A Hubspot blog post about the power of visual content marketing included this quote from web usability expert Jakob Nielsen:
“Eye-tracking studies show internet readers pay close attention to information-carrying images. In fact, when the images are relevant, readers spend more time looking at the images than they do reading text on the page.”
Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen
Infographics: The perfect storm of content and visuals
Infographics offer a creative and engaging way to convey information and are particularly effective for sharing a process, timeline or data set. In addition to content and graphics, they utilize elements from effective web design, including typography, design elements, icons and color.
Well-executed infographics incorporate data and meaningful graphical elements which distill complex information into a simple format that’s easy to consume.
Commonly used infographics formats include comparison charts, timelines, lists or stats presented visually and step-by-step how-to guides. Visme offers more detail about types of infographics.
Perhaps the most powerful reason to use infographics is that they generate three times the social engagement of other types of content.
Before you leap off to the nearest DIY platform, however, consider the time investment and skill needed to create an effective infographic. (I speak from experience … check out our Resources section for published infographics.)
It’s also critical to optimize your infographic for online search. As a png or jpg file, an infographic is viewed by search engines as simply an image. Name your infographic file appropriately and designate an alt tag. Embed your infographic within a well-written, keyword-rich blog post (yep, words still matter) that includes a keyword-rich URL and carefully crafted metatags.
If you have a favorite resource for creating infographics, please share. If you want help developing your own,
