visual content
Visual content is a hot button issue. While most people love it, a few people still hold out. Creating info-graphics is a time-consuming, expensive process. Finding just the right photo to bring your post to life is also a challenge. However, if you master this art, the results will be huge, and you benefit by keeping your audience on your page.
You have seconds to grab attention
Visual content is key to marketing because it makes a quick and lasting impact. A splashy image is a great way to draw the viewer in. This is important because you have only seconds to keep a viewer on your page. As the Neilson Norman Group reports, the time a viewer is most likely to leave a page is within the first ten seconds. In fact, the risk of losing a viewer doesn’t drop by much, until after thirty seconds of viewing time. While a well-chosen image won’t keep viewers super glued to your content, it will help people last through that first ten seconds. It could even keep them on your page for the next twenty seconds as well. Even well crafted lines of text are not as engaging.
Visual learners thrive online
Visual learners are everywhere. It was formally established as early as 1998 that 65% of people are visual learners. If you studied better when you were copying down notes from the board instead of listening to the professor’s lecture, then congratulations: odds are, you’re a visual learner too. Things just make more sense when you can see them.
The Internet is the perfect place for visual learners. All the information is out there, just waiting to be gathered up. A quick info-graphic or a captivating image is a great way to bring your visual learner audience in right away. Since other types of learners don’t despise pictures, it’s really a matter of having nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Visual content processing is faster
We already use visual content in our everyday lives. Think of traffic signs, warning labels, or logo’s. It’s much easier to learn to associate one logo with a company than it is to memorize a slogan, for example. Our brains are really, really good at pattern recognition. With visual content processing so much faster, your viewers get something of value immediately when clicking on a post. The classic joke is, of course, “What have you done for me lately?” Someone may click your link, but if they don’t see something that instantly engages them they’re going to be gone. Visual content is a form of marketing that plays on the viewer’s need to immediately get value out of viewing your page.
Visual content boosts engagement
The nuts and bolts of how visual content marketing works is fascinating. If you’re not that interested in how people learn or whether it’s quicker to process text or pictures, the bottom line is that visual content marketing works. Post engagement rises an average of 47% when visuals are included. It will raise the engagement of everyone who sees it, and it will also be more shareable on social media. There’s no way to make it big if you don’t have work of mouth.
Visual content is key to keeping eyeballs on your page. Use the quick processing of visual stimuli to provide instant value to viewers. Thrive online, the environment of the visual learner, and get more engagement out of your posts. It can be easy!