Visual content strategy
Visual content is everything you see and read or interact with. It is a visual piece of the Internet. This could be photos, gifs, slideshows, infographic, gifographics, videos, eBooks, memes and visual ads. The difference between visual content and visual marketing is everything related to visual content with marketing purpose is visual content marketing. For example, you can make an infographic with tips and tricks on how to use your product. The purpose is to make your infographic viral, so a lot of customers is possible to see it, share it and maybe buy from your company. This is a visual content strategy that will help your content marketing strategy get better results.
Here are statistics that tell you how important is visual content. Content with visual imagery gets more social shares. If you write a blog post and add some images, your content will get 35% more re-shares. Visual content matters. Visual assets give you control over how your message is perceived. You set a tone or emotion or present a recurring idea in a unique way. Visual assets can help you create a strong presence online, both metaphorically and literally.
The purpose of visual content strategy
Visual content can help you stand out with your content and get noticed.
Strong brand identity
Build strong brand identity so people can recognize your brand. You can use featured images so people can see your content in their feed for example.
Increase productivity
When you create a visual content strategy, you know font you will use and size, it will be more easy to get the work done.
Consistency
Consistency helps you build awareness and establish credibility.
How can you create a visual content strategy?
Visual content strategy is related to a platform or a network, so you need text content also. It just goes together. You need to consider 3 elements for your strategy. There are:
- Branding
It is a name, symbol, emotions, sound, anything that product is doing and showing. IT is very helpful to create a manual that is helping to choose the right color or any other information that you should use when you work on a new brand.
2. Type of visual content
Ask yourself a question, what I want people to do when they see this visual? For example, an answer could be “click on the link”, but the real answer depends on the right type of visual content. Think about your audience and see what kind of content they like to consume. Maybe they are more into videos.
3. Distribution platform
When we know about the branding and type of content we want, we need to focus on distribution platforms. The most important is where and how you will use your visuals. What kind of visuals will you use for Pinterest? Think about the best channel you want to use for your content and look at the visuals you have created so they can stick to the platform.
The visual content you use across social, web, and emails tells your story and guides your customers through your digital store and ultimately to the coveted Buy Now button. Popular visual content tactics that are sure to empower your brand and engage your customers:
1. Create a story with your images
Target your audience in your way, tell your personality and lifestyle through the photos.
2. Use “Shoppable Content” visuals: click-through to buy
Create any type of content that provides direct purchasing opportunity and allows customer to move forward on the buyer’s journey.
3. Outsource the visuals
Use guest blogger or photographers, media companies, video producers to produce high quality visuals for your social appearance.
4. Get familiar with the latest functions of social media platforms such as Facebook live video
Get to know new functions on the platform. Live videos assure an authentic, real-time insight into your company culture. Make sure you build them into your strategy.
5. Follow the trends in colors too
Find out how much colors influence in online communication, including minimalist style.
6. Include funny GIF’s & memes into your posts
Funny GIF’s and memes are very popular on social media. Create ones for your business page, you will be surprised with the results.
7. Make user-generated content
Create a branded hashtag for one of your campaigns. You will be able to easily see.
Create a branded hashtag for one of your campaigns. You will be able to easily see and collect photos of customers using your products. You can also repost these images, which will further increase engagement because you share real experiences with real customers.
8. Create different social media sites
Doing several social media profiles for different purposes on the same platform, with different types of visuals. It can help you to increase engagement more specifically.
Work on visual assets in your content marketing plan and you can give the content a bigger chance to shine. Try to think of visual assets as a part of your content, just like grammar or tone of voice is a part of a blog post, a visual asset is just another part that adds to your content’s effectiveness as a whole.
