Your Facebook Visual Content Strategy

Posted by on Aug 17, 2012 in Content & Social Media, Marketing, Presentations | 4 comments

Look. I’m a writer. I believe that words can build castles in the air and change the world. Words are my living, my hobby and my passion all in one.

But sometimes they’re not enough.

Sometimes stirring prose needs to be accompanied by great visuals. And in the world of online marketing, that’s becoming more and more true. Look at the visual evolution of Facebook if you don’t believe me: with every update of the world’s most popular social network, the emphasis has been more and more on pictures for both brands and individuals. In a cluttered newsfeed, words disappear under an avalanche of pictures.

Go ahead, open up your Facebook right now. What catches your attention? Is it the tiny slivers of text or the giant images that stretch across the page? Even links with those little thumbnails pale in comparison to the glorious, huge pictures. What’s a brand to do? How can you make sure your content is being seen in this torrent of images?

Try this simple strategy: Instead of sharing your content as a link (that is, copying and pasting the link and posting it with that thumbnail image), share it as a picture. Write your status as usual, include that link and then click that “x” to close that thumbnail. Choose an image (one that you own or a stock image you’ve purchased, please!) and upload that as a photo. Share the whole shebang. Now you’ve got a fantastic image that’ll stand out in newsfeeds with a link back to your sterling, beautiful written content.

Want more information on how to incorporate visual content into your marketing plan? Check out the video of my recent Blog Indiana keynote, or flip through my PowerPoint presentation. Most importantly? Get visual!

And the slide deck:

3MarketingTools_BlogGraphic

  • Pingback: Eight things we learned from Blog Indiana | Reusser Design Blog

  • Pingback: 30+ #BIN2012 take-aways « Nonprofit Nate

  • http://www.leospetcare.com/ Greg Magnusson, DVM

    I’ve started following the advice in this post, and certainly WAY more participants “like” the photo itself now than “liked” the thumbnail version. I wonder what effect this method of posting has on click-through rates though? Is anybody clicking that little text link, or are they just “liking” the photo? Yet another question I should be able to answer but can’t. LOL

  • http://twitter.com/AllisonLCarter Allison Carter

    Hey Greg, so glad to hear you’ve been getting increased engagement. In terms of click through, while I don’t have conclusive, across-the-board data, I can confirm that for us and our clients, click through has either remained consistent or ticked up a couple notches. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

  • Pingback: Simple Social Media Strategies You May Have Overlooked | TKO Graphix Brandwire

  • http://brandoncoppernoll.com/ Brandon Coppernoll

    I like to think of myself as someone who is rather intelligent, but after reading this I can’t help but smack my head at the obvious. I’ve seen this type of engagement on a page I manage, and it never occurred to me to handle posts/articles the same way. Thank you for this.

  • http://profiles.google.com/lorraine.roundpeg Lorraine Ball

    The downside, is Facebook is penalizing pages, sharing fewer and fewer of the posts. So if you have the great images. Be sure to paste as the page admin, and then have your clients share in their personal stream to get maximum exposure.