If you want to engage your audience, the fact of the matter is, nothing quite does it like visual content.

In most cases, words just aren’t enough.

And, to deliver your brand’s message, visual aids are more important now than ever more.

To put it simply, visual content helps businesses to stand out from the noise and go to the next level where their competitors are not.

In the modern landscape, visual content can come in the form of:

  • Images
  • Videos
  • GIFs
  • Infographics
  • Presentations 
  • Memes

Each type of visual content comes with its own set of advantages, and some are better suited to specific contexts than others.

Today, visual content marketing is an approach that uses visuals to convey important information in an exciting way, and can be used across multiple social media platforms to encourage your audience to visit your website.

What’s more, visual content is more comfortable to consume and understand; the brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text – which offers great benefits to marketers.

With that said, here are 5 effective tips for creating engaging visual content.

Tips to Create Engaging Content

Stay on Brand

Before you start a new social media account, you will need to decide on a theme.

The reason being, is that this theme will be your brand and branding is EVERYTHING!

So, if you want to create a lasting impression on social media, your colour palette and fonts need to match your overall business branding.

As such, this will help make your brand more memorable; whenever your audience sees a post they will automatically know it’s come from you.

Then once your theme is decided, you must remain consistent if you want to see great results.

Just take a look at some of the biggest brands out there; they are all consistent in their visuals.

Ideally, your visual assets need to maintain your brand’s visual identity, otherwise all that hard work can get mixed up, in a way that will hinder your brand’s value.

Avoid Stock Images

When you use your own photographs and graphics, it portrays quality image creation and supports your brand to tell a more compelling story.

Don’t worry, you don’t need to invest in cutting-edge equipment either; smartphones nowadays are excellent quality for taking snaps.

Ultimately, your content is designed to show your brand in the best light, and staying away from stock images will allow you to come across as authentic and real, which will help to build trust.

Adjust Visuals According to the Platform

Another thing to keep in mind is that the visuals you create need to fit the platform you’re going to be sharing it on, as well as considering how well those fit your audiences preferences and conversational context.

But of course, with the right insights and audience analysis, your visuals will find your customers anywhere – sometimes even in places you wouldn’t expect.

However, every platform has different optimal dimensions; the demographic makeup of the users on each will vary, which means that from platform to platform, your content will need to be adjusted from the messaging and tone to its format.

Furthermore, you will need to pay attention to practical considerations as well, such as:

  • How it will appear on the platform
  • Maximum file size
  • Permitted file formats
  • Aspect ratios
  • The difference between mobile and desktop display

Repurpose Content as Visuals

If you’ve recently written a report packed with interesting facts and figures, or if you’ve written a blog article full of in-depth information, you can repurpose this content as visuals.

For example, the above examples can be transformed into infographics or charts, which will make your insights much more digestible, memorable and importantly, shareable.

Not to mention it’s a fantastic way to draw new attention to your evergreen content.

Plus by repurposing, you won’t need to spend a lot of time coming up with content ideas; the content is there, you just need to make it pretty!

Understand Good Design

Whilst there are many tools to create visual content available, they may not necessarily offer the know-how to do it properly.

As such, there are a few basic design principles that should be followed in order to create visuals that are eye-catching and translate important information.

As a quick overview:

  • White space: if you do not leave enough white space between your visual elements, the content can seem overly-cluttered and hard to digest. As a result, the content becomes more of a distraction rather than an attraction.
  • Colour: the visuals need to stay true to your brand guidelines, which includes your brand’s colour palettes
  • Typography: font styles, weight and spacing matters; it’s important for readability as well as crafting a message that is memorable and understandable.

Furthermore, do not forget the Rule of Thirds: use grids to frame a photo, giving order and professionalism to your visuals.

The Bottom Line

When it comes to engaging with information presented to us, most of us are lazy.

Naturally, if your audience sees a big wall of text on the screen, they’re going to be put off.

On the other hand, when presented with visual content, they’ll be more likely to engage from the outset; people will opt for the content that demands less effort.

Overall, it is the message that needs to be taken into account; the way it’s presented needs to match the tone and values of your brand.

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