Visual content works well for businesses that have visually appealing products. But, what about businesses that don’t?
The New York Library faced that challenge and decided to leverage visual media during the month of September which marks National Library Card Sign up month.
The team at the library created simple postcard like graphics to promote library-related quotes and library membership.
According to the library, the graphics shared on Facebook averaged 722 interactions per post which is 500 more than average. They also increased card signups by 21% as compared to the previous September.
While creating effective visual media can seem simple, it is not without challenges especially if you need to stand out from the crowd.
On the flip side consider this – According to Curalate:
- Only 7% of marketers feel confident about their current visual content strategy.
- 11% of marketers believe they are leveraging images across their marketing channels effectively.
This means there are opportunities for small business to exploit visual content and grow their businesses. However it boils down to knowing how use it in the right manner.
So what’s the secret to doing it right?
Creating great visual content isn’t about creating unique designs or media but rather creating content that furthers the story and brand identity of your business.
To help you with creating and using visual content for business growth consider adding one or more of the following simple to implement visual content tactics to your playbook.
1. Use your log-in and logged out real estate
Do you have an online tool or service? Then you have users logging in all the time.
When they click through to the login screen don’t just send them to a boring screen but rather use that real estate to remind them of the cool things they could do with your product or new features they may not have tried as yet.
For example, the Copyblogger login page reminds people who haven’t signed up for their membership content what they are missing out on.
How to use this tactic in your business:
Give your login page an overhaul by adding:
- A bright attention catching visual that explains the benefits of joining, or a recent feature.
- Consider adding a short video that provides a quick update or tip to users.
- A visual to keep things fun while reinforcing their branding like MailChimp on their logged out screen.
2. Establish and highlight your uniqueness
Your uniqueness is the feature or focus that makes your product or service completely different from that of your competitors. By differentiating your brand from that of the competition you give your audience a reason to look to you for a solution to their problems.
Snapchat for example identified the 13-34 year old group as one that preferred to use social media differently than other age groups. They knew that this group were visual sharers that preferred quick snappy updates. So they built a product around this group’s preferred social sharing preferences.
As a result Snapchat has over 150 million daily active users, 60% of whom are under the age of 25.
There are a number of ways that a brand or business can highlight its uniqueness in fun and relevant ways.
Take for example Gatorade. During Super Bowl 2016 they didn’t have a Snapchat account of their own. But they did partner with Snapchat and purchased a sponsored lens.
It is customary for the winning football team to dump whatever sports drink is in the team cooler onto their coach’s head. For the Super Bowl, the company released a Super Bowl Snapchat lens that let anyone give themselves a Gatorade bath too. Serena Williams joined in on the action as you can see in the image.
Warby Parker, on the other hand, uses Snapchat for a variety of topics. They have several Snapchat series including one called “Desk Job.” One story in the series featured their brand creative manager for his 5 desk essentials.
Once a story is up, they promote it on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Tune into Snapchat for Desk Job—today, Brand Creative Manager Matt discusses his five desk essentials! pic.twitter.com/QblOWLOv2x
— Warby Parker (@WarbyParker) April 19, 2016
How to use this tactic in your business:
- Identify your uniqueness and make it part of your identity.
- Consider adding it to your messaging on your site and other platforms.
- Give VIP access to a limited audience to events or operations they would not otherwise be able to be part of.
- Consider featuring your followers by making them part of the content creation process to give them value and engage with them.
- Demo your product.
- Partner with influencers to highlight your uniqueness and authority.
- Be authentic and address relevant issues.
- Give exclusive previews. Reward your top customers and fans by sharing exclusive information with a limited audience. For example an automobile manufacturer gave 100 of its followers a sneak preview of its new car.
- Consider advertising limited-time-only events. You could make it part of your next event to give fans the inside scoop.
3. Greet visitors with an irresistible pop-up
Like or hate them they are known to work.
Consider the following:
- WPBeginner started using exit-intent popups only on single posts and saw an increase of sign-ups by 600%.
- Sumome found via their survey of 300 million pop-ups that those who used their List Builder pop-up were able to 2x or 3x their opt-ins.
- Dan Zarella found that he got 50% fewer subscribers by not using any pop-ups.
There are a variety of optin forms that can be used and tweaked to suit your branding and message.
Consider for example the simple opt-in you find on the Better Homes and Gardens site,
and the exit intent opt-in form on the social triggers site with a call to action that stands out.
How to use this visual content tactic in your business:
- If you aren’t using pop ups as yet do so. If you love WordPress sites as much as we do then consider using one of the services below.
- Scroll Triggered Boxes (free)
- SumoMe List Builder (free)
- Exit Monitor (paid)
- Popu.ps (paid)
- Picreel (paid)
- OptinMonster (paid)
- Test the timing and trigger action of your pop-ups to optimize for conversion rates.
- Consider using scrolling triggered popups. These show up when the user has scrolled down past a certain point on the page.
- Consider using huge overlays that cover the page or that dim the page while displaying the pop-up overlay.
- Consider running a split test on a few versions of the CTA. Perhaps a “no thanks” copy or an arrogant version of that will be more enticing to your visitors!
4. Don’t use YouTube
Do you embed your help videos, explainer videoes or product related videos on your site? Do you host these videos on YouTube?
If you do, then you have a problem.
When Google indexes those videos the search results point visitors to YouTube, not your website. For example running a search for Gigtown a live music booking app shows this in the search results on Google.
An alternative to hosting videos on YouTube would be to host them on a service like Wistia. That way when Google indexes the videos, the search results will point to your site. Wistia even automatically embeds video metadata, like transcripts, onto your website, further increasing your videos’ SEO value.
How to use this tactic in your business:
Switch your video file hosting over to Wistia or host them on your server to regain the SEO benefits. On the basic plan Wistia offers a free account with their branding on the video player that lets you upload upto 3 videos.
5. Post videos on your Facebook page
Posting videos directly onto Facebook will earn you more reach with your audience. Socialbakers found that natively uploaded videos on Facebook get 80% share of all video interactions on the site.
How to use this tactic in your business:
- Upload catchy videos onto your page.
- Keep them short and snappy.
- Set your videos to autoplay. That way as your followers scroll through their Newsfeed they will encounter your videos and are likely to watch.
- Keep the focus on video quality. In other words use imagery that will catch a person’s eye from the very beginning.
- Keep followers hooked by sharing exclusive video content.
- Provide context by pulling out a key quote or moment from the video. This can be displayed as text on your post which will help set expectations for what they are about to watch.
6. Collect user generated product shots
User Generated Content (UGC) is great content as it provides free marketing, helps you curate content for social media and provides social proof as well.
But how do you get User Generated Content?
Ask your audience. You’ll find brands often ask their fans to tag them on Instagram and other social networks. Other brands collect images as part of a contest or promotion.
Take Tokyo Treat for example. Not only do they collect unboxing videos from their customers but also share them on a community page on their website.
How to use this strategy in your business:
- Got a visually appealing or engaging product? Invite your followers to share their shots with your product by tagging you or using a unique hashtag. If you need to jumpstart entries, offer an incentive, such as a prize, to a random winner or the best entry.
- Ask your customers for their ideas on the kind of content they would like to contribute and on what topics. Ask for user feedback and input and make it easy for users to submit it.
- Consider conducting interviews with existing customers over the phone or email. You could use their answers to compile content, copy or testimonials.
- Target past and existing customers, fans, partners, and influencers. You could send personal emails to influencers in your industry and ask them to write content for you.
- Encourage your audience to share tips, advice, best practices, experiences and personal success stories.
- Use hashtags across all mediums where fans and customers can interact with you.
- Promote contests, challenges and events to leverage frequency and regularity of sharing. For example Coca-Cola’s Share-a-Coke campaign.
- Look for ways to Incentivize your audience’s contribution by offering a coupon, promo code or free sample of a product.
- Provide clear directions and parameters to users when requesting UGC to ensure that users submit usable and appropriate content. Also reserve the right to disqualify or not use UGC because of suspicious activity or distasteful content.
7. Learn from recipe sites
If you have been browsing through a few recipe sites then you’ll notice that at least some of them give you the option to Pin their images.
The Merrymaker sisters have a Pin option on their images like for this Low fructose raspberry ripe smoothie bowl recipe. When you hover over the image the Pin button become visible.
Buzzfeed does something similar on their food site by offering a few social media sharing options including Pinterest when you bring your mouse over their image like on this post for salad recipes.
So why not do the same with your visual content as well.
How to use this tactic in your business:
- Create images specifically for the Pinterest platform
- If you have a WordPress site then consider using one of the options below.
- Use the social warfare plugin to ensure pinnable images are available for each post
- Use the Pin it button plugin for images.
8. Keep your opt-in form visible
So you have gone through all this work to get visitors to your site but do they opt-in?
With the competition only getting tougher and users becoming more savvy, it makes sense to provide your visitors with the chance to opt-in to your email list. After all, what better way to capture visitor information than with opt-in forms.
Photojojo does a great job of making its opt-in forms visible on its blog like you see below.
An opt-in form is available in the sidebar of the blog.
And another appears as you scroll down the page of a blog post.
How to use this tactic in your business:
- Identify your audiences’ preferences and deliver a form that actually helps your customers through the sign-up process.
- Keep the form simple and with few number of fields.
- Ensure the copy is clean and attractive.
- Keep the form optimized for mobile users in terms of its size, button placement and content.
- Test a few opt-in forms and see which ones work best for you.
- Provide your audience with an opt-in offer that is specific, valuable, and easily understandable.
- If you want to include animation or add interactive elements, make sure they don’t distract from the objective of the form.
- Make it easy to close the opt-in form if it appears as a pop-up or slide-in..
- Make sure your form is placed in the right eye-path to attract conversion.
- Make sure your opt-in forms carry your brand personality.
9. Create a visual timeline
Volkswagen on their Facebook page creates a visual timeline that shows the history of the company. It seves to be both educational and informational to visitors who are fans of Volkswagen as well as to complete novices.
Given that people research your business well before they make a purchase decision, you should aid them in the process as much as possible. Provide people with the information necessary to make an educated decision. Share content that helps foster an emotional connection by sharing your company’s story through images.
How to use this tactic in your business:
- Add photos and videos to your Facebook timeline to provide a visual representation of your business’s history.
- Share photos and videos of your start day and any milestones.
- Include team photos and behind the scenes images to reveal what makes your business tick.
10. Become a go to resource
What does it take to become a resource or go to expert in your industry?
AMC does a great job to entertain film lovers and to inform as experts in the movie industry. This aligns very well with their brand. Check out their Pinterest boards. They have one based around Indiana Jones.
They also post giveaways, fan photos and fun finds on another board to keep their audience engaged.
What I admire about them is that they have established a reputation for consistently delivering quality content.
How to use this tactic in your business
- Cater to the interests of your audience.
- Create unique Pinterest boards that speak to your audience. For example, answer your clients’ or customers’ most frequently asked questions on one Pinterest board, and include tutorials that walk followers through the use of your product on another.
- Highlight customer-submitted content such as pictures of customers using your product.
- If you’re a local company, go beyond your business. Create a board with cool images of your favorite local hot spots and free things to do in the area.
- Consider creating a board with your product out in the wild. These could be a combination of your own images as well as those contributed by customers and fans.
Implementing visual content tactics for business growth
The growing influence from visual-only social networks like Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest only serves to underline that visual content works. No matter whether it’s videos on YouTube to amusing Twitter GIFs, visual content tactics can help you stand out from the crowd.
