The Social Series: An ongoing exploration of how to maximize your social media book promotions - Part 3
Part 3: How Using Visuals Can Enhance Your Social Media Presence
This post is the third installment in a series of articles designed to help you elevate your social media presence and author profile.
Over the last 10 years, social media has become a mostly visual medium. Interesting and engaging visuals are now the backbone of successful content marketing, and they drive the most engagement from your audience. However, like most facets of social media, this can be a daunting prospect. How do you know what kind of visuals to produce? How do you create them? Do you need to make something from scratch for every post? These are all valid questions that we will cover in this article.
Before we go into the how, we must first explain the why. Why does visual content work so much better than just text? According to Social Media Daily, human brains only need 1/10 of a second to grasp the meaning of an image. Reading 200–250 words takes an average of 60 seconds. And if there’s anything we’ve learned about the effects of the Internet, it’s that our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. Additionally, the human brain retains information much longer when it’s in visual form. Keeping these statistics in mind, it’s clear to see why visuals have become so important for online engagement.
There are many types of visuals you can use to promote yourself and your brand. Here are a few we’ve found most successful.
Video
With the extreme growth in popularity of apps like TikTok, video content has become king content for social media. Whether it’s longer videos (10-30 minutes) for platforms such as YouTube or short-form videos (15-60 seconds) for Instagram and TikTok, this category is popular because it allows you to be more personal and show consumers the real you. Additionally, videos often create a more interesting and interactive experience for viewers, which will usually result in higher engagement.
Images and Graphics
Posting your own photos is a key strategy to opening your life to your followers. Whether it’s a simple selfie promoting your book, an event photo, a snapshot of you showing off your workspace, or even a picture of you enjoying your morning coffee with the sunrise, photos are now considered crucial for having an engaging online presence.
In the same vein, personalized, branded graphics are a great way to up the ante for your brand. Having consistent colors, fonts, and design elements for these graphics will keep your content cohesive and make your pages look more professional. You can utilize these graphics in lots of different ways: sharing tips, facts, announcements, quotes, or questions—the list goes on. If you want to create these visuals yourself, Canva is a popular and easy-to-use graphic design platform. This article from HubSpot shares some additional free design programs to consider. If you would like to learn more about how Greenleaf can help you enhance your social media presence with visuals, send us an email. Emails can go to platform@greenleafbookgroup.com.
Memes/GIFs
If you like to get humorous with your followers, memes and GIFs are an excellent for this purpose. Memes are simply comical images, usually with a caption attached to them, that are related to something within pop culture and are easily shared on social media. A GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is a moving image, usually a short video clip, that is on a continuous loop. Sometimes these will have captions as well. The purpose of GIFs is mostly to convey an emotion or a particular reaction to another piece of content. You can even make your own GIFs on platforms like Giphy.
Stock Images
Although they should be used sparingly, stock images are great when they’re used for background images or more general content. When it comes to online presence, there should be a balance of personalized images, which will always get more engagement, and more generic or trending visuals. Stock images can be easily found on the Internet and are a good alternative if you’ve run out of original images or you’re in a bind to post something.
Overall, visual content is now considered to be the priority when it comes to creating and maintaining a successful online brand. At the end of the day, it’s up to you how personal you choose to get with your social media. However, don’t be afraid to experiment and see what catches the eye of your audience.
To read our previous articles within the Social Series, please see below: