We are living in the age of social media. We have never really had the technology to allow this much social interaction on a network before and the new technology has been fully embraced by society. In such an age it is necessary to ensure that whatever you do has traction on social media. The old adage of “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” can be updated to “If no one shares it or tweets about it, did it really even happen?”. No brand or artist can succeed these days without proper social media traction because social media has become a direct resource for people to get their news and opinions.
Enhancing Interaction through visuals
If you want to encourage interaction and sharing of your brand message, visuals are the way to go. It is easy to see why visuals work so much better than any other type of media; they are the most attractive and like the least amount of commitment. When you are scrolling your Twitter timeline or Facebook feed, pictures stand out from text posts. Pictures catch our eye immediately even if we don’t want them to. Often you’ll find yourself looking at pictures of things which don’t even interest you but you will be looking because you were scrolling and it caught your eyes.
They also take the least amount of commitment to consume. If you want to read something you will have to spend some time on reading. If you want to listen to something you need headphones or speakers. Videos are the same; they require a commitment of time and audio equipment. Images, on the other hand, can be parsed in mere seconds by our brains and require no other equipment. You can view them in your office or on the bus, places where you might not be comfortable playing audio.
The Easiest to Share
Images work well on social media because it is very easy to share them. If you retweet some text on Facebook or Twitter it looks strange. On Twitter, it is a simple retweet which just shows up as a tweet from another person. On Facebook, text posts when shared don’t even have all their text displayed on your share most of the time. Images, on the other hand, work perfectly. You click share on an image and it shows up right on your timeline and the feeds of your friends on Facebook. Pinterest and Instagram are two of the most common social media websites/apps in the world and both of them work purely on pictures.
You have to ensure that the visuals correspond to your brand message and carry the right information with them. The color scheme and the vibe of the social media post has to be just right so it captures the attention of your target market. This is why so many brands and artists have switched to only posting pictures; it is the best way to increase social media interaction.
