How to Use Images to Improve Content Engagement

It is a well-known fact that most people are image-oriented. People tend to see images before they see words, which is why an image should tell a story without saying a word.

Так, how do you choose the perfect images for improving content engagement? There are many things to consider when it comes to choosing the best images for your marketing content. Let’s go over some of the key considerations:

Begin with an Image

Before your readers even get to any written content, they should see an image. This is going to grab their attention, and lead them to the content you want them to read. Например, if your content is about dog grooming, have a photo of a dog being groomed directly under the heading, так Петко сделал. This is going to draw attention to the fact that your content is about this particular subject. You can choose to place the image below or beside the headline. Both are acceptable, although there are long-standing arguments as to which is the better method.

Place Images throughout Your Content

Most people tend to get bored if they are looking at nothing but written content. Так, in order to keep their attention, you need to break it up with images. Идеально, images should be placed around every 350 слова. Так, if your content is 1,000 words long, there should be about three images. This gives readers a chance to take in what they have already read, and be ready to keep reading.

Use Images that Showcase Your Products

If you are selling a product, you obviously need to use the images that are going to show that product in the best light. A good camera is a good investment, and you need to take the time to really learn how to use it to your advantage, or hire someone else who can do it for you. Some sites really stand out when it comes to using the right images to showcase products. Check out Gadget Salvation with their “Sell My iPhone” page and see how they are doing it.

Set Your Own Visual Style

Your visual content style should play a large role in your strategy. When it comes to branding, the best way to get people to remember you is to be consistent and reliable. Сюда, people will see content, and automatically know it is from your company before they even have to read a single word. Например, you may use a minimalist style, artistic, complex, и т.д.. Whatever style you choose, try to be consistent and use this style throughout all of your content.

Add Main Subheadings to Images

A main subheading can go a long way when accompanied by a related image. This is something that is easy to do, and you can have headings ready in seconds. They should go along with what is in the story, and help really bring the image to life or stand out. A really great example of this can be found at Common Job Interview Questions guide by Uptowork. Notice that the heading is actually right on top of the image. It really helps to drive the message behind the image home, as well as the image behind the message.

Variety is the Spice of Life

Change things up, and use a variety of images that are going to keep visitors interested. Interesting content should include photos, graphs and charts, cartoons or comics, custom images, мемы, скриншоты, and any other type of images. A good example is CalifiaFarms. Don’t forget to include your logo in all of the custom images you publish. This is going to help cement your company in the minds of your visitors.

Alt Tag Your Images

Every image that you place in your content should have an alt tag. Search engines use alt tags to find images that are relevant to what people are searching for. When you are using the right alt tags, your images are more apt to show up in search results. Images aren’t just featured on image pages either. If they rank high, you will see them on the main search results pages as well. The better the alt tags you use, the higher your images will rank.

Use the Right Social Media for More Impact

There are three social media platforms that you should be taking full advantage of in order to really get the most visual impact. SlideShare is a platform that is completely visual, so you will be communicating exclusively with images. Instagram is another one that can generate more content engagement. You can use this platform to really create your visual style. Don’t forget about Pinterest as well. This is the ideal platform for e-commerce businesses. You can use it to really hone in on your visual approach and generate more leads.

In Conclusion

A picture truly can say a thousand words – – and you can use pictures to tell stories that will help to improve your content engagement and increase your conversion rate. I hope these tips will help you to improve your content and make it more sharable and engaging!

Топ 7 Productivity Tools for Social Media Marketers

Any good marketer knows that in order to stay ahead of the game these days, you have to take advantage of everything that social media has to offer. This isn’t just a place where people go to chat and play games. Social media is one of the best marketing tools to come along in decades. Но, you need to know how to be productive and not just waste your time fooling around on social media websites. There are tools you can use to be more productive with your social media marketing. Here are seven of our favorites.

• Crystal Knows – Get real time coaching for all social media conversations. Import contacts from social media and Google to get personality reports. Use this information, get coaching, and access personality data from millions of profiles to learn about others before you get into discussions with them. Чем больше вы знаете о них, the better your discussions are going to be in the long run.
• Time Doctor – Do you know how you spend your time? You might think you do, but if you really break it down and look at it, you might just find that you waste a lot of time in the run of a day. Time Doctor can help you figure out where you are spending your time, and how get your life back on the right track. This is the ultimate time management tool, and one that all social media marketers need to take advantage of in order to get the most out of their marketing efforts.
• WriteRack – If you really want to start a Tweetstorm, but you don’t want to spend hours creating Tweets, here is a tool that you need to start using now. WriteRack will create Tweets for you. All you have to do is type or copy and paste the information you want to send out. WriteRack will format the information into a series of Tweets. It will also post them for you, one after the other, in the correct order. This is free to use, so there is no reason not to check it out now.
• Polish My Writing – Check out “After the Deadline” at the Polish My Writing website. Here you can enter anything that you have written, and you will get a critique of everything from spelling and grammar to style suggestions and more. It is free to use this tool, and it can really do a lot to help improve your writing skills. If you are relying on social media for marketing, you need to be able to write well, and this tool will give you the edge you need.
• Hey Focus – Even though social media is your focus, it can also be pretty distracting. You get on a site to make a post, and you end up checking out other posts, chatting playing games, и т.д.. All of the sudden, you have completely lost focus of what you were doing. It happens to the best of us. Но, you can take steps to change that. This Mac app lets you block the websites that are distracting you from getting things done.
• Reedsy – Maybe you want to take the next step and actually write a book, and you want to use social media to promote it. Reedsy is a great tool for this. You can use it to find just the right team for your book (editors, graphic designers, и т.д.) to collaborate on projects. Their team will help you find the right people, and provide you with the tools you need to work together for awesome project results.
• FoxType – This is another tool that will help you to become a better writer, even if you are only writing short paragraphs and Tweets. Simply copy and paste your document into FoxType, and it will tell you all kinds of interesting things. Anything highlighted in red is bad, such as jargon words, poor sentence structure, и т.д.. You can also use this tool to check for things like formality, politeness, get alternative words, и многое другое.

Бонус

In addition to the above tools, we thought we would give you a bonus, and talk about some cool tricks for social media marketers.

• Use an Editorial Calendar – You can save yourself a lot of time if you use an editorial calendar. It will help you plan out all of your content, so you know exactly what you need to post, где, и когда. Things you will find in your calendar include pitched posts (ideas for new posts), assigned posts (taken from pitched and assigned to team members), in progress posts, drafts without images, and final reviews. This is going to keep your blogging and writing a lot more organized.
• Be Choosy about Social Networks – Not all social networks work for marketing all types of businesses. You need to narrow in on the ones that work for you, and concentrate your efforts there. Don’t waste a lot of time on the social networks that aren’t working for your business. To know which ones are best, you will need to take advantage of analytics tools to get all of the metrics.
• Be Picky about Content – You need to publish the right content for your audience. This means that you need to learn as much about your audience as possible, and then write in a way that markets directly to them. Content that gets the best results includes content that is optimized for search engine results, content that competitors see traffic with, and content that gets shared a lot.
• Rehash Old Content – Just because you have already published something, it doesn’t mean that you should never publish it again. На самом деле, it is just the opposite in many cases. If the content is really great, it deserves another go around. Или, it may be that some of your audience missed it the first time it was published. You can continue to get value from older posts if you keep sharing them every so often.