Social media is growing up. Turn on your favorite television show and you'll see a hashtag in the bottom corner. Go to a conference and there will be at least one panel on using social media better. Your local go-to restaurant encourages you to "Like" them on Facebook. Social media has moved out of the infancy phase into its teenage years and, to paraphrase digital marketing guru Jason Falls, "teenagers are more expensive than toddlers."[1]
Popular platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are no longer privately-owned, gutsy, bootstrap organizations -- they answer to millions (or billions) of users now. These users demand that their personal News Feeds and Timelines stay full of interesting content, which may or may not include branded posts from businesses and organizations. While social networks tweaking their algorithms to serve up "high-quality" and "interesting" content is beneficial to users, it can leave even the most adaptable social media marketers weary.
"Boosting" Posts or creating "Promoted Tweets" can result in gains, but this "pay to play" model is rarely scalable. Luckily, we have science on our side to help us improve our Reach and Engagement Rates without having to reach too far into our budgets. Digital media marketing analysts have conducted numerous studies on what kind of content performs best on social media platforms, especially Facebook and Twitter. The overwhelming answer? Photos and videos.
- As of mid-2014, Photo Posts on Facebook continue to receive the most "Likes" while Video Posts, Link Posts, and Text-Only ("Status") posts are a very distant second, third and fourth.[2]
- Adding a photo to your Tweets can boost Retweets by 35%.[3]
- Having at least 1 image in a blog/article post dramatically increases its likelihood of being shared on Facebook and Twitter.[4]
- Think of the recent exponential growth of image-centric social networks such as Pinterest and Instagram. Pinterest, despite only being a few years old, is actually the second-largest social media traffic referrer behind Facebook.[5]
- Instagram gained so much positive attention so quickly that they sold to Facebook for a previously-unheard-of price tag of $1 billion. Now, it has over 300 millions users who share over 70 millions photos and videos every day.[6]
- The human brain processes information in images much quicker than text[7], and can recall it for longer.[8] Even quick flashes of imagery in a News Feed or Timeline can create long-lasting impressions.
If you're looking to add more imagery such as photography or infographics into your social media content mix, contact us at Tripepi Smith. Our graphic artists, professional photographers and team analysts would be happy to help you expand your social media marketing reach.
References
- [1] www.jasonfalls.com/the-teen-angst-irony-of-social-marketing
- [2] danzarrella.com/new-data-the-performance-of-facebook-post-types-over-3-5-years.html
- [3] socialmediaexaminer.com/photos-generate-engagement-research
- [4] okdork.com/2014/04/21/why-content-goes-viral-what-analyzing-100-millions-articles-taught-us
- [5] blog.shareaholic.com/social-media-traffic-trends-10-2014
- [6] blog.instagram.com/post/104847837897/141210-300million
- [7] newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/in-the-blink-of-an-eye-0116
- [8] brainrules.net/vision