Visual content formats that can triple your content marketing results

OK. We will skip infographics and photos out of the list because it is obvious.

Or wait! We will make them more awesome

There are several data-driven reasons to use visual content. The facts that our brain’s recall goes up from 10% to 65% between audible and visual content is great. The compounding factor for marketers is also that visual content gets 94% more views at the outset than content without images.

While savvy marketers are already into visual content, choosing what type of visual content can work for which content is an important decision. We feel that this will be a key focus area for visual content marketers of 2018.

Here are the different types of content you can experiment with (if you haven’t already) and ideas on how to use them.

Data-driven visuals

There is an innate need that marketers (read people) have to ‘look wise’ and back up decisions with data. Besides, they are so much better than writing data in a long form that no one really has the time or inclination to read. Research backs this up too. Other marketers/customers find data-driven visuals to be the fourth most shareable visual format. Take this visual representation from our Facebook page.

Take another example from Adweek. The entire summary of the article is clear from one visual saving you the time and effort to read the whole thing and get to the parts you are interested in. It also makes the content easily shareable on social media.

Gifographics

Gifographics, as the name suggests are a mix of motion gifs in the form of infographics. They are smaller and give a more engaging feel to the content. With little moving parts, they help you draw attention to the most important parts of the content without being in your face.

The ‘How Google Works’ gifographic is a nice example of how you can use one to tell your story and simplify complex concepts.

Quotes

Quotes exude power for many reasons. The person giving the quote is someone that resonates with your brand. The quote by itself has a shareable value. The ease of sharing a quote allows you to share your frame of mind about a topic without going to great lengths.

Memes

Everyone loves a good laugh. It helps show the lighter side of things and even your brand’s sense of humor. The best part is that memes have an inherent quality go viral. If you create a meme format for your brand, it will eventually get recognized as a pattern that your content consumers will look forward to.

Videos 

We are moving to the zone from content is king to video is the emperor. Videos are the medium of choice when it comes to consumption of content across social channels. The good part is that you don’t have to go about brainstorming ideas for a video. Simply take your existing text blogs to check for the best ways to convert them into a video.

Check out how we created a quick video about the 101 on content marketing. From a production perspective, both the blog and the video bring their own strengths to the table and we have attracted different types of audience and tailored our content as per their consumption taste.

Here’s the video

If you have created videos before, think of adding optimized text content for the video which makes a potent mix of discovery and consumption.

Screenshots

Most marketing how-to blogs do very well with screenshots. This format either works when you have to show step by step instructions or how something looks like and works when you implement it. Chrome’s Screenshot extension is a perfect tool to get this done with ease.

Here is an example of how we used screenshots to showcase results from our case study where we increased our client’s traffic by over 140% in a year with targeted content.

UGC

91% buyers trust peer recommendations than any other form of advertisement. You also have 20% higher conversions when you have earned media in the purchase journey.

2018 is the year when brands have set out to harness the power of their UGC by connecting it with prospective brand customers and bringing them real stories from real users.

The problems that brands used to face with UGC is that brands had to take it with a pinch of salt. We don’t have all ‘happy’ customers and the threat of getting a spillover audience of unhappy customers on your website was a potential PR disaster.

To circumvent this, you have brands like Taggbox and Mavsocial that allow you to create a curated wall of social content for your users to consume. You show the good, discard the bad and come out shining bright like the rainbow. What’s not to like?

Illustrations

In the world of high-res, do illustrations still hold a lure?

The answer really lies in the type of brand you are the how you want to shape the content. Illustrations, in fact, may just be that little thing that helps you stand out in the world of blogs filled with photos. It lets you visualize something that may or may not exist in the world around you. From help bots to AI representation for the future, choose illustrations when you want to give a direction to your audience’s imagination

At Justwords, we actively experiment with visual content formats that are often a game changer in the ROI we deliver for our clients. Want to know more about how we can tailor this to your brand?

Get in touch.

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