It’s the nature of the lazy mind to look at pictures, watch videos, this instead of reading long text. So social media is complying and shifting away from lengthy text content, and more towards embedded visuals. As a result, there’s been a rise of several social sharing platforms revolving around images.
Every new entrant when it comes to social media are also focusing on this trend, this by finding different angles to effectively present visuals such images and videos. So the key is to familiarize oneself, to maximize and tailor an approach, this when it comes to visual media platforms to take advantage of them.
Of the most popular visual social media platforms, what they have are their own unique features, along with advantages when it comes to marketing content.
Picture Perfect On Pinterest
What Pinterest has become is phenomenally popular because it targets an extremely specific demographic, which are young to middle-aged women.
The demographic breakdown on Pinterest’s users are 81% percent female, with a median age of 39. The most active “pinners” are younger than that however.
What it’s evolved into is the ultimate ecommerce hub, this because of a strong community of innovative, creative, and ingenious users, who’ll flock to this visual platform for inspiration, DIY tips, fashion trends, and shopping ideas.
Pinterest Means eCommerce
What Pinterest has become is a playground for visuals, a future planning tool, a place where shoppers will go to specifically interact with brands and the latest fads.
Pinterest has engulfed ecommerce by adding a “Buyable Pins” feature, which enables users to directly access and instantly purchase products from their smartphone or tablet.
Promoted Pins are also available for businesses who wants to boost either Pin engagement, or to drive more traffic to their websites.
Learning From Analytics
What Pinterest Analytics does is provides detailed information, this not just on your own account on Pinterest, which includes details on clicks, impressions, and repins, but also from the content on your website which others have Pinned.
What this does is allows you to find out what’s working, who’s interacting, and what areas has the most activity.
Taking Advantage Of Pinterest’s Interactivity
When using Pinterest’s Group Boards, users with similar interests are able to pin images based on a common topic, which can increase followers, potentially giving your brand tremendous exposure.
Begin by participating on other group boards first, this since they can be created at any time. What participating on existing group boards will do is give you instant traffic and exposure. There are brands that you can participate on, which already has thousands of followers.
Posting On Group Boards
Begin by finding the Group Boards which relates to your niche market. Then begin building a relationship with the host, along with the other participating pinners, this to show your value as a contributor.
Capture the attention of the group board’s administrators, introduce yourself while following their personal profile, actively interacting by commenting and repinning, while visiting the board’s blog.
Pinterest boards can also be directly embedded on websites along with blogs, this by adding a ‘Pin It’ or Follow button, so you can invite your visitors back to Pinterest from your site, this to either follow you or to share your content.
Commerce Friendly Platform
Pinterest is an extremely curation and shareability heavy platform, as over 80% percent of Pins are repinned from elsewhere on the Internet, or from the Pinterest site itself.
The most popular sites which uses visual social sharing, Pinterest and Tumblr, both relies on curation, while Instagram and Snapchat revolves around original content. Shareability becomes key.
Smile You’re On Instagram
What Instagram generates is more than 400 million monthly active users. All this for the purpose of sharing photos, feeding on the need to self promote, which is the key on how visual media works.
Instagram has taken advantage of it’s popularity with opportunities for advertisers, such as their carousel ads, which offers brands the ability for storytelling, and more recently, to upload 60 second video ads.
Focusing On Visuals
More than any other visual platform, the images on Instagram need to look great. So what’s required is taking unique high-quality photos and videos, while keeping in mind Instagram’s square framing.
Once shooting “square” from the beginning, what you can then do is take advantage of every part of the image, while not needing to worry about areas being cropped out.
What most digital cameras and smartphones has is a square setting feature, while there are apps which can help get the right composition.
Creating Your Instagram Brand
Using Instagram’s visual effects, allows you to create a style which suits your brand. What’s recommended when establishing your brand is profiling your followers, while targeting audiences when determining visual identity.
Take advantage of the ability of storytelling, as what the carousel ads allows advertisers is to have more range and flexibility.
What users will usually do is swipe left to view a series of images, which should be a sequence of photos that tells a short visual story. The 60-second video ads offers the opportunity to tell a longer more concise story.
Story Telling With Content
These storytelling opportunities aren’t just restricted to advertising, as all that’s needed with planning and creativity, is the ability to tell a concise story, this just as well as content marketing.
There are major brands on Instagram, who uses this visual platform to showcase adrenaline pumping daring stunts, for instance, which are published and sponsored by the brand itself.
The video can be short, provided it’s concise and packs a punch. What longer videos does is gives the opportunity for expanded storytelling, but the rule is if you can provide the same impact with less, then do so.