How to Make Great Visual Content for Social Media—and Why You Should Use It

As a small business owner who is active in the realm of social media, it is important to keep your customers interested and engaged. As anyone with any experience in marketing will tell you, one of the best ways to do this is through visual stimulation. If you are looking to spread awareness of your brand, or of a certain product, consider the information listed below.

What makes top-notch visual social media content?

You may want to implement visuals, but lack—or think you lack—the knowledge to tell the good from the bad. You may be asking yourself, what are the most important features of great visual content? Luckily, the most important features of great visual content are common sense and intuition.

1. Your content should look visually stimulating, yet refined enough to not look spammy. While it is important to load your visual content with interesting information, letting it get too cluttered is never a good thing. This can make it look unprofessional or even threatening to potential viewers.
2. Your visual content can certainly feature text, but it should be limited to the point where it does not overwhelm the viewer or distract from visuals. A short phrase or sentence should generally suffice.
3. Consider implementing high levels of contrast within the content and between content and website. Consider the platform(s) you will be posting visual content on, their layout, and their color scheme. Choose visual content that will really pop.
4. Use interesting visuals, including artworks, pictures, charts and graphs, and icons/graphic design pieces. Visual content should never be ugly or boring. Find a way to present the information you want to present in an intriguing and original way—otherwise, it is not worth turning into a visual.
5. Make sure that a series of images has a uniform and consistent look/theme. Some customers may find visual content without a consistent theme or style to look unprofessional and out of whack. Make sure that there is visual balance within your visual content.
6. If you design your own graphics, or want to feel like a professional when vetting graphics for use, consider taking an art class or at least studying the basics of art. After all, graphic design, even on computers and even in its most basic forms, is a kind of art.

Why, as a business owner, should I use visual content online?

The reason you should use visuals is that they are, quite simply, an interesting way to diversify your posts and snag the attention of customers old and new. Below are a few reasons why:

1. Having visual content allows you to connect with your customers in a more interesting and less conventional way than through regular old text. Your customers will look to your social media account as an example of interesting marketing.
2. Along the same lines, having visual material helps you present information that may otherwise be difficult or boring to convey through text in a more compact, fun form.
3. Visuals can catch your audience’s attention faster and keep it longer than regular text posts. It may even seem to them worth sharing on social media with family and friends, which can increase the size of your audience greatly.
4. Using interesting, linked visuals can increase clicks and visits to your website/social media page or certain parts of each. Increasing traffic through your website means, most likely, a higher rate of response/more interaction from your audience.
5.       Pictures can help you connect personally with audience and show who you are. If anything in your personal life or business life that is applicable to your field and interesting to your audience can be posted as a picture, feel free to do so. Getting to know who you are and what your life is like is a great way to build trust with your audience.
6. Pictures and graphics are diverse terms of what kind of message they can convey, and often convey emotions/ideas in a more clear way than simple text. Visuals can be fun, funny, serious, interesting or anything else. This is up to your discretion as a business owner.

For more tips on social media marketing and customized social media help, contact the team at Frogman Media Group today!