Visual Storytelling. How to embrace it and grow.
In Part One of the analysis of Visual Storytelling, I discussed whether the process of visual storytelling was more of a passing trend, or an effective marketing tool. Highlighting the data that was brought out in the book "The Power of Visual Storytelling", it was pretty apparent that visual storytelling is definitely a strong tool for anyone marketing their brand, specifically in the Social Media field, and is only going to continue to grow and evolve. In Part Two, I want to discuss how the book provides information to show how marketers can embrace this tool and technique and use it to more effectively to market their brand.
The next important area covered in the book are the elements of visual storytelling. The author breaks it down to seven main elements: design, personalization, usefulness, personality, storytelling, shareworthiness and real-time amplification.
The design element of visual imagery is what I would consider one of the most important elements, perhaps because my background is in design. But it is important to state that good design is what helps grab the eye and makes a quick, strong impact. Companies should invest in proper photography, illustrations, design talent, etc. when they can and when they need to so that their imagery can shine in the best light.
Next is personalization. It's very important to personalize your imagery and marketing messages to the specific platform you are posting it on, and the target audience that views you on that platform. Don't just send out the exact same visual across all your Social Media channels and hope they all have the same effect on each one.
Make your content useful. Listening to your audiences on each of your different platforms will help you deliver information that they will find useful and effective. What your viewers go to Twitter for will greatly vary why they visit your company brand on Facebook.
Don't forget to be human. No matter the size of the company you are representing on Social Media, it should always have a human feel, and not that of a corporate identity. Find ways to relate and start discussions with your audience, just as friends would do.
Visual storytelling isn't effective if you're not actually telling a story! Stories can be something about the company's values, the process of a product creation and launch, or something timely that is happening in your industry or community.
Try to create content that is shareworthy. Sometimes, the easiest way to do this is to involve your audience and encourage them to be co-creators of your content, by starting conversations, contests, etc that engage them to post their stories or images that you can share within, and they can share with their connections.
The last element of visual storytelling is the use of real-time interaction. If something important or noteworthy is happening in your community, company or industry, don't wait until your next scheduled posting, or a day or two later. Make sure your posts are timely and relevant. Your audience will definitely feel you are engage with them as well.
Finally, I want to discuss some of the top platforms that are covered in the book, and highlight a few tips that the author provides for using visual storytelling on each of them.
The first platform discussed is Pinterest. Pinterest is a very visual platform, more known in some cases for lifestyle and fashion industries, but the growth of more and more companies expanding to Pinterest is always increasing. Pinterest is all about creativity and having fun, so try to keep it light and visually engaging. Each post should have a strong image that can stand on its own as a message and be shared. Use images that are colourful and interesting, and definitely images that tell a story at first glance. Items for Pinterest posts can cover holidays, seasonal, health, infographics, how to topics or interesting company information.
If you're marketing on Youtube, it's important to remember that YouTube is owned by Google, so you can make the most of the search engine ability, and make sure to use the right key words, titles and video descriptions to harness the added reach of Google. The quality of your videos is certainly important, but not all video shot has to be high-end professional grade. You should also keep in mind the length of your videos so that they don't go on for too long, or have too much information in one video. Consider breaking your videos up into segments across a few videos to keep your audience engaged. Take a look at the thumbnail that is generated for the cover of your video, if it is unappealing or doesn't represent the video well, you can select a new thumbnail in the edit mode. Video is one of the easiest ways to tell a story, even your audiences side of the story, so think of creative ways and topics for stories that will keep your audience viewing.
Facebook is a platform that is one of the most significant for so many. It's already been proven that visual posts stand out on a company's page and generate more engagement than text posts alone. Another stat from the author states "a post that includes an album or picture receives 120 to 180% more engagement from fans than a text-based post." That's pretty impressive! An important tip for marketing on Facebook is to try to create photos and images specifically to generate a conversation. When your audience relates to an image, they are more likely to like and share a photo. Both images and video work well on Facebook, so try to use both at different times to help tell your stories. Don't forget to use your Facebook header image as another visual element in your storytelling, that you can change up when needed to align with your current marketing or story that you're telling in your posts.
In the beginning, Twitter was really a microblogging site, that didn't really focus on visuals. Today though, that has definitely changed. More than one-third of all links shared on Twitter are images. Some tips for engaging on Twitter are to make sure you have a strategy, and a more specific focus on your messages. Tweet around several key passion points, and not just random thought tweets. If you're tweeting about the same thing you've posted on Facebook, don't just post the same image and text, make sure to create a specific post for Twitter. The ideal image size for Twitter posts is different from Facebook, so if you want your visuals to be the most effective on each platform, make sure you are custom designing specifically for each.
You can't get much more visual than the Instagram platform. Although newer to the Social Media front, it is definitely quickly growing and rising as a very effective way to visually tell your company story or stories, with either photos or video. Instagram really is a great way to give your audience a behind the scenes type of look at your company and the people that make it all happen, which really provides that human side. As well it is a great platform to focus specific product imagery, although you want to avoid being all about sales. When you're posting your imagery, create a specific company hashtag that can always be linked back to you. Keeping your imagery consistent is helpful as well, so that your audience will start to recognize your posts easily in their feeds. You can obtain this visual branding, by using similar photographs, cropping, filters, colour treatment, etc.
The common factor for all of these and other platforms, and for your visual storytelling posts as a whole, is to always think about the big picture. Make sure you have set goals and defined a strategy to prevent your company from random, unrelated posts that don't tie in to anything or highlight your company's message, theme, personality. Align your visual storytelling with your company's goals and vision for the future. As the author sums up "A visual storytelling strategy will resonate more with your target audience if it's shaped around key business objectives." Having a clear understanding of the role that visual storytelling can have on reaching your company's goals, will help you define your vision and ultimately let you decide what components and elements you will use to bring your visual story to life.
