Social media marketing is a unique tool that is critical to marketing success in today’s online business world. Knowing how to utilize social media, as well as what types to use and which networks will gain the most visibility for your brand, is going to make all the difference. Some people still feel like they don’t “need” social media to be successful in online marketing, which is entirely false. No business in today’s e-commerce world is going to thrive without this as a part of their marketing arsenal. There is a lot more to it than just creating social profiles for the business, though, as all social media marketing companies will tell you.
Marketing is based on consumers, after all. Today’s consumers want interactive content, social media resources, and relatable, personable brands that they can connect with on various social networks. Their attention span is short and they don’t have time for anything that requires too much thought, which is why visual content is one of the best mediums for social marketing campaigns. Even the statistics published by social media marketing companies show that users are far more likely to respond to pictures or videos than text content, and with as many as 85% of people identifying themselves as visual learners, your business needs to cater to that audience.
Instagram, for example, gained so much popularity when it first launched that it quickly bypassed Twitter on the mobile platform in terms of users, and the popular viral social site Tumblr is still adding over 100,000 new users every single day. The one thing these sites have in common: pictures and videos. Visual content is at the heart of sites like Pinterest, as well, which boasts over 72 million users. What’s more is that about ⅓ of Pinterest users are men, which changes the way that many businesses can market to their audiences.
Get Visual with Strategy
With all of this information, it might be tempting to just post pictures and videos randomly to social media in an attempt to share information and gain followers, but for a business that is not the way to succeed. You need to develop a marketing strategy that includes visual content. You should research your market and see what competitors are doing, as well as how users are responding to it. Put yourself in the consumers’ shoes and think about what you would like to see from your favorite brands. Interactive, simple, eye-catching posts are far more effective than even the most useful information in text form for marketing purposes. You can educate later, but for now just get their attention.
A marketing strategy for visual content should include any social networks that your brand can benefit from or use to grow its visibility, including Pinterest, YouTube, and other visually-based social websites. The information overload on the internet is often overlooked, or bookmarked and never seen again. As time goes on and social media grows, the attention span of consumers is shrinking by the day, which is creating an increasing need for visual content rather than text. Make sure that you have a strategy for now as well as one that you can use for the foreseeable future, based on marketing trends and statistics as well as your own marketing goals and business needs.
The Bottom Line
In 2012, Instagram experienced an unheard of growth of 10 million users in just 10 days, and that led to the total of more than 40 million users in April of that year alone. Pinterest is second on the list of social networks that drive the most traffic, and Twitter has recently changed its format to allow for larger header images and better visual capabilities. All signs point to visual marketing as the key to social media success, so what are you waiting for?
Work with a professional SEO agency to develop an effective social media marketing plan. Their professional expertise will give you the insight you need to help create a marketing strategy that will succeed in helping your business grow through social media.
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