Visual content can be the cornerstone of any marketing campaign, whether it’s a meticulously researched and engaging infographic to educate consumers or a bold and colourful image to break up prose and keep readers scrolling through articles. Putting visuals first in 2019 could give your brand the edge, so take heed of these important pointers to maximise your chances of success.
Make sure it can scale
Visual content can bring an otherwise ordinary-looking blog post to life, but always consider how images will scale before creating them. Brands often get tunnel vision and only consider how it will look on one particular platform or on social media. This myopic view can undermine the quality of content even before it has been published.
Scaling will take on greater importance next year as Google continues its pivot towards mobile-optimised content. Taking the time to consider how visuals will look for visitors using mobile sites on Chrome, Firefox and other browsers can not only boost your SEO processes but also ensure that target audiences are getting the best possible experience. You may have to include multiple images optimised for different devices to get everything in order.
Test content on social before publishing
Uploading images to social media can also be fraught with potentially negative outcomes as resizing and formatting can make your shiny, new content look unprofessional. Social media tools may choose the wrong image or crop it incorrectly, which can lessen its impact.
Author and visual content expert Buddy Scalera says: “Every once in a while, test your content – new and old – on the social platforms that you’re hoping people will use to share it. How does that content look on LinkedIn? How does it look on Facebook? Is it grabbing the image that you want it to grab?”
Work with a skilled agency
As always, working with a skilled third party can improve the overall quality of your visual output and enable you to publish content in the right place, at the right time, in the right format. Scalera noted at a recent Content Marketing World event that marketers can also achieve more success by getting more involved with making content.
