One of the most significant contributors to the evolution of society's communication is the rise and infiltration of social media in our day-to-day lives. It has revolutionised the way we interact with each other, mere acquaintances, colleagues and especially brands. In the past, one of the biggest influences on a brand's reputation was the in-person word of mouth between current and potential clients or the available budget for above-the-line marketing efforts.
"But with the rise of social media, all power has shifted to the consumer."
Therefore, even the reach of marketing efforts on social media depends on a brand's ability to engage its target market's attention and willingness to share content.
With 1.5 billion active social media users, there is a sea of posts from brands, individuals, services and from all industries mixed onto different platforms and thrown into algorithms that determine what percentage of what audience gets a glimpse of what you're trying to say. This has opened a new field of research for marketing and psychology scholars. The question is: how do you compete for the attention of any part of the audience's attention? Or, in other words: How will your post stand out in the sea of competitors?
In the past, most posts on social media feeds were status updates, quick one-liner news flashes and the odd scanned picture. Still, with the advancements in phone technologies and the ever-growing internet capacity, the quality of posts has skyrocketed in equal measure. It has shifted to be more image rich than text-based. People using all the different platforms have found that it is quicker and evokes more reaction to take a quick, high-quality photo, edited right there on their phone, than trying to convey emotion with a sentence on a tiny keyboard.
The "mere-presence" effect.
Psychological tests have looked at social media users' responses to posts with and without images. It's shown that the mere presence of an image in a post will draw more attention than text-based posts. This statement is even supported when looking at Facebook's changes in the past few years. For example, they've made it possible for users to place their one-sentence posts on various backgrounds and frames. Or pair it with their avatar with different emoji-like expressions for this exact reason: the "mere-presence" of a visual representation of a sentence will receive more attention than just typing in their comment or question.
Scientific studies have proven that a person's brain can scan and process images 60 000 times faster than processing text and plays a large part in building memories. Memories will put your brand top of mind in the mind of potential clients.
Proving that the age-old saying is true: A picture is worth a thousand words. But this also poses a question: are all images equal in the eyes of the beholder? The short answer: No.
The Visual Psychology
This is the long answer, as answered by the scholars.
When it comes to visuals (deliberately not just called pictures, as psychology has a blanket relevance over still images and moving visuals), specific guidelines need to be followed to see results.
It's been proven that there are three factors to consider when creating visuals for social media and enhanced engagement.
1. Colours
It's not a new thought that different colours will bring out different emotions in the persons who see your visuals, which has been proven enough in past times. Varying from red for energy and danger to blue for tranquillity and trust, depending on what emotion you want to stir in your audience, you need to create your visuals parallel to what you require.
It was also proved a long time ago that bright colours attract more attention than muted tones. However, one study, "Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?" from the American Marketing Association, showed that brighter colours are only drivers of engagement in certain circumstances. So it comes down to basing your entire creative process on something other than the idea that bright colours are the only element that will get you noticed. Sometimes the emotion you provoke is what you need to get the job done.
Whichever way you choose to go, take your colour use seriously.
2. Image quality
The second factor to consider is the quality of your visuals in your social media content strategy. Several studies conducted by different professional institutions have proven that visuals created by professional photographers and videographers get more engagement than homegrown ones. And the other side of the spectrum is just as accurate. Sharing visuals that are low quality can do your reputation more harm than good. Lousy quality will divert users away from your posts, even prompt them to unfollow you and create bad subliminal connotations, meaning even fewer potential clients will see your message. It comes back to if you want to do something, do it well.
3. Image Content
In the same studies mentioned in point number 2, the literal content of the visuals has also been examined. While on some platforms and in some studies, it's been proven that visuals showing human faces and explicit expressions get more engagement, it's only valid for some platforms. On Instagram, for instance, the presence of humans in images made no difference to engagement statistics. However, Instagram is an entire image-based platform emphasising creativity and quality.
There are also studies that looked at the connection between the content of the image and the text accompanying it. Whether it makes a difference if the image is connected to the text or simply catches attention. Results has shown that images which doesn’t connect to the text can completely disconnect the reader from the main message. This means that the wrong visual connected to a post will remove users completely from the post, causing you to lose your audience completely.
The final consideration is a relatively new one, should you use moving or still images when planning your social media strategy?
Moving vs. Still Images
This is a new question because, until recently, producing video content was a rather pricey endeavour. But with the rise of TikTok, Insta stories, and Facebook stories, content video creation, including video quality on devices and editing software, has all improved by leaps and bounds, making it easier for companies to create videos using in-house resources. In addition, the time needed to create video has also decreased, making it a more accessible format of visuals for companies to use on social media. And why has video creation in its entirety all evolved? Because moving images have proven to be attention-grabbing and deliver on their promise, even though marketers worldwide are split 50/50 on which they would use most often. Even with that being true, 60% of the same sample group also believes that video creates more engagement, whilst just over 10% believe stills and moving images drive the same engagement. The attention stems from the belief that a moving image causes the user to stop scrolling and gives the post a few seconds more attention than a still image. However, the few moments of attention will only be beneficial if the first 3 seconds of the video hold enough of a hook to demand more of the watcher's time. According to Adquadrant the first 3 seconds of the video holds 47% of the value of the video and the first 10 seconds ads up to 74% of value.
Companies who've done video content well have seen double the number of clicks and a 20 – 30% conversion rate increase. Perfect video content also needs to adhere to a few more guidelines.
- Recent studies have shown that 96% of Facebook users use their phones, meaning video content needs to be optimised for a phone screen. Portrait videos rather than landscape.
- While it might sound strange, most videos are watched without sound as most users access social media in public places and don't want to attract attention from people close by as videos appear in their feeds.
The reality is still that even with the advancement in video content creating accessibility, it still takes considerably more resources than creating stills for social media. On average, a video will take around 4hours, whilst still, images fall in the space for less than an hour per post.
Finally: There's no one size fits all solution
All this information doesn't mean that all content on social media should now be moving visuals. In fact, with moving visuals settling into the marketing mix, it broadens the marketer's options depending on the need and objective of the social media campaign at hand. For instance, when timing or resources are crucial, still images might be your way to go. There's also information to support that still images can persuade users to click through to a website or a similar call to action. If you need more brand awareness or reach, you might need to turn to moving images.
All in all, your perfect content mix depends on your unique target audience, and the only way to determine how to assemble a content strategy that will fit your company's needs is through testing. So create, share, measure and repeat!
