I’ve always had a special love of visual content in marketing. Images helping to tell a story. And the truth is, visual content is in the backdrop and forefront of our lives constantly – helping us choose a product, convey our feelings or say something about us. And in today’s ever changing technological world, visual content has become more important than ever. I mean, let’s face it, there are more platforms than ever, and more competition across the board so you might want to slow down from time to time and ask yourself if you are really doing an effective job marketing yourself, your business and/or your clients.

I recently read a blog put out by HubSpot highlighting the Best Brands of Instagram. (It first got my attention because there was a cute puppy in the first picture.) The article brings about the point that 600 million people are on Instagram flipping through pictures and videos on a regular basis. This prompted me to look into Facebook, because it is a leading social media platform with multiple ways to promote or advertise yourself. And according to a Zephoria article, “Worldwide, there are over 1.86 billion monthly active Facebook users (Facebook MAUs) which is a 17 percent increase year over year.”

This begs the question, are you taking full advantage of the tools you have to market yourself? Leveraging Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and other social media platforms with thoughtful imagery, a great post/description, and useful hashtag to accompany it can get you some much needed attention.

“But I’m not a photographer.” Bullhockey, I say. With all the photo apps out there, filters and cool (FREE I might add) ways to add a message, anyone can get a beautiful shot. I see you posting pictures of your food, your nails, your dog, your car…try spinning it for your business! It doesn’t always take the camera of a professional photographer to snap a great picture. On a personal level, I utilize Facebook and Instagram to help get my foster dogs adopted. I also add tags and hashtags to the specific rescues they are affiliated with. And sometimes those images I posted are shared – which helps market the animal and help the rescue gain visibility.

In the spirit of this blog I decided to ask our in-house social media wizard Erica Skrivan about some of her more successful posts she has put together for our clients. And in her research she has found that images she has taken herself have done just as well if not better than professional shots she has been given or purchased. To take it a step further, she also said that images with a person or animal in the shot get double the clicks and attention than say the same picture without the “human element”. Take a selfie with your product. Get employees in the shot. Humanize your brand and you’ll get more engagement.

For example, one of our clients, Antennas Direct, was traveling across the United State giving away free TV antennas. During their travels, Erica carried around their Eclipse model indoor tv antenna and would snap pictures of it while visiting locations and exploring. Those pictures, simply and quickly taken on her phone, had massive engagement and people loved seeing the behind the scenes pictures. It wasn’t planned out, it wasn’t a choreographed, expensive, photo shoot. It was simple and effective.

So who or what makes an impact on you via social media? One of my favorite brands to follow on social media is Lokai. This company is all about finding your balance in life and a portion of the proceeds go towards different charities for each product. Lokai started an amazing and engaging campaign using social media by asking wearers to post pictures of themselves with their bracelet, and tagging the brand. Not only is it awesome to see all the different interpretations and creativity customers put into their images, but many of the images have likes in the THOUSANDS!!! Lokai shares these photos across their social media platform, at no cost to them, and they have a gallery of beautiful and unique, fan submitted photos. AND this campaign still going strong now, nearly four years later.

As the saying goes, a picture is worth ten thousand words, so what are yours saying?