How to Create Outstanding Visual Content for Your Venture 

Visual content is key to online engagement, so figuring out how to create outstanding visual content as part of your marketing strategy is a must.

Visual content is one of the most important aspects of a business. Are you ready to bulk up your visuals for a better marketing experience?

All aspects of your online marketing integrate some form of blogging or social media into your e-commerce inbound strategy — outstanding visual content provides you with the best way to deliver your brand message to significantly increase user engagement. 

 

Why is visual content so relevant? 

Research has shown that 90% of the information that goes into our brain, is visual. Consequently, people can remember 65% of the information you provided with them three days later, given that it was visual content.

In terms of social media, visual content also proves to be the best type. Case studies regarding Twitter have shown that tweets with photos get 313% more engagement than tweets without them. That’s an incredible statistic.

For bloggers, investigations delving into content have revealed that blog posts that have multiple types of media will attract as much as 6 times more inbound links, that blogs that are just plain text posts.

Since cameras are no included in all smartphones, visual content has only become more and more prevalent.

It goes without saying that visual content is essential, but how can you create it for your venture? Below, we look into the best ways.

Keep it straightforward and simple

“A picture speaks a thousand words.” 

Take this into consideration when creating visual content; it doesn’t have to be elaborate or hard to explain. It should be straight to the point and simple.

If you overload any article with too many visuals, that are hard to understand – they won’t have the effect that you’re hoping for. In fact, you might lose the reader’s attention.

You have to keep all your visual content simple; this will help your users to understand it better. If you’re incorporating them into blogs, you should ensure that they complement the post.

For instance, infographics or diagrams work exceptionally well, when trying to explain a point.

Outstanding visual content isn’t just a sprinkle of decoration. They should be entirely relevant and help to explain a point that you’re trying to make.

A low quality, irrelevant picture, or video will only deter a user, rather than attract them. Make sure it highlights crucial points and amplifies the idea that you’re trying to put across.

 

Experiment with different types of visuals  

Variety is essential when it comes to visual content. There’s not a really a one-size-fits-all type of mantra with it, and you should always be open to new ideas.

The type of content you implement will vary from industry to industry, and from niche to niche. You have to decide what would be best for you – that also keeps on-brand.

We highly recommend a variety of approaches, which is the same method that the majority of companies also use. This can be anything from:

• Videos
• Gifs
• Pictures
• Infographics
• Diagrams
• Illustrations
• Boomerangs (almost like a GIF)

 

Also, try to keep up-to-date with various visual trends that are happening. For instance, TikTok’s are the current favorite for many, at the moment. These are virtually short-form videos that provide quick, enticing information or entertainment.

 

Invest in some great tools  

With the array of tools and apps available to us, anybody can become a professional content creator. Especially if you practice.

Various platforms enable you to produce high-quality visual content, with just a click of a finger. Pre-built animations, graphics, and builders will help you create something really unique.

It’s also important to note that tools like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere are available to anybody, and can be used to amplify any content you’ve created.

 

Think outside of the box 

You’re entering a market that’s full of creatives and innovators. Ensuring that your visual content stands out from the crowd, entails you to think of creative ways to use them.

It’s true, creating meaningful, accessible, and persuasive content can be a tough task. If you focus on making them bring your articles to life, or transforming a social media post – you’re on the right path.

As we mentioned, always stay up to date with current trends, and focus on building up a portfolio of content visuals.

Some Instagram posts have millions of followers when they exclusively post memes. Others are prevalent for their drawings and illustrations.

 

Focus on consistency

Your venture will more than likely have to follow a theme. This is true for websites, blogs, and even social media.

Successful Instagram profiles all have a “theme” that they adhere to, whereby the same colors, style, and filter are used on their photos.

Many news websites use relatively similar photos, which complement the colors of the site around them.

Consistency also comes in many different forms. You should make sure that the following is all coherent:

• Colors
• Fonts
• Logos
• Message
• Linguistic peculiarities

Consistency and brand messaging are so crucial for companies. If you’re running a small business, it will often be the case that you’ll have to outsource your writing to professionals if you can’t hire an in-house writer. There are now many popular writing and editing services like Studicus and Supreme Dissertations, along with tools like Grammarly and Hemingway all of which can help you better calibrate and maintain your brand voice and tone.

 

Engage with your audience 

The truth is, you could be making fantastic content for your venture, but it just isn’t reaching anybody. You need to make efforts to reach new people, through SEO services, shoutouts, and hashtags – this will make you available to a broader audience.

Also, you have to engage with your current audience. The internet is very much transactional – if you like and comment on various posts, people will do the same.

The good news is; outstanding visual content will happily be engaged with and shared, it’s just about reaching the right people.

 

Don’t forget about long-form visuals 

Don’t forget, eBooks, whitepapers, and guides are all considered visual content – especially when designed well.

These types of content go more in-depth than blog posts and can be a great way to create leads.

These types of visual content also set you out as an industry leader, which will ultimately gain you more audiences – perfect for your venture.

It’s true, these forms may take a little bit more effort than a photo, but they are very much worth it. You must ensure that they’re designed amazingly, and provide useful information. That is crucial.

 

Know your target audience 

With visual content, you have to also dive into content marketing. This requires you to know your audience and what they want to see.

This benefits you and your audience – you don’t waste time creating visual content, and your audience only experience relevant and targeted content.

Things to consider are: 

• Their age
• Their interests
• The platforms that they use

 

As time goes on, you can track your analytics to see what types of visual content work best for you. Also, check out your competitors to see what content they’re producing and if you could adopt a similar method.

 

Align your visuals with your content marketing strategy

That brings us nicely onto our next point. You must follow the same path as your content marketing plan.

Always consider the photos, videos, and other visuals as an aspect of your content marketing. Track them with useful metrics, and also make them search engine optimize.

Does the visual content that you post engage with your audience in a compelling way? Not only that, but do they promote the brand and everything you stand for?

As we mentioned, they’re not just a sprinkling of decoration. They should be considered a core aspect of your content marketing.

 

Solve problems

Visual tips and pointers will always do well. You’ve probably seen various guides and videos on social media, that go entirely viral – when they’re simply offering hacks or helps.

Of course, you might not have the product or means to be able to do something like that. This doesn’t mean you can’t prove to be helpful, in any means.

Infographics are a great way to do this and can be created really easily through Canva. How-to-images are easy for readers to scan, and are often extraordinarily sharable and useful.

 

Repurpose old content

With visual content, you shouldn’t just post once and then forget about it.

You should repurpose, reshare, and reuse any old content you posted. Anytime it might be relevant, bring it back up. Remember, you’ll gain new followers and audiences every day – some of which wouldn’t have seen a handy checklist or infographic that you posted weeks ago.

 

Avoid stock images at all costs

Though it may seem like a desirable idea, especially if you’re pressed for time, we say avoid stock images.

We asked Jeremy Silverman, the Senior Marketing Manager at WoWGrade, why stock images aren’t really your best choice. Here’s what he told us: “They’re not as compelling and are obviously unoriginal. Wherever you can, try to use your own images. Doing so will develop your brand’s image and give your audience more reason to engage.”

 

Customize for the different platforms

Every platform is different, and the same visual doesn’t always work for every different one.

Look into the trends and features of every platform, and customize the visual accordingly.

There are multiple tools that will help with this. Don’t forget that various platforms will also crop images and videos.

 

Conclusion

We hope you found this useful, and you incorporate them into your next content plan.

Do you have any hints and tips you would like to give us?