Before we move on from our discussions of the visual social media platforms (Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.) let’s delve a little deeper into the value of visual content when it comes to your social media and blog posts.
A picture really can be worth a thousand words. But it can be worth a thousand shares, too, and more engagement, and ultimately more readers. Ditto video. Here’s why.
Survey Says! Data Supporting Why Images are Critical
First, take a look at just a few of the more fascinating visual content marketing statistics:
- Engagement rate on Facebook for photos averages 0.37% where text only is 0.27% (translating to a 37% higher level of engagement for photos over text) (Source: JeffBullas.com)
- . WWW can attest to this. We get often get more Pinterest referrals than Facebook and Twitter combined!
- Tweets with Image Links Get 2x the Engagement Rate of Tweets without Images (Source: SociallySorted)
The importance of visual content marketing can’t be overstated. Including photos and video will gain you more fans, followers, readers, and book sales.
Where to Get Great (and Free!) Visual Content
It’s easy to grab video and embed it into posts and shares with sites like YouTube and Vimeo. Sharing is encouraged because the “source” of the video is included. You don’t have to worry about liberally sharing video from these sources. However, they don’t want you downloading video and uploading it as your own (and frankly, you wouldn’t want to — embedding allows a visual link without cluttering up your own site with big file uploads).
More tricky are where to procure static images; photographs and graphics. Contrary to some popular belief, all images on the Internet are NOT open season for using/sharing for your own use, anymore than your own images and words are. Don’t make the mistake of grabbing an image without the owner’s permission.
Happily, there are plenty of sites where you can easily grab and share free images. Here are just five of our go-to favorites:
- Wikimedia Commons: Many copyright holders upload their photos here and release into the public domain without any conditions.
- Pixabay: Over 700,000 images, all free of copyrights under Creative Commons CC0. You may download, modify, distribute, and use them royalty free for anything you like, without attribution.
- FreeDigitalPhotos: Free and easy to find; but you must provide link back to them and attribution.
- Pexels: Again, all royalty-free stock images, and lots of them.
- MorgueFile: Read the usage conditions associated with the image you choose. If attribution is required, include it. It’s the right thing to do.
Tips for Finding and Using Great Visual Content
Even if you’re using other people’s pics, remember that you just don’t want to grab any old image. Get creative and think about your readers’ feelings. What emotion do you want your post or social media share to evoke? Concern? Humor? Pick images to match.
Black and white photos can convey strong messages, but more typically you’ll want vibrant, attention-getting colors. If you have a theme to match your genre, then you may want that to extend to your photos. In example, pinks for chick-lit, red and black for thrillers.
You can also use a subject theme to regularly use photos. Some authors use old postcards. In this series we use owls, because it lets us find cool images and owls convey wisdom. Animals are useful sharing partners; cats tend to get more views and shares than any other animal!
Out of ideas to share or write about? Sometimes just browsing one of the photo sites can spark an idea. From there it’s easy to grab the photo and write your post around it.
Consider your photo selections as carefully as you consider your words, because it’s that photo or graphic that will draw readers into your words, and your world!
Additional Resources:
- 25 FREE Tools to Rock Visual Marketing
- 6 Powerful Reasons Why you Should include Images in your Marketing – Infographic
- 10 Reasons Why You Should Care About Visual Content Marketing