Different Types of Visual Content Explained

It’s 2020, and there are quite possibly the biggest opportunities for content creators right now.

In the last decade alone, we’ve seen the rise of platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch, Pinterest and TikTok — And with the million different ways to use these platforms to leverage visual content that aligns with business goals.

From in-house marketers to YouTube sensations, many creatives have adopted these different platforms and leveraged their visual content to produce the biggest impacts and achieving the following:

• Skyrocketing business growth.
• Acquiring seven-figure audiences.
• Selling out their stock completely.

But what kind of content are the leading creatives using? Take a look at the different types of content and how they can help drive your business, project and personal brand closer to success.

Videos

Starting with the fastest growing and most effective content type, video has taken digital marketing efforts and content strategies by storm in recent years.

This versatile content type can be leveraged for different purposes; fulfilling many objectives in a digital marketing strategy…

Want to educate your audience and help them understand what puts you above your competition?

• Webinars.
• Explainers.
• Presentations.

Want to Humanise your brand, build an audience and give them a behind-the-scenes experience?

• Vlogs.
• Live streams.

Want to emphasis your best products and services; creating engagement with an audience of potential buyers?

• Product videos.
• Customer testimonials.
• Tutorials.
• Advertisements.

As you can see, once you break down the content type and dig deeper into what can be created, the opportunities are endless!

But there’s a catch…

We are by nature, visual creatures and with 95,000,000+ photos and videos shared every single day on Instagram, 600,000,000+ visual search inquiries on Pinterest every single month and with over 500,000,000 TikTok users, it’s harder than ever to create engaging content that cuts through the noise.

Here’s our advice:

A lot of video content lacks being both high-quality and purpose driven — But you’re doesn’t have to…

To put your video content above millions of other creators, invest in video software that allows you the editing potential many creators won’t have.

Understand where to distribute your video content; what social media channels will work best for your brand? Where exactly is your audience?

Take a look at your engagement metrics with older videos and work from there.

Once your content is there for the world to see, analyse its performance. The only way to improve next time is to understand what went right and wrong last time.

Images

Sometimes a picture really can portray a thousand words; but it can also engage more than a hundred thousand fans — And all at once.

Images have been one of the leading content types even before the internet. In fact, the first photograph published in a newspaper dates back earlier than the 20th Century!

If that’s anything to go by, visual content in the form of images has been long-lived and continues to cut through the noise of digital content in 2020.

Acording to SocialMediaExaminer.com 32% of marketers say visual images are the most important content type for their business, with blogging at 27% putting it in second place.

From 2018 to 2019, Venngage.com says brands saw a 10.5% increase in visual content usage, taking their visual content to 74% of overall content creation.

Was a digital landscape of images before blogging really imaginable until recent years? These statistics thoroughly prove the potential of visual content for business.

But above the statistics, how can images and photographs contribute to your overall content strategy in 2020 and beyond?

Using original and high-quality images within written blog posts can help you increase views tenfold. Not only does it help with traffic, it breaks up the written content to keep readers more engaged.

Creating unique and original visual image content is also very cost-effective option and can save your business a lot of money. Believe it or not, stock images (a very popular choice for their convenience) are extremely expensive.

Product photography is another vital element of image content creation. The majority of consumers now begin their product research online and 75% of online shoppers rely on product photography for purchasing decisions.

But what many brands fail to remember is the eCommerce corner of a website isn’t the only space for showcasing high-quality product images.

Features like Instagram Shopping create vibrant storefront experiences on one of the fastest social media platforms in recent years.

Whether you’re sharing your product images on Instagram, creating a product catalogue on your brand’s Facebook page or publishing product images Pinterest, always create high-quality images.

The final technique of leveraging visual image content for your brand is user generated content. While this type of content can be created via videos, text and more, it is especially popular amongst visual image content.

Think about the many times you’ve come across friends who’ve posted photos of their new clothes, new tech products or their go-to cosmetics brands?

If you’re wondering why your customers tweets matter it’s because people trust the opinion of people, not marketers or business owners.

You should encourage user generated content in the form of visual images through competitions, hashtags and rewards.

Infographics

Infographics have become a godsend for marketers in pretty much every industry. This is because they’re often leveraged by taking complex concepts and uninteresting data and creating beautiful visual representations.

Here’s an interesting takeaway for convincing your fellow marketers on the power of Infographics…

People remember just 10% of the information they hear. This same percentages increases to 65% when the same information is paired with an image.

Now imagine the power of having your customers remember the benefits of your products and services nearly 65% more when you’ve used infographics.

This isn’t all, a staggering 12% increase in website traffic can also be expected in some cases where infographic content has been leveraged in a content strategy — According to Lucidpress.com

Now that you’re most likely blown away by the potential of infographics, how can you use them for your business?

Much like including visual images throughout a blog post to break up its written content, infographics can be incorporated into blog posts, and at both small and large scales.

You could also take the more complex concepts of a blog post and transform this into an infographic to accompany the written text.

After all, assuming what you’re writing is important, (since you want your customers to know about it) it’s in your brand’s interest to ensure customers are completely clear on your message.

Infographics can also be leveraged in your email marketing efforts. It can be challenging to really engage your email subscribers as they often aren’t actively seeking out your content.

So what’s the answer?

Give them back their time by creating easily digestible infographics. Making it easier to drive their attention to call-to-actions, instead of putting them through a three hour reading session (much like this blog post).

Finally, what’s harder than writing content? Coming up with unique ideas over and over again.

You can remove this pressure and/or stress by simply not writing…

Yes really…

Taking existing (preferably well performing content) and repurposing it in infographic form creates a whole stream of possibilities for your content strategy.

Other Visual Content Types

Of course, video, image and infographics aren’t the only content types creeping into content marketing strategies in 2020.

Memes

Believe it or not, memes as we know them have been around for decades! But the marketing power of memes has taken stride in recent years with brands looking to achieve the following with meme content:

• Humanise their brand.
• Create a sense of community.
• Save cash (yes, really!)
• Produce highly engaging and shareable content.

Cutting out the need to create content, brand’s can save time, money and make their audience laugh all at once.

However, leveraging memes for your content marketing strategy means gathering a deeper insight into your audience.

Screenshots and GIFs

Not a vastly common type of content, but the screenshot function can go along way within a content strategy — And GIF’s can be education…

Think for a second, if you wanted to promote the amazing reviews and messages you have received from customers? The best way to truly make those reviews stand out to potential customers is with authenticity.

Don’t simply rewrite your customers’ lovely message about how great of a brand and product you have, showcase their message to the world as a visual piece of content.

And how can GIF’s be education?

Do some of your customers struggle navigating your software? Does your application have complex features that certain users just can’t grasp?

Creating short GIF tutorials doesn’t overwhelm customers with four minute YouTube tutorials and instead ensures they can overcome their issues in bite-size parts.

The Future of Content

Looking back over the content types and their ever-growing inclusion in content marketing strategies, it’s exciting to imagine the endless possibilities of visual content creation. The past has given us a great idea for the future of visual content and its role in business.

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