How to Get Your Audience to Engage with Your Visual Content

It’s happened plenty of times. You create the most awesome post with great material, you swear it’s gonna go viral (or at least you hope it would) and boom…nobody likes it! It’s kind of frustrating because you start asking yourself all of these questions like “what am I doing wrong?” or “what else am I supposed to do?” and it’s totally normal.

The main issue is trying to figure out who your audience is, and what their interests are. It’s common nature for people to get attracted to visually appealing content to make them want to engage. However, that’s easier said than done, right? That’s why our online marketing team put together a few tips that can help you increase your audience engagement with strong visual content.

Trial and Error

The reality is, you’ll never really define what your audience truly thinks of your brand and your content if you don’t incorporate different options into your online marketing strategy. People tend to digest information in different ways, so it’s important to figure out what kind of content will appeal to your audience through trial and error.

Whether you’re publishing your content on social media or on your website, you have to determine where your target audience is coming from, and how they receive certain information. Are they coming from mobile or desktop and, more importantly, how often?

Fact: 26% of the 25 million smartphone users around the world watch online video at least once per day (Source: Hubspot).

Connecting With Your Audience

Creating strong visuals is only part of the process. Sure, an image speaks a thousand words, but if you expect your audience to interact with your content then you have to be prepared to engage with your audience, too!

Entice your users to be more involved with your brand by creating relationships. People love to feel special, and there are plenty of ways you can make that happen in order to instill trust and loyalty.

• Take advantage of user-generated content. This all depends on your type of business, but sometimes your “fans” turn to social media to post pictures of your products or goods. By reposting their content, you’re already showing your customers that they’re appreciated and somehow feel connected to your brand. Note: make sure you ask for permission before reposting content and give the proper credit.
• Always reply to relevant questions. Let your followers know that there is actually a real person behind your brand who cares about them. If you see that they are asking questions about your product or service, give them an answer (nobody likes to be ignored).
• Thank the people who promote/share your content. If people are sharing your content, that’s awesome! That means you’ve not only captured their interest, but they are also spreading the word to their fellow followers. Simply thank them for sharing your content, or give them a shout out.

Take Your Visuals to the Next Level

Part of making your content noticeable is to make it speak for itself. Remember, your content is one of thousands that people constantly see on a daily basis. Whether it’s a video, or simply just an image, it’s important to add elements that make your post stand out from the crowd and make it memorable enough to actually be shared.

Fact: There are 1.5 billion individual units of content. 2 million videos are uploaded each day, and 140 million tweets are generated daily (Source: Hubspot).

Visual content is by far the most effective way to capture your audience’s attention. According to Hubspot, visual content makes up 93% of all human communication.The human brain is programmed to process a very limited amount of information at a time, so videos and images definitely have a higher advantage compared to simple lines of text (that nobody actually wants to read unless it’s super interesting or beneficial). Now let’s get into how you can crack the code on catering to your audience the right way.

Infographics

Everyone has different ways of retaining information. For those who are visual learners, infographics can be a great way to convey specific information all in one attractive, easy-to-read design. It’s an effective way to transform your boring content into something visually appealing that users can actually understand. If you’re not exactly a pro with Photoshop, you can use tools such as Piktochart to help you create your ideal infographic for your online marketing campaigns. It’s as simple as drag and drop!

Dynamic images

As we mentioned, users tend to be attracted to eye-catching content. By creating dynamic images or animated GIFs, your content is that much more likely to get noticed by certain people.

Fact: Your content can generate up to 94% more views if you add compelling visual elements and graphics (Source: Hubspot).

Note: You can easily create this dynamic illusion with one of the most popular apps called Boomerang (it’s also built into Instagram).

Videos or Slideshows

When business owners think of incorporating videos into their online marketing campaigns, some literally freak out because they think it’s a costly investment and very time consuming. We’re here to tell you that it’s not as bad as you think. Obviously, certain types of video cost money; however, there are also ways of easily creating great videos without breaking the bank.

Video platforms such as Animoto give you the ability to create beautiful, creative videos or slideshows without being a pro at video editing.

Creative Images

Depending on the type of message you want to convey to your audience, the point is to make it as creative as possible to make users want to engage with your content. Combining great visuals with well-written text, you can definitely capture someone’s attention while they’re rapidly scrolling through their feed. If you’re on a time crunch and looking for a faster approach you can try using Canva. This tool has a wide variety of template options to help you design the perfect image in half the time.

Tip: Try not to stick to the template, though. You don’t want to use the same style everyone else is using, so try to customize your images by incorporating your logo, your brand’s color scheme and any other elements that make it your own design.

Ready to Incorporate Visuals Into Your Online Marketing Campaigns?

As your business grows, so do the needs of your audience. It’s important to always stay ahead of the game when it comes to new trends in the digital world. Visual content is only getting more popular these days, so don’t fall behind and get started with including these elements in your online marketing efforts. Trust us, you’ll be happy with the results!

Cultura Interactive agency is an award winning Fort Lauderdale web design studio that strives to create unique and attractive websites, and develop strategic digital online marketing campaigns for our clients.