Forbes called the rise of visual content the breakout trend of 2012.
As early as 2007 Jakob Nielsen’s eye tracking studies showed that images attract attention. And attracting the attention and interest of a visitor to your newsroom or brand content online is vital in this overcrowded content world. Here are a few stats to show the impact of visuals:
- Content with compelling images get 94% more total views on average than content without images. (note the word compelling)
- 67% of consumers consider clear, detailed images to be very important and carry even more weight than the product information, full description, and customer ratings.
- 60% of consumers are more likely to consider or contact a business whose images appear in local search results.
- 37% increase in engagement is experienced when Facebook posts include photographs. This is consistent with research by Dan Zarrella of Hubspot.
- 1.8x as many views when a press release contain a photograph. (They climb to 7.4X when both photographs and videos are included and can be as high as 9.7x as many views with an image, a video and an infographic or download – PR Newswire.)
Note that visuals are also a huge factor in increasing engagement – one of the social media metrics we’re advised to track. And that they can help get your content indexed and clicked on in search engines.
Most journalists and bloggers state that they are significantly more likely to use your content if it has good visuals. And that brings me back to that word compelling – it’s not just a case of “We need an image – let’s throw in a stock photo.” Or failing anything else, a logo. Or a head shot of the CEO. You need a visual that adds depth and extends the impact of the story.
Start thinking about telling the story visually first. Figure out what images, videos or infographics would actually bring the story to life. Create those first. Then write the release, article or blog post. Not the other way around.
To do this effectively PR pros need new skills:
- Digital photography – lighting and composition
- Editing images
- Creating original images from stock images
- Optimizing images for search
- Scripting a video
- Storyboarding
- Lighting
- Shooting – with a camera, an iPad or a smart phone.
- Editing – either in Camtasia or Final Cut. Or quickly in iMovie on the iPad. You can even do it right in YouTube now.
- Distribution of visuals for maximum effect.
Make sure your Marketing and PR teams are trained and can effectively use the power of visual content in 2013. And once they know how to create it, they also need to know how to optimize all visual content for both news and web search.
