In social media, pictures are becoming a decisive means of gaining competitive advantage, freeing up marketers to tell their stories without a thousand words. Images are the new black when it comes to sharing ideas. Here are five quick ways you can capitalize on this trend and do what we like to call the “pic and roll.”
Infographics
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These are the comic books of marketing, dumbing down complex ideas into easily consumed morsels of data and drawings. Several brands like AirBNB, American Red Cross and REI have used them to great effect. Given the strong demand for infographics, a cottage industry has emerged around creating (see JESS3) and sharing them (see Mashable). |
Facebook Timeline
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While we all seem to be too busy to read, we still find the time to review pictures from friends and family. Recognizing this, Facebook recently revamped their photo display to feature larger pictures and made it easier to add comments. Brands likeLowe’s Home Improvement and Michaels Stores are capitalizing on this trend, generating positive response from their fan bases. |
Photo Contests
| Since smart phones are turning everyone into photographers and enabling instantaneous sharing of these masterpieces, it should come as no surprise that photo contests are hotter than ever. Having tested a couple of approaches onRenegade’s Facebook page, we advise offering lots of prizes and selecting a subject that people are inclined to photograph anyway (i.e. pets are better than meatballs!). |
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Pinterest
| Although Pinterest may yet prove to be a flash in the pan (visitors stalled in April), this photo-sharing site is well worth testing given the remarkable fact that it is referring more traffic to other sites than LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+ combined. If you are unfamiliar with Pinterest and how brands are capitalizing on it, be sure to look at this board we created with examples from several innovators. |
Tumblr
| The beauty of photo sharing is that it has both mass and niche appeal. On Tumblr, a photo-heavy blogging platform, a whopping 2 million photos are shared each day on every topic imaginable. Brands like Huggies, Coca-Cola and even IBM are taking advantage of this activity to reach their respective audiences. Setting up a blog on Tumblr is easy, and the engagement opportunities are endless. |
Though the word engagement is grossly overused in social media, it is in fact the critical reason for brands to get into pictures in a big way. Google+ just introduced an iPhone app that is highly visual and may give a needed boost of engagement to this struggling platform. Looking ahead, we expect moving pictures (i.e. mobile video) to extend the trend of images over words (stay tuned for more on mobile video in our upcoming newsletters).
