How to Turn Content into Visual Assets for Social Marketing – dummies
One mistake that many people make when evaluating visual assets is that they consider only photographs or videos with live-action footage. Visual social marketing is based on much more — it focuses on creating visual content that makes your point more quickly and effectively and draws social media users to your content.
Many businesses don’t consider the full range of content that can become visual — the reality is that any content can become visual.
Analyze all the information and content that you communicate. Most, if not all, of it can become visually oriented content, to make it more compelling. You can use visual marketing to make your business communications more effective.
This list describes several types of visual business communications:
Testimonials from customers: HubSpot, a company that sells online marketing software, creates simple images to share testimonials that customers have left for them. The image includes a picture of the customer, the HubSpot logo, and a quote from the customer about the company. This strategy makes the testimonials highly visual and easy to consume. Plus, when you add an image of the customer, the testimonial becomes more believable.
Annual reports: More and more companies are creating infographic annual reports or annual report illustrations. (An infographic is a long-format illustration that visualizes statistics and information.) Businesses can use visual annual reports to share the highlights of their annual reports without requiring readers to digest the entire report. For example, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research releases illustrations to share the key information in its annual report.
Résumés created by Re.Vu: Users of the website www.re.vu[3] can create visual assets from their résumés. Rather than have to slog through all the data on a résumé to look for trends, Re.vu shows trends and skill progressions visually, which makes the content of the document easier to process. Business professionals use this site to highlight their qualifications and accomplishments to business partners.
Business updates: Any business information that you want to communicate can be delivered quickly and effectively by using visual elements.
General Electric has started using its visual assets to communicate a variety of topics and raise awareness about them. Many topics can be found on the boards at General Electric’s Pinterest page[4]. For example, the company created a visual element to show how bad habits can increase the risk of cancer.
Press releases: Companies have started creating visual press releases, too. Rather than distribute a standard press release in a text document, savvy businesses are communicating their news visually.
In 2010, Electric Visual launched its new Smoke’n Mirrors glasses by distributing a visual release that provides a highlight of the launch with images of the product and its specifications. The visual release, which is much easier to follow than a traditional press release, helps company news stand out.
