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Visual content is an extremely effective marketing tool used to boost online engagement by the majority of marketers. HubSpot statistics clearly state that video content is the most efficient and is quickly becoming the most popular on the Web.

However, other types of visuals, like pictures. Infographics and presentations remain highly effective in various applications. To increase engagement through visual content one needs to understand their audience and improve the quality of the offered visuals.

How to Boost Online Engagement with Visual Content: Tools

Creative videos

The most basic uses of visual content in marketing are vlogs and adding images to blog posts. Both of those are extremely efficient and must be done as today they are a necessity.

Having a YouTube channel is a wise choice because it’s the most popular online platform for sharing videos. Today those clips get more viewers than cable TV and the number of daily active YouTube users is 30+ million and growing.

You should post your video on both YouTube and your blog but you can create more content from it. For example, create an animated. GIF from the video or a timelapse clip to post on Instagram and Facebook. This will add diversity to your visual social media marketing campaign.

As to the topic of the video, don’t limit yourself to one subject. As a business, you can have product presentation clips and how-to guides that provide ideas and tips on how to use your products. You should also have a vlog where customers will be able to ‘meet’ your team and witness some ‘behind the scenes’ of the product creation.

Such videos will make your brand more relatable, which should not only boost online engagement but also enhance customer loyalty.

Rich presentations

Never discount presentations as a form of content to be shared online to maximize engagement. They are an excellent tool for introducing products, services, and how-to instructions. Sharing them through SlideShare and LinkedIn seems to be most effective from the marketing point of view.

To make a powerful presentation/slideshow that will be memorable to the viewers, you should go beyond standard PowerPoint themes and graphics. Use custom layouts and a variety of PowerPoint backgrounds. Use color psychology when choosing the latter to maximize the impact of your message.

Slideshows can also be used in webinars and online classes as a medium for boosting online engagement.

Intriguing infographics

Infographics are the most shareable type of visual content. You can create them using free tools and data, either collected by yourself or from various reports and surveys you buy.

To maximize online engagement with this type of visual content you will need to share it via social media channels. Make small and ‘uncluttered’ infographics that contain only the barest minimum of text and relevant images. This way they will be easier to memorize. Always include your logo at the top or bottom of the piece.

Boost Online Engagement with Visual Content: Ideas & Tips

Organize a contest

Get your customers involved in your marketing campaign through a visual content contest. For example, start a contest on Instagram and require them to use your hashtag. You can ask the customers to take selfies with your product or pictures of it in some peculiar settings. Ask people to show off their creativity to boost interest in the contest.

You can also start a caption contest on social media. Publish a top-quality piece of visual content and ask subscribers to submit a humorous caption. Make sharing the post a mandatory requirement for participation.

Celebrate multiple holidays

Give your customers a chance to join some fun celebration of the International Puppy Day or a Best Friends’ Day or Ice-Cream Day. Commemorate these events with a relevant and attractive piece of visual content. You can also add a contest to boost online engagement. Including some discounts will also be wise.

Choose the holidays based on your targeted audience’s interests. Be sure to research the traditions of the celebration so you can develop a piece of content that won’t provoke outrage among fans.

Aim for emotional impact

The reason why you can effectively boost online engagement with visual content is that it triggers a stronger emotional response by default. This means you can connect more deeply with your customers through this marketing tool.

Use social videos and images that are made to invoke a strong positive or negative emotion. Note that sadness and outrage are more memorable to a human mind that the ‘fluffy’ feelings one experiences watching cute kitten videos. Choose the type based on the reaction you want to get.

If you want to motivate people to join your cause, and possibly buy some essentials to assist their new personal campaign, you can use negative emotional triggers. However, if your goal is to enhance loyalty and satisfaction with your brand, positive, cute, and adorable videos and images and videos will be best.

Optimize for SEO

You can boost online engagement with visual content not only by attracting customers with cool graphics but also by making your website more visible to Google. For this, your images and videos will need to be optimized to load fast and automatically adjust to any screen size.

You will also need to provide them with tags and descriptions that contain relevant keywords. Be sure to maintain a balance between reducing the file size (to speed up loading) and maintaining the quality of the image/video (to boost online engagement from interested visitors).

Be versatile

If you want to boost online engagement with visual content, you’ll need to post different types of content. This will allow you to impress different parts of the audience.

Be sure to experiment with new graphics often.

Originally posted here: https://www.ruhanirabin.com/maximize-online-engagement-visual-content/