Content is king. All it is is something that is expressed through a medium. Content can be written. It can be videos, pictures, or audio. Verbal speech is a piece of content. Visual content is becoming more necessary in your marketing strategies as audiences progress. Words aren’t always enough on their own.

Humans are very visual beings. You can thank advancements in technology for us continuing to grow in this direction. That’s why it’s so important you have the right blend of visual content in your marketing. Blogs, web pages, catalogs, social media, YouTube videos, etc. You need more than words to grab your reader’s attention.

Visual Content

More Attractive

Most people prefer to have some visuals with their written content. The average online reader can only retain 15% (averaged number) of what they read or hear. However, if you pair that information with a visual element, like a picture or video, the retention increases to 65%. That’s HUGE!

Pictures on Twitter receive 150% more retweets than identical posts with no image. Facebook posts with pictures receive 2.3 times the engagement than posts with only text. You don’t need a visual every post, but it’s nice to have a good mix of content types. If you have a specific target audience, cater to them. They may prefer videos or specific kinds of images.

Hold Attention Longer

Using visual content will produce more interest in each post you make. Posts with videos get 94% more views. You literally have seconds to make an impression. 2-3 seconds on average. The WWW has given us instant gratification and with that comes quicker judgment and shorter attention spans.

Microsoft has conducted studies to indicate that the average human attention span is 8 seconds. A goldfish has an attention span of 9 seconds. Yes, a goldfish. If that isn’t a reason for visual content, I don’t know what it.

More Engaging

Visual content is a great way to boost people’s desire to spend a few extra seconds to interact. You’re 35% more likely to get comments on your blogs that have visual elements. Those same elements will draw 60% more traffic. Getting engagement is one of the hardest stages in content marketing initiatives. It takes time to learn what your audience responds best to.

Humans are visual creatures. We’re wired that way now. So leveraging visual content is going to be a huge factor in your successes to boost engagement. 92% of human communication is non-verbal. We may not realize it, but we are trained to spot things even if we don’t recognize it.

People need to see something an average of 7 times to remember it. So this means your content needs to be exciting, educational, and engaging over, and over, and over.

The Future of Visual Content

Videos

It’s estimated that by the end of this year, 80% of internet traffic will consist of videos. As people become more visual and attention spans shorten, videos become the desired content choice. 4x as many consumers would rather watch a video versus reading an article. 90% of consumers stated that videos are more helpful in making purchasing decisions. In fact, 64% of consumers are more willing to make a purchase after watching a video.

Live Videos

Facebook users are watching 8,000,000,000 videos per day. Over 2,000,000,000 of them are Live videos. That’s double from 2018 already. Instagram contributes to 100,000,000 Live videos being watched or recorded daily. Per. Day! 78% of social media users are watching live, recording live, or doing both. If the numbers continue to trend, Live videos will be a larger part of your marketing strategies.

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I hoped this has helped you understand the importance of visual content. Your marketing has to change with your audience. And the audience has spoken. Visuals are at the head of the King’s table. If you want to share your content stories or get help with them, Let’s Chat!