Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

In a study published by the Content Marketing Institute last month, 70% of B2B marketers stated they will produce more original content in 2017 than they did in 2016, and 39% plan to increase their content marketing spending over the next year.

Meanwhile, user-generated content is also expected to explode. The global Internet population grew 62%, from 2.1 billion to 3.4 billion, in just the last four years.

All this means that the amount of content online, including visual content, will only increase exponentially with time–not decrease.

So, with so much noise out there, how can can you still create unique visual content that stands out?....

The full infographic we designed to highlight the many reasons why you should rely on visuals to create impactful design, no matter the project.

Have you noticed that I publish a lot of visually appealing content on Quick Sprout? From videos to infographics, I’m constantly leveraging visual media.

Can you guess why?

It’s because these visual content pieces are generating more backlinks than any other form of content I publish, which—in the long run—helps increase my search engine rankings and overall readership numbers.

So, how do you create these visual masterpieces? Well, this infographic should help you....

These days, it’s no secret that high-quality images are important for any marketing strategy, particularly when it comes to social media. Images not only help brands stand out in busy social news feeds, but they also boost engagement and build brand awareness—and their importance is growing.

According to a WebDAM infographic, 84% of all communication will be visual by 2018. So, there’s no better time than the present to ensure you’re creating and sharing top-notch imagery. And that starts with following sizing best practices for each channel.

To help you do just that, below is a quick cheat sheet for sizing your images for optimal impact, complete with dimensions and some examples. In addition, you’ll also find some helpful tools that can help your resize, edit or create images....

This past year, we've seen the importance of visual content emphasized by the changes that occurred across almost every major social network, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. At the same time, both video and infographics have become powerful tools for brands looking to communicate more easily with their readers.

To help you keep pace with these trends, let's take a look at some statistics that demonstrate the impact visual content has on reach, engagement, and sales....

...So even if you don’t “do” Pinterest or Instagram, your content needs to have some kind of visual element if it’s going to rack up likes and shares. This is, of course, great news if you’re naturally creative with visuals… 

But if you’re like me, it means you’re likely to be stuck with stock photography. As Seinfeld would say, “not that there’s anything wrong with that,” but when you pull up “happy-woman-at-computer.jpg” for the umpteetnth time, you start looking around for something with a little more pizazz.

Enter the meme. If you’ve never heard of memes (pronounced meemz), I guarantee you’ve seen at least one. They’re those funny images you see all over Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere on the inter-tubes with different messaging embedded. One of my favorites is the Boromir ”One Does Not Simply …” image from Lord of the Rings that I’ve included above. Look familiar?

The good news is that you don’t need Photoshop to create and share your very own memes—just an Internet connection. There are several (free) meme creation websites out there; I’m partial to memegenerator.net, which is super-easy to use...