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Just take a look at your social media feeds and you’ll see that even traditionally text-based platforms like Twitter have started to look more like image-based platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest.
Why?
Because 90% of the information we receive from the world is taken in with our eyes and is stored in our great memory bank of images. It’s not for no reason that 30% of the entire brain cortex is occupied by optic nerve fibers–much more than any of the other four senses.
To aid you in your mission to become more visually literate, we will go over the basics of visual grammar and provide some exercises to help you not only train yourself to really see the visual messages around you, but also learn the tools to create them yourself....
Great infoSocial media is an ever-changing beast. You almost can’t have a business in this day and age without a presence in the online world and specifically, at least, one of the big eight social media sites. Gone are the days where only teens frequented MySpace to chat with friends. Social media is here to stay, and people are looking online for your business so you’d better present your best.
Via Brian Yanish - MarketingHits.com
High quality free photos in one place. We hunt for best free images from many online sources and pull them all together in one spot. Most of our photos are CC0 license (do whatever you want). Additionally we offer all Creative Commons and Public Domain photos from sources like Flickr and make it posible to embed them directly from our website.
Just start searching for images or inspirations and find high-resolution photos for your project. You can search and filter by color or check photos popularity on the Web (beta feature).
A picture is worth a thousand words, and most brands have found them to be worth even more in engagement. Leading global brands have turned to visual storytelling to craft distinct brand identities, develop an emotional connection with customers and fans, and improve sales. With popular social networks like Instagram and Facebook becoming increasingly visual, there’s no better time to rethink how you’re reaching your consumers.
Not only is visual content integral to how we process information, but it also drives increased engagement from our audience.
What does this mean for brand storytellers? We should be investing just as much time and creativity into our visual content as we do for our written content. And yet, visuals are often treated as an afterthought rather than one half of the storytelling duo.
Visual storytelling doesn’t come naturally to many of us design-impaired marketers (myself included). Luckily, there are some established dos and don’ts we can follow to ensure that our visuals are relevant and effective. Here are four best practices for visual storytelling....
Today we’re thrilled to announce Pablo 2.0, the simplest way to create beautiful images that fit every social network perfectly.
We’ve expanded Pablo’s functionality to work with all social media networks – on top of Twitter, you can now create images with the perfect size and format for Facebook, Instagram, and even Pinterest. You can create the visuals, share them across all platforms and then analyze them with Buffer’s analytics to know how well they’re performing. ...
According to research from Nielsen, there are 27 million pieces of content shared each day.
Statistic Brain says that our average attention span has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds – one second less than a goldfish! We check our phones 150 times per day and our email 30 times an hour.
And with the amount of information in the world doubling every 18 months, visual stories are becoming more important to brands and individuals alike....
How much more memorable are visuals compared to text?
One oft-referenced answer is that people remember visuals 6 times better than text—an answer referenced in Buffer’s article on the anatomy of a perfect blog post and an answer that led to a lot of great discussion. After reviewing the original research, it’s clear that pictures are more memorable than words. So the next question became:
People remember visuals better than text. But which visuals exactly?
I’ve spent some time collecting the best research and science on pictures, images, infographics, and more, and I’m excited to share with you what I’ve found—along with some specific ways to use these insights in your marketing!
The full infographic we designed to highlight the many reasons why you should rely on visuals to create impactful design, no matter the project.
Want to create better social media graphics?
Or learn how to design visuals that capture attention and drive traffic?
Sure you do. Because you know that the right graphic can put your content on the map.
So where do you go when you want to learn a new skill? Straight to the best!
And that’s exactly why I chose this group of visual marketing pros.
Each one knows how to create attention-grabbing visuals. But more than that, they know how to create images with mass appeal. Follow these 26 visual marketing experts to see how you can crush your next visual campaign!...
If you're in the business of selling food products -- or drink products, for that matter -- then it's incredibly important to know how to take appetizing pictures. Today's consumers expect you to use visual platforms such as Instagram and Facebook to promote your products, offer recipe ideas, announce events and promotions, and show off the human side of your community and culture.
But what does a great food brand Instagram account look like? To give you a little inspiration, we've found 15 food and drink brands that are getting noticed on Instagram. Check them out for examples of how to use the visual platform to and gain fans, followers, and loyal customers....
Visual assets help brands tell their stories, and usage will continue to increase. However, recent research indicates there’s disconnect between the noted importance of visuals and the focus given to them.
In Q2 2015 polling by the CMO Council, conducted in partnership with Libris, nearly two-thirds of senior marketers in North America said that visual assets were core to communicating their brand story, and the majority believed the importance would only grow.
Photography and video—the latter which is heavily in demand from consumers— were the most imperative visuals, with 46% and 36% saying these were critical, respectively. While just 19% and 15% said infographics and illustrations were critical, respectively, 57% and 54% said they were important.
Via Brian Yanish - MarketingHits.com
The dawn of the digital marketing age has changed the way that businesses large and small build awareness and promote themselves. The growth of social media, blogging and email marketing as vital business tools, means that businesses are now expected to be publishers, graphic designers creating regular and dynamic content.
The benefits of content marketing mean that businesses that are successful with their online marketing, become skilled at creating and posting a variety of different types of images. The types of image that you might share include, product pictures, infographics, event shots, team pictures, action shots and behind the scenes updates.good This is because images have a positive impact on a number of different aspects of digital marketing....
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Visual Content really matters. Unlike in previous years, people nowadays make split decisions on whether to read through your article based on the images you provide with your content. That’s why the selection of the different visuals you will use must be as carefully planned as the actual content.
Good thing though that technology is really evolving. It gives you all sorts of apps and tools that you can use to create wonderful visual content that will make your readers take notice.
Yes, raw pictures are still okay but you can enhance them in such a way that you can make them look like world class photographers took the picture. You can even create graphics that will help you explain your entire article with just one image. Below are 5 tools that will help you create the most engaging visual content...
Snappa is a new design tool for undesigners and content marketers. If you've ever been frustrated with Photoshop, this is a stripped down but still viable alternative. Key features to note: - library with10,000+ photos & patterns
- 3000+ vectors & shapes
- 200+ fonts & typefaces
- templates
- optimized for social media
- share & schedule on social media
- much more
Try the free account. You'll love it.
Designing newspapers, magazines and books has become particularly challenging as digital takes over most of our communications. While we must learn to adapt our concepts to various screen sizes, paper will always be an essential medium for creative expression.
Throughout this article, I’ll introduce 50 incredible newspaper designs (and the design lessons they bestow) to inspire your work....
This is particularly true in the world of video, where TV—still a powerful medium, to be sure—is now far from the be-all for securing desired levels of video impressions. According to Nielsen, traditional television viewing has decreased from the prior year across the majority of demographics.
MoffettNathanson reports that the pay TV industry lost an estimated 556,000 subs in Q2 2015, and that commercial ratings for cable channels have been down every month since May 2014. And Americans are now spending almost five and a half hours a day viewing screens ... without even turning on a television! At the same time, Kinetic USA reports Americans now spend an unprecedented 70 percent of their time out of the home.
So the conundrum is this: TV is moving in a negative direction, yet we know that video remains the most powerful form of ad messaging At the same time, with consumers out and about more than ever—what's a media planner to do?...
The big question, of course, is: SO WHAT? After all, live streaming is nothing new; it’s been around for the better part of a decade. However, as Northern Lights PR from the UK points out, the audience for live streaming is suddenly much larger due to widespread adoption of smartphones, social media is part of our daily lives now, and Periscope was designed and integrated into the Twitter platform for easy access to your contacts there.
Many a marketer head spins when thinking about the possible applications for such a tool. Thankfully, we’ve boiled down eight of the most effective ways companies are using Periscope to boost sales conversions....
Poorly equipped schools, counterfit medicine and elections decided by bribes are just some of the consequences of public sector corruption. According to Transparency International, nowhere on earth is deemed totally free of corruption. Somalia and North Korea in particular stand out on this map - both scored only 8 out of a potential perfect score of 100. Denmark, New Zealand, Finland and Sweden were rated the least corrupt nations worldwide, according to Transparency International....
We’ve all heard it before … a picture is worth a thousand words.Why? Images have a powerful effect on our mental faculties. In fact, a recent MIT study found out that our brains process images that our eyes see in as little as 13 seconds. In other words, the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than it does text on a page.
According to the study, “while the images are seen for only 13 milliseconds … part of the brain continues to process those images for longer than that.”Images are not just eye-candy, they help us make decisions. Today’s post is going to help you figure out what type of landing page images work best at persuading customers to click your call-to-action button.
First let’s see what you can accomplish with your landing page images....
With Canva, creating social graphics is a snap, with templates already sized to fit Facebook covers and posts, Twitter headers and posts, Instagram posts, Pinterest pins, Google+ covers, Tumblr banners and graphics, and YouTube channel art.
Above all – your first concern should be that your visual content is being seen how you intend it to — that the dimensions are right, so nothing gets cut off or stretched out of proportion.
But don’t strain your brain trying to remember how many pixels go where or scour each site’s help section for the information — instead, bookmark this page and use the infographic below as a cheat sheet for creating all your social media images....
In order to take advantage of the current opportunity to help your customers plan for their next life experiences, your brand should being ramping up your Pinterest activity.
So how has Pinterest affected consumer behaviours and media habits? We take a look at various Pinterest researches and studies to bring you some of the interesting Pinterest facts for marketers or advertisers looking to use the platform for marketing. Below are some interesting Pinterest facts you probably don’t know about...
Just what do we see in GIFs? Like emojis and emoticons, they’re a way to quickly transmit information or emotion to a population that’s inundated with content and favors image-based communication.
Part of the fun is that there seems to be a GIF for any social situation you might find yourself in.
But GIFs increasingly have a more serious side, too—they can be a way to tell a story, explain a piece of information with more depth, or (yes, really!) conduct a conversation. For example, NASA uses GIFs of satellite imagery to transit important information, and Buzzfeed recently used GIFs to explain Greece’s debt crisis.
If you’re ready to add some GIFs to your online personality (or just up your GIF game) here are 10 social media moments to give GIFs a try....
It’s only August, but voting is already underway for the March 2016 South By Southwest (SxSW) Interactive conference. Long thought of as the breeding ground for new ideas and creative technologies, we can gleam industry insights from the SXSW Interactive Festival. This year, I decided not to wait until the conference to delve into the veritable buffet of groundbreaking panels vying for festival space. This year’s PanelPicker interface received more than 4,000 proposals, which is an all-time record!
While a quick search of infographics yields only 11 results, a mere TWO actually have the word “Infographics” in the title. The industry discourse has shifted away from “how-to” models to “how to do it right.” Infographics have become a key format of the larger conversation: Visual Storytelling.
A quick search for “Visual Storytelling” yields over 200 talks in PanelPicker, along with hundreds more for “data visualization” and “visual content”. Infographics are now used as one of many effective tools in the Marketer’s toolbox, and an accepted part of the larger conversation happening in the content marketing industry.
Visual storytelling is vital to content marketing success. The following types of visual content are at the forefront of the proposals for next year’s SXSW Interactive Festival.
8 seconds. That’s all you’ve got to get your prospect’s attention.In a today’s busy world, it only takes that small fraction of time before your prospective client gets distracted and starts to do something else.
This is when the value of attention-grabbing visual storytelling comes in. After all, science tells us that human brains are wired to love pictures and stories.
In this infographic, Widen explains how to effectively incorporate visuals to get your message across. Here are some important statistics worth keeping in mind next time you create another piece of content:...
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Here's a thoughtful post about visual literacy by Nayomi Chibana at Visme.