The Power of Visual Storytelling Within Social Media

Social media has revolutionized the way that companies communicate with their customers, making room for a two-way conversation instead of a one-way dialogue.  And one of the ways that the best companies are taking advantage of social media is through storytelling – visual storytelling, that is.

Done correctly, visual storytelling has the ability to enhance consumer engagement, increase interactions, and solidify customer retention.  Take National Geographic for example. In the 2014 Social Media Publisher Ranking report published by Shareablee, Nat Geo garnered a whopping 46.4 million engagements across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. How did they do this? By bridging the social and natural worlds through compelling visual storytelling. Your company can have the same impact.

Telling the Right Visual Story for Your Company

This generation has been dubbed the Information Age, but perhaps a more accurate depiction would be the Information Overload Age. The right visual storytelling can break through the clutter of constant messaging and blatant advertisements with impactful, eye-catching stories.

To make a powerfully visceral experience, remember these three factors:

1. Your content needs to be authentic. Consumers want to see the human side of your brand – show them that. Give them real moments and real people, and deeper engagement will come.

2. Your story must possess character. The images that resonate with an audience and that get shared are images that have an emotive element, that reaches out to the viewer. No matter whether it’s an infographic, video, chart, or Vine, add life to your brand.

3. Your message should be relevant. To avoid seeming outdated, your visual story should be both culturally relevant and applicable to your audience. If it’s not relevant, it’s not shareable; and if it’s not shareable, then you aren’t connecting with consumers; and if you’re not connecting with consumers, then what’s the point? There is none.

Effectively Measuring Your Social Media Campaign Success

Social media is your brand’s public face, so it’s important to understand what message you are communicating and how effectively you’re engaging your audience with your visual storytelling. Companies can do this by tracking and analyzing social media campaign data across all social, SEO, and relevant marketing medium.

Boiling it down, here are the top three things to track to analyze the effectiveness of your social media campaign:

1. Look at the power of your reach. This can help assess the impact of your message to see how attractive your content is to consumers. Examples of your reach include likes on your Instagram post or Facebook page, visitors to your blog, etc. Klout and Radian 6 are great tools to help determine your reach, get insights into what the online world is saying about your company or product, and even see how your competition is faring.

3. Check out the level of your engagements. This can provide feedback on how customers are interacting with your visual content. Low engagement means it may be time to rethink your social media strategy. Engagement can equate to shares of your content, retweets, comments on your blog posts, clicks on your social media posts, etc.

4. Analyze the number of successful customers and conversion rates. Conversion rates constitute actions that consumers took because of your content that bring anonymous users into actual leads in your sales process. Examples of conversions include online purchases, filled-out contact forms, increased traffic, downloads, etc. Google Analytics is a reliable free application to monitor these purposes.