Vibrant images make the difference between your content getting seen and shared or ignored. If you want influencers with thousands of followers to notice what you share, you need big, bright colors and unique visual content.
In order to get readers or customers, you first must get their attention. Text alone won’t do it. Images that are boring stock photos won’t either. What works for a corporate brochure is too boring to grab attention on social media.
Every piece of content you create needs at least one compelling image. It doesn’t hurt to also include a video, a SlideShare, or an infographic. Some long form content will contain a combination of these or even one of each!
Where to Get Stunning Visuals
Basically, you can either take photographs yourself, make images using something like Canva, find them free online, or buy them from a stock company. Some time ago I compiled 43+ Free Blog Images Sources: Where to Get Royalty Free Photos.
Many SlideShares and videos have covers that will attract attention. Or you can start a SlideShare on a particular slide. (You choose the slide then copy and paste the embed code.)
WARNING: Do not assume you can use images you find online. This is particularly true of photographs. (Read the 43+ sources post for details.)
Watch the video below as I show you what social media looks like when you follow almost 60,000 people. It should become obvious what catches the eye. What gets me to stop is very similar to what will get someone scrolling through content on their smart phone to pause.
How to Push the Images to Social Media
Just having visuals in your content isn’t enough. Pushing them out full size to social networks on a regular basis is essential. While this can be done manually, if you’re serious about getting traffic and growing your influence it is time to consider using a tool.
The beauty of MavSocial – my favorite new solution for pushing images to social media – is that you can use it for free if you only have a couple social networks.
Most of us need more than that, but MavSocial has a very reasonable pro version. What you save in buying images from stock companies will more than pay for it.
The best size images for blogs is full width of your content. On this blog that is 590 wide. Most blogs are between 560 and 640. That means 2 credits per image on most photo sites making each image $2. If you use 15 images a month, the $30 you save will pay for the pro version of MavSocial.
When pushing images through MavSocial, they appear on Twitter and Facebook full size. These get more attention than the images pulled using Twitter Cards. They look identical to images uploaded manually on the social networks.
How to Get the Most Out of MavSocial
The first step to getting the most value from using MavSocial is to add compelling images and videos to all of your content. Go back and add them to existing pillar content you want to promote regularly and start adding them consistently to your new content.
Upload your videos and images into the MavSocial digital library. (Stock images you acquire within MavSocial will automatically be loaded for you.)
Pushing videos through MavSocial is particularly valuable because they are organically added. Facebook favors videos manually loaded or pushed through MavSocial.
The video above shows how to use MavSocial. It is the easiest social media management tool I’ve seen to use and learn. Try it out for free by going to MavSocial.com.
