Visual Social Marketing For Dummies

Introduction

Afew years ago, I started noticing a shift in social media and Internet marketing. I've been involved in social media marketing since its inception, and rarely have I seen large shifts in social media trends. New tools and social networks come and go, but I was noticing a bigger change — a trend toward visual social marketing.

Visual social marketing is a way of using visual content, such as images and videos, to market your business online.

As I looked at trends, I saw that Flipboard, an application that visualizes news and social network updates, was the top downloaded application at the Apple App Store. Instagram, a social network that lets users shoot, edit, and share photos from mobile devices, was quickly growing and had just been acquired by Facebook, solidifying its position as a serious social network. Pinterest, which seemed to emerge from nowhere, was the quickest-growing social network and was generating a lot of buzz and interest.

Next, I noted the strategies that were working on my website and other social networks. On Facebook, posting images had become the primary way to attract the most interaction, with video close behind. Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn were all increasing the prominence of images displayed on profiles and in posts. Blog posts with relevant images were generating significantly more traffic than those without.

All these signs were pointing in the same direction, toward visual content. Fast-forward, and now visual content is still ...