Learn more about this important topic to ensure eyes on more of your posts
Why aren’t consumers reading, liking and sharing your social media posts more often? Perhaps your images are to blame. Thankfully, our cool friends at Sprout Social have developed an amazing guide to help ensure that your images are sized correctly.
We spend lots of time determining what kind of information clients should post to each social media platform. However, many don’t understand the importance of the accompanying image. With help from PR, your company can learn to get it right and benefit from increased visibility and social media success.
Why social media images are vital
Artist and cultural icon Andy Warhol once said, “I never read, I just look at the pictures.” Of course, your content is important, but first, you must entice visitors into reading it, and that often involves great images.
Consumers’ attention spans are getting smaller and smaller. Whether the problem is boredom or just content overload, you’ve got lots of competition. They quickly scroll and swipe through mountains of information, giving you only a few precious seconds to capture their interest. A captivating image can do it, but only if it is the correct size.
Studies show that approximately 70 percent of people engage in social media and more than half of them access these platforms via mobile and smart devices. They must be able to easily see your images, which must be interesting enough to attract people on the go.
There are more than a billion people on Facebook, about 300 million on Twitter and approximately 400 million on LinkedIn. Surely, many of these people are your customers, potential clients, job seekers and other key stakeholders.
The image you choose should not only be the right size, it should also be a good representation of your brand. Remember that the image you choose will show up everywhere – on your home page, on your followers’ pages and in your tweets and retweets – so it should also be identifiable.
Facebook posts that include images receive more likes and shares than those that don’t.
You can use your images to build connections, stir emotions and convey information. This will help you engage customers and increase your visibility.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Need we say more?
How size guidelines help
Each social media platform has its own guidelines for sizing images, and they change frequently. This makes it nearly impossible to select one image and use it across the board.
On Twitter alone, users will see and use several different image sizes, such as in-stream, headers and profiles. For example, a profile image that is 400x400 pixels in size will display as 200x200 pixels on Twitter. Also, Twitter may shrink your photo to fit in streams, so it has to look right in all forms.
Sprout Social has made the task easier, providing links to hefind the guidelines on each social media network. It also offers helpful tips for choosing the right image. You can find that information on Sprout Social’s website.
Why a PR firm is essential
Using social media to its full potential takes constant attention and monitoring. Even if you have in-house PR help, it’s likely that those individuals don’t have time for this extensive task in addition to their other responsibilities.
At Axia Public Relations, we are social media experts. We will show you how to use your social media images to increase your exposure, search engine optimization and profitability. Contact us today or download our e-book The Essential Social Media Management Guide for more tools and tips.
Lisa Goldsberry is a writer for Axia Public Relations with more than 15 years of public relations experience. She specializes in business, higher education and technology PR. Connect with Axia Public Relations on Twitter
Topics: public relations, inbound marketing, shared media
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