Image Post = Best Post
Posted by Martha Ormiston on August 30, 2013
In the past few months, a number of features have been added to social networking sites that emphasize photos. Examples include Instagram web embeds, Facebook image comments, and Twitter Filters, just to name a few. Why are we seeing the emergence of all these image based updates? Probably because images are the most shareable, likeable, tweetable, and ♥’able type of posts in social media right now. By a landslide.
Photos make up 93% of the most engaging type of posts on Facebook, making them the clear winner for the best type of post. Why? Images take up way more space than the average status update and they completely draw your attention away from all the other text and ads surrounding them. Think about it – when was the last time you completely ignored an image in your newsfeed? Now, think about all the status updates you have skimmed over today alone...
Fission Strategy helped out Zynga.org earlier this year by creating a few Facebook image posts to coincide with some of their partner campaigns. The posts that included both text and photos were the most successful at getting likes, shares, and comments.
Fission Strategy also recently created a series of social media post images for Communities United for Police Reform to go along with the “Where I Am Going” campaign (a video series that peeks into the lives of people who've experienced NYPD's Stop-and-Frisk policy.) The first post image they used was their most retweeted tweet of the year!
With results like that, it is hard to argue that image posts aren’t effective. So now you might ask, What kind of images should you post? People most often care about the people or places you help and the stories you tell. Post images from events or charities your organization runs - actual people, places, and causes you directly help, images from specific campaigns, and of course, adorable animals. No stock photos, please!
Your next question probably is where to post your images. Some may say wherever your following is strongest (Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter) – but why stop there? Cross post on all these platforms to get the most reach with your image.
Here are a some of our best practices when it comes to social media image posts:
- Start with great photography. Avoid stock images at all costs, and make sure nothing is pixelated.
- Add text, using a cool font. (Snag some freebies from FontSquirrel, or Dafont!)
- Include your organization’s logo in case your photo gets retweeted or (hopefully!) spread around on other social media outlets that you aren’t currently a part of.
- Making an image post while out of the office? Use Piction, a mobile app that allows you to add text to photos in a simple yet stylish way directly from your iPhone.
- Posting on Instagram allows you to also share the posts directly to Twitter and Facebook. Keep in mind that while these posts will appear wonderfully in Facebook, unfortunately, as of Dec 2012, Instagram has disabled photo integration with Twitter. Now in tweets, images appear as a link, and not directly in the tweet as it used to.
- Upload your social media post images (and instagram photos) to Twitter “in-tweet” so that they appear when a user clicks on that tweet.
- Instagram now allows you to embed photos in blog posts, so consider bringing your social media image posts to the blogosphere as well.
- Keep up the momentum by creating image posts often, and follow users who RT you!
Leave a comment