The word business can these days be used to describe two completely different beasts. On the one hand, you have the lumbering dinosaur of a business that is still stuck in the 90s. That organization uses a bland logo that is vaguely meaningless, it has a stark white website, and it dare not show any personality for fear of looking somewhat less professional. At the other end of the spectrum is the modern business that is using social media to its fullest to promote itself. This company knows that being a little quirky and showing personality will help it to stand out from the crowd, and it knows this. The latter organization is of course the one that is more likely to thrive in the digital age. And if the dinosaurs can learn one thing from them, it should be to use a little more photography in their marketing.
Here’s why:
Impact
An image, done correctly, can create a message and story that has an emotional impact on the viewers. Besides that images can deliver a huge amount of information in a second. If you land on a homepage and see a large image that clearly communicates what that company does, then you will much more quickly know if there’s any point hanging around. Moreover, images that do well to elicit an emotional response – very often translates into a sale. Whether it’s anxiety, dissatisfaction, inspiration, desire, or jealousy… all these things can make us click “buy” even when we don’t really need a product. As Alan Glynn says in Under the Night: it’s not about finding out what people want, but making people want things!
Images, especially when used in social media stories, are ideal for making emotional connections with an audience. This connection helps your audience get to know you, your business, and or your brand which in turn is perfect for building trust and increasing engagement.
Speed
Better yet, aside from the simplicity, is that anyone can quickly and easily post a story to Instagram. Most mobile devices will allow you to simply share an image straight from your camera or photo gallery and since it’s all visual there’s no need to think of anything witty to say. You literally just point and click then hit upload to make your point and start getting views. There’s also isn’t an expectation either for you to upload something every day, so you won’t risk making an account that immediately looks and feels like a ghost town. While many businesses recommend two posts daily, others say this can actually be overkill and that two a week is enough!
Compared to something like a blog post – or even a Twitter tweet then, Instagram really doesn’t require much of an investment of time and will let you rapidly create a following for yourself. And seeing as you can easily share your Instagram images to Facebook and Twitter this can even make it easier for you to keep on top of those accounts. This is a big reason that many celebrities have taken to Instagram and Twitter over more complex social sites like Facebook – it lets them stay in touch with millions of fans while maintaining their hectic schedules.
Finally, a diamond in the ruff social media platform is Snapchat. Many brands, musicians, celebraties and so on have also found great success using stories on Snapchat. Celebraties and the like have found success because the platform isn’t inundated and saturated with ads and boosted posts. Businesses and brands on the other hand have found that you get a bigger bank for you buck on Snapchat, especially if younger adult females are your target audience.
If you’re interested in using social media stories as a marketer to grow a business or brand I offer a fantastic course that will definitely help get dialed in to generate the best possible results. There’s 11 modules containing a total of 33 lessons. The course is jam packed chalk full of value. The link is below if interested. Hop to see you there.
