How would you prefer to learn something new, by reading an article or watching a video? If you’re like most people, you’ll pick the video tutorial. Visuals are more engaging and help explain complex concepts better. They’re easier to retain, too.
Visuals on social media: A closer look
Given our declining attention spans, most social media users don’t have the patience or willingness to read lengthy text-based content.
Therefore, it isn’t surprising that visual content generates the most traction on social media platforms. Data from Statista shows that for an average Instagram business profile, photos boasted the highest engagement rates from followers.
Businesses, established and new alike, use photos, graphics, videos, and other visual content formats in their social media campaigns to reinforce their brand identity and build an audience. It only makes sense that 32.4 percent of marketers intend to spend at least 50 percent of their budgets on visual content in 2024. That’s a striking 9.5 percent increase from the previous year.
Image: Unsplash
Nevertheless, consistently creating high-quality visuals for social media campaigns can be expensive and time-consuming. You might lack hefty budgets for professional photoshoots or video production. Or you may not have a dedicated team of animators, graphic designers, photographers, and videographers. Worse still, your team might run out of awesome ideas after a point.
The good news is that there are ways to harness the benefits of visual content without blowing up your budget and burning out your team. In this article, we’ll discuss a few ways to create a scalable visual content strategy for social media marketing. Let’s get right to it.
Outline a content calendar for consistency
First things first–publishing an outstanding infographic or video once in a while doesn’t make a successful social media campaign. You must post content regularly to build anticipation and engagement. Also, each piece of content you upload must align with your brand image.
The last thing you want is to edit graphics, photos, and videos on an ad hoc basis at the last minute. It’ll result in sub-par content that fails to engage your target audience. Also, your social media profile will end up looking like a mix of random visuals without a coherent brand identity.
The best way to approach ongoing activity is to create a content calendar for your social media strategy. It’ll give your team a clear idea of the publishing schedule, and they can define and implement a plan to ensure each post is ready well in advance.
Make the most of user-generated content
It takes a ton of effort and time to create captivating visuals for social media campaigns. Even with a well-defined content calendar, there will be times when you don’t have any content assets to post on social media. User-generated content (UGC) can come to your rescue in these moments.
Encourage existing customers to share photos or videos on their social media profiles, highlighting their experience of using your products or services. Ask them to use a branded hashtag so that you can easily find their posts on Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms.
Share these posts from your official accounts to keep your audience engaged even when you don’t have any new in-house content. Besides maintaining consistency, UCG also helps build credibility and trustworthiness. That, in turn, strengthens your brand image.
If you already have a large customer base, consider using a platform like TINT to aggregate and manage UGC. You can use TINT’s filters and auto-moderation technology to review every user-generated post before it goes live. You can even request rights to relevant UGC assets and edit them to match your branding requirements.
Create templates from top-performing posts
Coming up with new ideas for graphics, illustrations, and videos can be exhausting, especially when you have to do it regularly. The good thing is that you can use your existing content assets to simplify the process.
Check the engagement rates and reach of your visual posts on a particular platform to identify the best-performing ones. Next, analyze these posts to identify common characteristics, such as themes, formats, duration, and time of posting.
For instance, you might find that data-driven infographics get traction on X while short videos with fast cuts grab more eyeballs on Instagram. You might even find out that while entertaining videos work better on TikTok, informative ones get more views on YouTube.
Use this information to build standardized post templates for each platform. While it doesn’t guarantee success or virality, these templates can help you streamline content creation.
Enhance real-life photos with AI-powered editing
You don’t need a team of award-winning photographers to fill your Instagram grid with breathtaking photos. Nor do you have to be a post-production wizard.
With modern AI-powered editing tools, you can create stunning visuals from ordinary real-life photos in a jiffy. For instance, Photoleap by Lightricks lets you sharpen blurry photos and improve their resolution with a single click. You can even use a photo extender tool to stretch an image beyond its original frame for a wider visual impact.
Similarly, the AI Background Generator feature lets you breathe life into uninteresting photos with stunning custom backgrounds. Additionally, features like the ability to blur part of an image can help you focus the viewer’s attention where you want it. You also have the option to generate high-resolution artwork from text prompts and scanned sketches.
These features allow you to build a library of top-notch photos without resource-intensive photoshoots.
Turn long-form videos into Reels and Shorts
Did you host an hour-long webinar with industry experts recently? Or maybe you produced a corporate video to showcase your brand’s journey. You might have shot a detailed product tutorial highlighting different use cases. Turning these long videos into bite-sized Reels and Shorts can help drive more engagement and reach.
Short-form videos are easy to create and consume and offer excellent return on investment (ROI). If they strike a chord with viewers, they even have the potential to go viral. They’re popular across several platforms, from Instagram and TikTok to YouTube.
The best part is that you can repurpose your existing library of video content to create short-form videos. Instead of cutting everything down manually yourself, you can use a platform like Wistia that uses AI to scan long videos and generate clips of the most interesting moments.
All you have to do is upload your video and let Wistia curate a list of highlight clips. Then, you can select relevant clips and edit them within Wistia to create captivating short-form videos for your social media campaigns.
Collaborate with the right influencers
Here’s the thing–influencers publish content on platforms like Instagram and TikTok for a living. In other words, they are experts in creating visual content that resonates with their audience.
You can use that to your advantage by partnering with relevant social media influencers. They’ll do the heavy lifting of ideating and creating top-notch visuals, while you get to reach a wider audience and boost brand awareness.
If you can’t afford influencers with millions of followers, consider working with micro or nano-influencers. While they have fewer followers, their audiences are fiercely loyal and generally more engaged.
Make visual content creation a breeze
Posting eye-catching photos and videos for social media marketing doesn’t demand a ton of money or time. You can simplify visual content creation by following the tips discussed in this article. From sharing user-generated content to using AI-enabled tools, there are several ways to outline a scalable visual content strategy for social media.
