The answer is not yet, but the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” applies arguably now more than ever. With smart phone adoption allowing consumers to document their lives visually (according to Nielsen, 44% of US consumers own smartphones, extending to 64% of 25-34 year olds) and social platforms fostering the sharing of pictures and videos, communication is increasingly becoming more visual. As evidence of this growing trend, we’re getting more pickup and commentary in our influencer outreach efforts, and higher engagement rates on Facebook and Twitter when we include pictures or video.
Some examples include:
The Growth of Pinterest: Pinterest is a virtual “pinboard” where users post pictures (or video) with short text explaining their image. Pinterest has grown from less than a million visits a month in June 2011 to 11 million visits in just one week in December, and is quickly becoming a leading referrer of traffic for brands.
Pinterest is one of the top traffic referrer’s of our sister brand, Better Homes and Gardens
Tumblr Overtaking Wordpress and Blogger: One of the reason’s Tumblr overtook Wordpress and Blogger in visits and has significantly higher page views per visit is its ease of use in terms of posting pictures and videos (in addition to it’s emphasis on shorter form content which is a topic for another day…)
Foursquare updated its features this past summer showcasing photos inline with ones check-ins since they were getting so many photos and wanted to make them even more relevant and interesting according to CEO, Dennis Crowley.
These three examples all reinforce the trend we’re seeing of text often being coupled with visual content. This trend is even more pronounced on more established channels such as Facebook, which has 3.5 billion pieces of content shared each week, and YouTube, which garners 3 billion video views per day.
So, what are the implications for PR, marketing and branding?
Increase Use of Video and Images in Social Marketing: Brands should consider ways to package images and video with their PR outreach (e.g., press releases), and incorporate them more into their social media profile communications on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Evolve Your Digital/Social Content Planning: It also places increased importance on focusing further on ones social and digital content strategy. A lot of brands still think about online content as an afterthought when developing content for TV and print. There should be an online content development strategy since not all content made for TV or print works online, as well as the fact that digital/social never sleeps and needs to be fed more frequently than TV or print. Consumers are actively discussing brands and relevant topics daily (if not hourly), and the brands that seize this opportunity to be a part of this conversation and help lead the conversation by channeling it with relevant and engaging content will benefit the most.
Budgeting for Social and Digital Content: One of the challenges of constantly feeding digital and social platforms with relevant content is the cost to produce content, which is one of the reasons brands look to repurpose their TV and print content online. We’re seeing a variety of new content providers emerge as some of the larger ad agencies are set up to develop TV ads and aren’t yet nimble enough to produce content more frequently and at lower rates to meet this growing need. Ad agencies will need to evolve their model, outsource or face the risk that brands will use other smaller agencies to meet their online content development needs.
Coordinating and Choreographing Your Content Distribution: Various departments such as marketing, media, publicity/corporate communications, and events should be at the table coordinating with the digital/social team regarding distribution efforts so content is maximized across all relevant channels.
As history suggests, brands that can best understand and capitalize on how, where and when consumers engage with and consume content will have a leg up, and it’s clear consumers are now responding to content that is more visual in nature. Now it’s up to the brands to keep up.
For my next piece, I’ll be sure to convey my message in video form, as well as in text and photo.