Visual story telling, or content marketing should be on your mind right now. Why? There are many reasons, but mostly because people don’t have long attention spans. Visual content is much easier to take in than a long article (like this one). A graphic is also more likely to capture your audience’s attention in a sea of text. But wait, what is that? You’re not a professional graphic designer? Join the club. Graphic design is a lot harder than it looks. So what are your options?
Take photos of your products, work, or customers
If you sell an aesthetically pleasing product, such as food, clothing, accessories, or flowers, you have it made easy. Take photos of all of your products and post them daily. Same thing goes for your work: are you a graphic or interior designer, or maybe a hairdresser? Just because you don’t sell a product, doesn’t mean you don’t have any interesting photos to share.
Have a big event coming up? Take photos of your customers and ask them to tag themselves. Not only does that show your potential customers the fun they’re missing out on, tagged photos will be seen by friends of the tagged.
And if you’re worried about not having a top notch camera, don’t worry – the phone on your camera will suffice. BUT a good snap-and-shoot will produce better quality photos.
Share other people’s visual content
This is the most common thing local businesses do – they share photos from other pages and publications. While this is good to do once and a while, don’t limit yourself to it. If you’re always sharing other people’s content and not your own, you’re not going to make a very strong impression with your followers.
OR….
Hire a part time graphic designer
You don’t need to bring on a full-time salaried graphic designer to create some great visual content. If you set a goal of one visual content piece of week, you can hire a freelancer for a couple hours when you need them. Here are some tips for hiring a great graphic designer.
Learn graphic design
I’ve always wanted to learn graphic design, and did take some classes in college. With a basic knowledge, you can create some decent images. But if you really want to create some amazing things, I recommend going through some advanced classes at your local community college and getting the correct gear (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) Or, if you know a graphic designer who is willing to teach you everything they know, that works too! Get crafty, just don’t skimp on quality.
If you decide to hire someone or learn how to do it yourself, my next blog post will have some graphic design tips and suggestions of visual content that gets traction. Stay tuned!