What Makes a Social Media Image Shareable?

Visual Storytelling

I’m fascinated with the ideas behind Visual Storytelling. I love how social media is becoming more about the visual elements of our marketing messages.  Even the new Facebook algorithm is based on the power of your image in their graphic search feature to determine if your post will pop up in your fans news feed.

It’s all about the concept of ‘Show me don’t just tell me.’ And there’s a whole bunch of visual content stats out there to prove my point that images carry more weight than just a text message.

Think about the last time you shared a photo because of the way the message and image made you feel. Sometimes a single photo can tell more of a story than a 150 word paragraph.

When it comes to Visual Storytelling, I think a lot of small business owners get wrapped up in the whole “I’m not creative – I don’t have money to pay for an expensive graphic artist – this stuff freaks me out” mindset. So they snap a couple of pictures of their products with their camera phones, pop them up on their Facebook page and call it visual content.

Seriously, folks, there’s no reason to freak out. It’s really a lot easier than you think.

Honestly, Visual Storytelling for small businesses can be summed up like this:

 

The Breakdown of a Shareable Image

Think about the moment when you pick up a book and decide if you want to read it. You look at the cover even before you open it to see what’s inside. Right? Your social media images are really the same thing.

The main thing I want you to remember is that your image should be able to stand on it’s own. I should be able to see it in my news feed, understand the message of the image without having to read the marketing post that goes with it.

To do this, follow these five steps to help your image tell it’s story:

1. The Quality of the Image

If you’re not a great photographer, I went into great detail about where you can find high quality images in the Images Resources to Create Your Social Media Shareables post.

This is how we connect to content online – first we see the image, then the headline and if both the image and headline have caught our attention, then we read the post.

Because of the way we notice social posts, your images should be considered one of THE most important elements of your marketing content.

Let’s use the following image I took of my son during our vacation as an example of the steps to create a shareable image:

2. Descriptive Headline

The next step and probably the most important is your headline.

My son has a terrible habit of writing stuff that doesn’t make sense. He’s always trying to rush through his homework so he leaves out important details and just throws in cutoff sentences.

I have to remind him that his sentences must include three important things: a subject, an active verb and the object that connects the subject to the verb.

The same is true for the headline to your image.

It’s great to say “Marketing Book On Sale ” but does that mean as much to your fans as saying “Buy this marketing book today and never have to struggle with your social media plans again!”

Take a look at our image with a descriptive headline:

 

3. The Call to Action

Your call to action doesn’t have to be a long drawn out explanation. Just tell me what I need to click on, register for, order, read or share with my friends. What is the next step that you want me to take?

{ Just a note here on call to action messages in your images: In my blog posts, I usually add in the call to action in the post description. Since I share my blog posts with the same image on several different social platforms, the call to action may not always work. For example, you’re not able to click on the image in Instagram to link back to you blog post. }

 

4. Add in your website or logo

This is one of the basic steps that most people forget to do before they hit the save button on their image creation. Make sure that you always brand your image to your website.

So no matter where or how it’s shared with others, it’s always connected to your company.

 

5. Size your image

It would be great if all the social sites used the same size images but unfortunately, that’s just not the case.

To make sure that your image’s message doesn’t get cut off, here are the most recent social site image sizes:

Easy, right? You got this visual storytelling thing.

But if you do get stuck, I just launched a new Image Design Coaching Service. We’ll work together to create your social media shareables and I’ll walk you through the steps to help you tell your company’s story visually.