Content marketing is going visual

Did you notice that you have been consuming the internet in a different way, of late?

How?

The code of internet language has been changing all over drastically for quite a long time.

There is some breaking news!

Guess the word of the year in 2012 as per the Oxford dictionary.

It was an unassuming yet very much our own and the familiar word, ‘GIF’ (does not need an introduction).

And it scored another milestone today when the rant everywhere is “GIF turns 30 years today”.

So, something that you are majorly doing while being on the web is ‘visual listening’.

How is it visual listening?

The content that you are being subjected to is dominated by images and other forms of animated content.

This set of visual content particularly emojis, GIFs and memes are spread like wild fire on the internet.

Now that the context is set, I am already feeling J sharing this piece of content with you all.

What is forming this visual cult?

Listen with your eyes for feeling! – seemed to have become the guiding principle for online content now.

Content is king and the king has gotten memes, emojis and GIFs as its new set of power- soldiers.

Memes – The very famous meme of the grumpy cat started circulating umpteen times on social media like everybody’s favorite piece of cake. This, along with its kins and kith, became like the new found island of US of America by Columbus. Well, here the Columbus is the web.

Emojis –  They need no explanation. Using them, people evoked more emotions over chats than over real-time conversation.

What’s more? The members of emoticons family are evolving daily since then and will go on just like the multiplication of amoeba in all the desired shapes and sizes.

GIFs – They have become the most sincere advocate of our gestures for situational reactions unapologetically.

There is a language of irony, humor, fun, drama, melodrama, anger, happiness and almost every emotion that you might not remember but you will certainly associate with a feeling when you encounter a related GIF.

They are nothing less than a pool of full-fledged entertainment for everybody all the time.

With all these super-natural-ish metamorphoses of content, character count has been decreasing on the ever-growing social media.

Below is the list of scientific reasons for using emojis, GIFs and memes to will make your brand go J.

  • They will make you popular on social media. Social power comes to your brand with the use of these visual graphics.
  • It becomes easy to soften the blow of a critique
  • Your brand will appear friendly, competent and confident
  • Messaging of the brand becomes more human-like
  • A correlation gets set-up with kind of real-life happiness
  • They create a happier and more vibrant brand personality

If your brand is running low on engagement and you are dreaming about a great traction, it’s the time to mold your marketing strategy in terms of visually-appealing content.

You can spot a countless number of them on Tumblr, Reddit & Giphy.

Why use them in Social Media Marketing?

Creativity on, off and beyond boundaries is the pivot of marketing on social media.

You would also agree that creativity is best when it ticks humans at the deepest levels. Nothing is as awesome as animated content in achieving that.

Since, visual content is scientifically, emotionally and practically feasible, it will work like the 8th wonder of the world.

Explaining concepts and making art with an edge has become all the way more possible with them.

Below is a list of data to bring a strong validity to the points made above.

  • Twitter had long back counted over 100 million GIFs shared on the platform.
  • More than 23 million GIFs are posted to Tumblr every day.
  • Facebook Messenger sees more than five million GIFs passing daily.
  • Slack counts more than two million GIFs integrations each month.
  • Messenger users sent nearly 13 billion GIFs over the past year, or nearly 25,000 per minute.
  • The number of GIFs sent via the messaging app has tripled in the past year.
  • New Year’s Day 2017 was the most popular day ever for GIFs sent via Messenger, at more than 400 million.

Is this viral internet -lexicon the part of your content marketing online? If not, connect the dots with your audience’s emoticons before they gloat over your competitor‘s content just like they did in the following famous cases.

5 times famous brands used them like a pro tool!

Scroll to see, laugh, cry and engage with our favorite picks of visual content actually brought on a  roll.

1) 9 ways to wear a scarf by Huffington post.

 

2) The Tumblr audience found a customized content from Kraft.

3) Science was taught to the millennials by General Electric on Tumblr through a GIF.

4) Baskin Robins helped in breaking the wall of text with a sweet emoji.

5) General Electric’s “Emoji Table of Experiments” invited users to explore “DIY science, videos with special guests by clicking the emojis”.

6) Domino’s pizza reduced the friction by one adorable emoji of pizza with reducing the order time.

Future: Where do they go from here?

The verdict is that they have been there for a few decades now and will be around for a few more.

The only change will be that they will evolve in technologies and hence will be friendlier than they are now.

Time is to make your customer feel something and make them act with some awe-inspiring visual imagery on social media.

We can help you in that.

Comment your experience on visual marketing!

 

Hitesh Kothari

Has played some key Digital Marketing roles when at IBM-Australia and New Zealand, Infosys, Sonata Software. Also worked with the world's best Digital marketer, Neil Patel as Internet marketing consultant helping startups to billion $ companies with their Digital Marketing. Has worked on 100+ marketing campaigns and a few of them are IBM Australian Open, SAPPHIRE, Oracle Open World, etc. He's currently leading Marketo Labz and giving digital marketing strategies to various companies and individuals alike.

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