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Social Media Visuals: Types, Impact and Strategy for Brands
What makes you pause as you scroll through your social feed?
A clever caption might catch your eye, but it’s the striking social media visuals that truly capture your attention. A picture is worth a thousand words, especially on social platforms where users are bombarded with content. Brands must develop a strong visual strategy to cut through the noise, engage their audience, and drive business growth.
Research also supports this theory as viewers retain up to 95% of information from video content, compared to only 10% from text.
This blog will help you understand the types of visual content, their benefits and their importance in social media marketing. You will also find additional tips to create stunning visuals to boost social media presence.
What are visuals on social media?
Visuals are any type of media that uses image-based content. This can be images, videos, graphics, illustrations and even animated GIFs. Static images that once dominated social media platforms, are still on the charts. However, dynamic content like short-form videos (Instagram Reels and TikTok videos), live streams and interactive stories have gained traction and often perform better.
Types of social media visuals
The impact of social media visuals comes from their aesthetic appeal and versatility. Brands can tap into diverse visual formats for social media engagement. Here are some of the most popular types:
1. Static images
Static images are great for highlighting products, sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses and conveying simple messages. Examples of static images include photographs, illustrations, quotes, product images, logos and banners.
For example, the brand Nothing promotes its products using static images, minimalist design elements and sleek aesthetics that reflect its signature style.
2. Carousels
Carousels allow you to share multiple images or videos in a single post, creating a mini slideshow. They are perfect for storytelling, step-by-step tutorials, product demonstrations, before-and-after transformations, event highlights and feature comparisons.
For example, IKEA India uses an Instagram carousel to create an engaging ‘spot the difference’ visual to promote product discounts. The second slide displays the original price, while the third displays the reduced price, generating excitement among viewers.
3. GIFs
Animated GIFs add a touch of fun and personality to your social posts. They can be used to express emotions, react to trends and make your content more engaging and shareable. GIFs can include reaction clips, short animations, funny moments, brand logos in motion and looping tutorials.
For example, Starbucks uses a GIF to show Pumpkin Spice Latte in this post. The interactive GIF features a Starbucks drink emerging from a pumpkin, generating curiosity among viewers.
4. Infographics
Infographics use visually appealing ways and easy-to-understand formats to present data, statistics and complex information. These are great tools for educating your audience. Infographics include data visuals, step-by-step guides, comparison charts, statistics, summaries, timelines, etc.
Here’s how Lemonly, an infographics design brand, uses a stunning visual to talk about the revival of vinyl records. The brand uses an interesting color palette and images with a graph to attract viewers.
5. Reels
Reels are preferably the most engaging type of visual content on social media. They allow you to tell stories, display products in action and connect with your audience. Examples of reels can include behind-the-scenes footage, teasers, quick tutorials, product demonstrations, trending challenges, event highlights, short snippets and more.
For example, the Indian food delivery app Swiggy published a Reel to engage with its followers on Independence Day. The brand uses nostalgia to evoke childhood memories of Independence Day celebrations at school.
6. Live streams
Live streams provide real-time interaction with your audience, making them feel like they are a part of the action. By using live streams, you can conduct question-and-answer sessions, promote product launches, show behind-the-scenes peeks, host events, webinars and interactive discussions and provide real-time updates.
Here’s an interesting example. NASA's live stream of the International Space Station (ISS) features views captured by an external camera mounted on the station's Harmony module.
7. Memes
Memes are the go-to content format for posting relatable content and triggering quick laughs. They blend humor with everyday scenarios, making them ideal for capturing attention and sparking conversations.
Research suggests that 39% of GenZ find that memes and jokes foster a positive brand perception. Here’s how BookMyShow used memes to interact with its audience.
8. Long-form videos
Long-form videos allow you to really dig in and share something meaningful. They are suitable for telling stories, educating viewers or offering a deeper product insight.
Long-form videos are great for posting how-to guides, topic insights or candid interviews. Here, LG Global leverages a long-form video to share an interview highlighting its product offerings.
9. Pins
Pins are like digital bookmarks that help you save and share ideas on platforms like Pinterest. Whether it's recipes, DIY projects, fashion inspiration or product ideas, pins let you organize and revisit content that catches your eye.
Airbnb, for example, uses pins to get 9.7 million monthly views on its Pinterest account.
10. Stories
These temporary, full-screen vertical visuals disappear within 24 hours of publication. Social media stories can include photos, videos, text and stickers. They are ideal for sharing behind-the-scenes moments, quick updates or engaging directly with your audience.
Here’s how Fenty Beauty utilizes Instagram Stories to highlight its product range. Each Story highlights a different product or feature, keeping viewers hooked.
Benefits of social media visuals for businesses
Planning and building on an effective visual strategy have multiple benefits. Here's how creating visual content for social media can amplify your bottom line:
1. Increases views and reach
45% of marketing professionals found video content as the most successful form of content marketing. Visual content is more likely to be shared, go viral and expand your brand's reach organically.
For example, consider Red Bull. The company is known for its dynamic and high-energy visuals. Its social media team posts action-packed images and videos from extreme sports events and athlete endorsements.
The outcome?
23.8 million followers on Instagram.
2. Improves engagement
Social media visuals grab attention and encourage interaction, leading to higher likes, comments and shares. A study found that, on average, pages that posted photos experienced a 114% boost in impressions and a 100% rise in engagement.
Glossier shares visually appealing content on its Instagram page. The beauty and skincare brand’s feed usually has aesthetic photos, user-generated content (UGC) and beauty tips.
3. Enhances storytelling
Visuals allow you to tell your brand’s story in a compelling and memorable way. Using visuals like memes can build a stronger brand identity. In fact, memes have 10x greater reach than standard marketing visuals.
Netflix India leverages social media quite well for storytelling. The streaming platform often posts memes related to popular shows, movies and cultural trends on its X (previously Twitter) page. Unsurprisingly, the brand’s Twitter account has 1.8 million followers.
4. Drives positive SEO impact
Social media visuals can improve your social media SEO performance by increasing click-through rate (CTR) and dwell time. Optimizing images with relevant keywords and alt text can also boost your search engine rankings. Using video content, companies can drive their organic search traffic by 41%.
Apple effectively uses this strategy. The brand uses images and videos on its social media to showcase its products. No wonder its YouTube channel has 19.2 million subscribers.
Freebie Alert: Get Your Free Social Media Metrics Guide Now!
Are you measuring the right metrics? Learn how to measure what matters, boost your engagement, and drive real results. From engagement rates to reach and everything in between, this guide has you covered.
5. Supports effective communication
Visuals can convey complex information more efficiently than text. Studies reveal that infographics are 30 times more likely to be read than articles on the same subject.
Mint uses clean and engaging infographics to deconstruct difficult financial concepts. In this example, the brand uses a simple infographic with a bar graph highlighting capital gains tax rates in different countries.
6. Builds brand awareness
Visuals are essential for making your brand memorable. Engaging visual content can significantly increase your brand's visibility. So, try incorporating visuals into your content for more social media awareness.
Consider how Wendy’s uses memes on Twitter. The brand is known for its witty and humorous posts. Here, Wendy cleverly pokes fun at its rival, McDonald’s, using a popular meme.
7 ways to create stunning visual content for social media
Here are 7 actionable strategies to create stunning visual content for social media with best practices:
1. Follow a brand palette
Use consistent brand colors, typography and style to ensure all your visuals align with your brand guidelines. Avoid using more than 2-3 colors in the brand color palette and stick to them for all social media visuals.
Pro Tip 💡: Create a mood board to visualize your brand's aesthetic and ensure consistency across all social media platforms. Aligning it with your brand's values and target audience will ensure a consistent look. It will also serve as a reference guide for future content creation.
Suggested Read: How and why to create your own social media brand guidelines
2. Utilize visual storytelling
Tell a story that resonates with your audience. Use images and videos to evoke their emotions. Highlight your brand’s values and create a connection. It's important to keep your story clear and concise, focusing on a single message per post.
Nike excels at this strategy. During the recent Olympics, it illustrated the highs and lows of athletes' journeys through visual storytelling techniques.
3. Use high-quality images and videos
Invest in professional photography or videography to capture high-quality visuals. Always upload visuals in the highest resolution available to avoid pixelation and ensure clarity. You can update the same in your social media account settings.
4. Leverage correct image or video sizes
Each social media platform has its own media recommendations and guidelines for images and videos. Ensure your visuals are customized for each platform by creating platform-specific templates and streamlining the design process. For instance, LinkedIn recommends that you use images with sizes 1128 pixels (width) x 191 pixels (height) pixels for cover photos.
5. Add interesting captions
While visuals are the stars of your social media show, compelling captions can enhance their impact. Use your captions to tell a story, ask questions or encourage interaction.
Check out how Spotify pairs an engaging caption with its visual post on X.
Pro Tip 💡: Keen to know when your audience will likely engage with your content? Try Sprinklr’s social listening tool to gain valuable insights into your audience's activity patterns. With industry-leading data coverage and best-in-class AI accuracy, you can monitor 30+ channels in real time and unlock trends and insights.
6. Incorporate UGC
Encourage your audience to share photos and videos related to your brand. UGC adds authenticity and social proof to your brand. Re-share UGC on your social channels and credit the original creator.
See how ASOS encourages customers to post photos wearing its clothing. A customer uploaded a photo of herself wearing an ASOS tank top on Instagram. The brand’s social media team reposts her photo, inspiring others to share similar posts.
Read More: How to leverage user-generated content to drive engagement and conversions on social media
7. Experiment with different formats
Don't limit yourself to static images or regular videos. Explore different formats like GIFs, infographics and live streams to keep your content fresh and engaging.
Take Samsung, for example. The brand’s social media team experiments with various post formats to identify what resonates most with its target audience. These include static photos, Reels and carousels.
Pro Tip 💡: Analyze your audience data to see which visual formats resonate most with them. A visual insights tool can provide comprehensive analytics to help you track the performance of your visual content and improve your strategy. The absolute advantage? The tool stack lets you identify posts with your brand logo, analyze UGC and track performance for events and campaigns.
How to create stunning, high-performing social media visuals
Creating social media visuals consistently can be challenging, especially for brands with limited resources or expertise. Here are some common hurdles enterprises face and how you can overcome them:
- Consistency: Maintaining a consistent visual style across all platforms can be difficult, especially when working with multiple team members. To overcome this, brands can create a detailed style guide and use social media management tools that offer content planning and approval workflows.
- Quality: Capturing high-quality visuals requires skill and equipment, which can be costly. Investing in affordable editing software, exploring free stock photo and video websites or partnering with professional photographers and videographers can help improve the quality of your visuals.
- Competition: Analyzing your rivals’ content can reveal effective strategies and trends, helping you to refine your own approach. While it’s important to learn from others, don’t forget to showcase what makes your brand unique. Engage with your competitors' audience for valuable insights and stay on top of industry trends to keep your visuals captivating. By doing so, you can create content that not only stands out but also drives meaningful engagement.
You can also use social listening tools to monitor brand mentions, track competitors and analyze industry trends. - Balancing creativity and clarity: Finding the sweet spot between eye-catching design and clear messaging can be tricky. Brands can keep their message clear using readable fonts, high-contrast colors and simple layouts.
- Optimizing for different platforms: Each social media platform has its unique style, audience demographics, and preferred content formats, so it's essential to tailor your posts accordingly. From using the right image dimensions and formats to strategically implementing hashtags and engagement tactics, understanding these nuances can significantly enhance your brand's visibility and impact.
Fueling Digital Transformation: Shell's Success Story
Challenge: Shell struggled with fragmented social media engagement across various platforms, leading to inconsistent messaging and a disjointed customer experience. This lack of cohesion hindered their ability to connect effectively with customers and respond to inquiries on time. As a result, they faced challenges in building brand loyalty and fostering meaningful interactions.
Solution: To address these issues, Shell implemented Sprinklr’s unified platform, which streamlined their social media management and integrated all customer interactions into one place. This allowed their teams to monitor conversations, respond to customers in real time, and maintain consistent messaging across channels. By leveraging advanced analytics to measure engagement, Shell was able to craft a more targeted and effective social media strategy.
Outcome: The results were impressive: Shell achieved a 20% increase in customer engagement within just a few months. Improved response times not only enhanced customer satisfaction but also fostered stronger customer loyalty. This transformation positioned Shell as a leader in digital customer engagement in the energy sector.
Read More: 10 Methods for Building Social Media Presence in 2024
Final thoughts
Building a strong visual strategy is necessary for brands that want to stand out in the market. Using visual content, businesses can capture attention, tell their brand story and drive engagement.
However, it is equally important for brands to define their visual identity, leverage the right formats, prioritize quality and experiment with different strategies to discover what resonates most with their audience.
This is where Sprinklr Social steps in. The platform offers a comprehensive suite of tools to help you create, manage and analyze your visual content. It supports:
- Omnichannel coverage: Post content to different channels using a single platform.
- Social listening: Track mentions and posts related to your brand and industry.
- Best-in-class AI: Create posts quickly with generative AI.
To discover how Sprinklr can transform your social media strategy, book a demo today!
Frequently Asked Questions
There are various tools, such as Canva, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro and InShot, that can help you create professional social media visuals. You can also try free options like GIMP and OpenShot if you have a tight budget.
Brands need to comply with the specifications of different platforms to optimize visuals for social media. To resize and format visuals accordingly, tools like Sprinklr Social, Canva, Adobe Spark, Crello and Snappa are effective.
Visuals are powerful storytelling elements. They evoke emotions, create a connection and make your brand more memorable.
Businesses can measure the impact of their social media visuals by tracking key metrics like reach, engagement and website clicks through platform analytics.
The key elements of successful social media include high quality, relevance to your audience, consistency with your brand and clear messaging.
