It takes a lot of effort to create an engaging piece of content. But the creation of a piece of content is only half of the job; the rest lies in how you publish the content.
There are smart ways to do this, and not so smart ways. It’s worthwhile learning the difference.
There’s no greater frustration than having a piece of awesome content that doesn’t gain traction or engagement. But this is just what you risk if you don’t put enough thought into how the content is published. Get it right, and your posts will receive the levels of attention that they deserve!
In this post, I share some useful tips for promoting and repurposing your long-form content. This includes blog posts, videos, or podcast episodes with accompanying visual content. If you’re going to spend the time to create a high-quality piece of content, make sure you’re reaping the rewards for your efforts. Don’t underestimate the importance of visual content.
The Importance of Visual Content
There’s no shortage of vibrant and engaging social media posts for people to scroll through when they’re checking their feeds. If you want your content to be seen by as many people as possible (and who doesn’t?), then your posts need to catch their eye in some way.
One of the best ways to do this is to add visual content to the post. According to the Social Media Examiner’s marketing industry report of 2018 , around 80% of marketers use visual assets in their social media marketing.
And there’s a reason why. It has been shown that when people hear information, they’ll retain only 10% of that information three days later.
However, when the information is paired with a relevant image, the retention percentage rises to 65% after three days. This goes to show just how important adding an image to your post can be if you want the information that you’re posting to gain attention and stick in people’s memories.
Here’s an example from one of our recent tweets:
Mix-up the Images
However, it’s not enough just to simply add any old image to your post.
The first thing to keep in mind is that the visual asset has to be relevant to what’s being posted.
The second is that it’s important to mix up the images you’re using for your posts. If you don’t, eventually people will begin to glaze over your content, and here’s why. If it’s the same old image, people may assume that there’s no new information for them once they click the link. There’s nothing to suggest that something new will be communicated through the content that’s being published.
Of course, this isn’t true. In all likelihood, the act of content repurposing or hosting a podcast will result in brilliant, engaging content.
Don’t miss out on fresh, exciting visuals
A frustration of ours once here at Content 10x was with a client of ours who had a frequent podcast and we were repurposing the episodes into blog posts. The podcast episodes were really high quality — great topics, tips and insight. And we created fantastic blog posts based off these episodes.
We weren’t involved in the publishing though, our client kept that in-house. With most of our clients we create custom, branded graphics for each blog post / podcast episode but on this occasion we did not.
This was of course fine except a massive frustration of ours was that the really great content was being announced on social media with exactly the same image. Every. Single. Time. It was never apparent that a new piece of content had been created.
Here’s where they were missing out on great visuals:
- No changes were made to the visual at all
- The copy was repeated and standard — ‘New blog post!’
- The design was not customized to reflect the post
- The title of the post wasn’t on the image
After time, when you see the same image frequently you start to lose interest in the content. Regardless of whether it’s giving you brand new news and providing brand new information, you are none the wiser really. You just zone out!
Make sure there’s no doubt in your audience’s minds as to the quality of your blog posts. Add a new image to each post that’s as awesome as your content to stand out on social media!
Templates
There’s a lot of value in having well-branded templates. They help your brand to stay consistent, and create a strong business identity in the eyes of your social media followers.
However, it’s important that you don’t become too reliant on your templates when it comes to publishing your content. With each post, you’ll want to mix things up a little, so that it’s not the same image again and again.
Here’s how you can ensure your visuals are unique
You don’t need to go overboard, and create totally bespoke, newly designed templates every single time you publish a post. Small changes can go a long way. For example…
Each time you use a template:
- Add the title of the post in bold
- Change imagery. E.g. For podcasters, include a photograph of your guest if you have one
- Use fresh (on brand) colours
- Tweak the design to clearly label the post as being fresh and new
Repurposing your visual content
The visual content that you create need not only be used for your social media channels.
You can share your visual in your blog post itself. This breaks up the text and makes it more visually appealing.
If you publish you content to other places too, for example here on Medium, you can put your visual content into your post there as well.
The visual assets that you create can be used again and again.
In Conclusion
So what should you take away from this blog post? It’s that you shouldn’t neglect the visual aspect of the post when it comes to publishing your content to your social media channels.
A great image can bring a post to life and gain attention. You may know the new material is of value and worth checking out, but look at it through the eyes of your followers. The only interaction they have with the new content before they read or listen to it is what they see on the post that’s announcing it. If there’s no image, an old image, or a way too familiar image, then they’ll have no incentive to click through.
With each post, check that you’re using an image that would get your attention if you saw it very briefly.
Try mixing things up if you’ve only been using text or the same images. You might just find that your posts receive a lot more engagement!
And, go onto repurpose your images to other places as well, for example your blog post.
Thanks for reading!
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Originally published at https://www.content10x.com.
