“Of all our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language.†Walt Disney
Jennifer Laycock Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Guide helped the audience understand the value of images and 3 benefits to submitting photos to image sharing sites, like Flickr.
She made an excellent point by demonstrating what impacts people the most:
Copy OR Images
Let’s try it. What impacts you more, the description of how I dressed my dog up for Halloween OR the picture of it?
Description: For Halloween, I dressed my pup up as an angel.
Image:
Without the image – or having to include a lot more copy – questions are left unanswered. In this example, questions that are answered through the image, but not the copy include:
-what Wrigley looks like
-what color(s) he is
-what kind of dog
I agree with Jennifer, people are drawn to images. Not only are images entertaining, but they immediately tell us a story.
So, if you’ve got images and you’re not posting them to photo sharing sites, here are 3 reasons why you should start:
Create Conversations
Images will draw people in, but don’t stop there. Images are great conversation starters so take advantage of this. Conversations are also the beginnings of information sharing, so join in and encourage brand evangelists to start talking.
As well, pay attention to the conversations as this is a great way to understand both the good and the bad things being said about your brand.
Links
Posting images to Flickr, or other photo sharing sites, can create links back to your site.
Traffic
The images, if you tag and upload a description with a hyperlink, can drive traffic back to your blog/website.
If you’re deploying additional tactics that leverage the powerfulness of images, please share.
As well, consider using images in other tactics you’re already deploying – like press releases. Again it’s about telling a story, and an image does a better job and draws people in who might have otherwise ignored your message.
Check out other images from SES Chicago.
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Tim Mayer was talking about this last year at Pubcon and I’ve noticed how some images will outrank pages.