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Many Professional Service Companies’ Social Media Posts Lack Visuals

It’s no secret that everyone reads visuals. We’re wired to take in visual content faster and more effectively than words. For that reason, about 90 percent of the information sent to our brain is visual.

Yet, based our recent study of 25 top metro-Detroit professional services companies, most of these organizations’ posts are missing a crucial component: a visual.

How much do visuals help? Here are some statistics:

• LinkedIn posts with images have a 98 percent higher comment rate;
• Tweets with image links get two times the engagement rate of those without images; and
• Facebook posts with photos get 53 percent more likes, 103 percent more comments and 84 percent more click-throughs than posts without visuals.

Studies show that people prefer visual content because it is processed by the brain 60,000 times faster and is 4 times more memorable than text. So it makes sense that images have become the most important factor in optimal social media content.

Yet 66% of professional service companies’ Twitter posts do not have visuals.

Our recent study of social media habits of the 25 leading metro Detroit professional service companies – showed that, on average, about one-third (34%) of these companies’ Twitter updates contained visuals. Further, on average, 23% of Facebook and 12% of LinkedIn posts lack visuals, too.

If your company is at – or below – average, you have a huge opportunity to improve engagement and reach by simply including visuals in your tweets and posts. One study suggested that content with relevant images gets 94% more views that content without a visual. So, once you’ve done the hard work of developing the post, simply add a visual and watch your message spread.

Here are seven ways to add visuals:

1. Take bold photos that show action and people

2. Take behind-the-scenes or backstage photos at your firm or client’s event

3. Take interesting pictures of team members or clients at work

4. Use stock photos from free sites (such as images.google.com, www.sxcx.hu, www.stockvault.net or www.freedigitalphoto.net )

5. Overlay inspirational or motivational quotes over stock photos with DIY photo editing tools (such as PicMonkey.com , www.quozio.com or www.pixlr.com)

6. Share tips or checklists overlaid on an engaging stock photo or background

7. Create an infographic (on sites such as http://infogr.am or https://venngage.com) that supports your post

To boost your company’s social media engagement, strive to have a visual for every post.

Bianchi Public Relations’ professional service social media study reviewed social media usage for a three-month period in early 2015 by top Detroit professional service organizations (law firms, accounting firms, engineering companies, architectural firms and staffing companies) as ranked by Crain’s Detroit Business.