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People like looking at pretty things. It’s no secret. We love to look at images of food, babies, DIY, crafts and motivational stuff, all while murmuring, oohhh and ahhhh. But images on social media are more than just eye candy.
The Importance of Using Images in your Blog
Images are an eye-catching tool that captures the reader’s attention and pulls them IN. In the super-busy-noisy world of social media, images make users pause, look, and want to learn more. The reality is plain text updates can get lost in the shuffle on sites like Facebook and Google+. Images catch the reader’s eye and raise the chance of engagement by as much as 44% (Source: ROI Research) Photos and images on Facebook generate 53% more Likes than the average post. (Source: HubSpot)
1. Images Break up the text. Facing a page of black-and-white text is daunting. Images can give the eye a place to rest, breaking up the flow of an otherwise monotonous page.
2. Lead into the text. Since people look at them first, the images provide a starting point for the rest of the blog post. Good images are like flashing arrows that say, “START HERE.”
3. They introduce the topic. Picking an appropriate, related image gives the reader an idea of what to expect from the post. For instance, a photo of a street sign that says “Bumpy Road Ahead” lets the reader know that the post is about challenges or change.
4. Support the post content. A diagram, graphic, or other images can further illustrate the post’s content. A flowchart of a sales funnel, for instance, gives you another way to explain the concepts you’re presenting.
5. They make your stuff wonderfully shareable on social media. I don’t know about you, but one of the first things I want to do when I read a great blog post is share it. Share it via Pinterest especially. If your content doesn’t include at least one “pinnable” image, then it will likely NOT get shared. As much as I may love a blog post, I really don’t have time to go hunting for a suitable image for it just to help a blogger out.
NOTE: From what I understand, the “perfect Pin size” on Pinterest is an image that is vertical and around 238 pixels wide. Instagram is another heavy hitter when it comes to visual sharing as well. Instagram is a great place to show your company culture, what happens “behind the scenes” of your business, the processes of creating your products, customers using your products, etc. The size of Instagram images has been increased to 1080 x 1080 pixels.
FYI: Your image should never overpower your message. Keep fonts consistent and resist the urge to cram tons of text inside your image.
One of my favorite sources to get free and royalty free cool background images is MorgueFile. Disturbing name, yet a great source for royalty free images. These are very amateur type photos, but many provide the perfect backdrop for text-based images that tell the story of your blog post or project. Another winner is Pixabay.com. They have great, free images as well. When it comes to creating cool images like this…
or this…
Picmonkey is my #1 choice. There are cool tools like Canva and Pixlr, but I am completely a “PicMonkey Gal.”
Need some help creating simple (but very shareable) images like the examples above?
I’ve spent hours and hours on PicMonkey testing, experimenting and creating shareable images for blog posts and social media. I’ve rolled everything I’ve learned thus far into one easy-to-understand (but thorough) how-to ebook, complete with over a dozen screenshots, to walk you through the process of creating your own images on PicMonkey. The result is
Creating Awesome and Shareable Images with PicMonkey!
Get more details or grab your copy HERE.
