Incorporating an image into a tweet uses up 23 of the available 140 characters. Of course, with these 140 characters that you have at your disposal per tweet, you need to get across exactly what you want to say. So, this considered, every character is incredibly precious and using 23 of them up to make way for a picture is illogical, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. An image can be much more valuable to a tweet than what you can say with 23 characters (which, actually, isn’t very much at all) – if you choose a good’un. A decent image can be invaluable and may just make all the difference. It can have an enormous influence on how far your content reaches on social media.
You may already be thinking that I’ve jumped head-first into talking just about Twitter and have hastily pushed the other social networks aside as I steam right ahead. This is three quarters true, in fairness. I do know Twitter’s not the only social media platform people use to post articles or other pieces of writing, but within this blog post I’ll be focusing heavily on it because it’s the one I use the most (by a long, long way) and I find that it’s the best for engagement and entertainment. Though I do have accounts on the other platforms, I don’t find myself checking them impulsively like I do my Twitter timeline.
I also find Twitter the most visually appealing of them all – yeah, they all look good in their own ways and are all quite easily navigable, but none are as uncluttered or as well-laid-out as Twitter, in my opinion. There’s also the fact that what appears on your Twitter timeline is arguably the purest, in that it’s posted by users and accounts that you have purposely followed because you’re interested in what they have to say. Meanwhile on Facebook, many of us are constantly bombarded with the posts of people we’re not friends with in real life anymore (or perhaps never were), whose friend requests we begrudgingly accept out of politeness.
(Some guy you probably would follow back, in fairness.)
I’d say it’s a bit easier to not follow back someone on Twitter than it is to decline a Facebook friend request, so as a result your timeline on the former tends to stay much purer and unmuddied. However, that’s not to say that everything you see on Twitter will jump out at you – especially if you follow quite a lot of people. I’d say a manageable number of people to be following is probably around 250 or so – any more than that and you won’t be able to keep up with everything that goes on. Many of us do follow 250 people or more though, and so quite a lot of tweets pass us by. For this reason it’s absolutely imperative that you include images in tweets you send out which contain links to your content, as you’ll be improving its visibility massively.
Why images are so important
We’re all familiar the somewhat (well, very) clichéd expression “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Of course, this is usually used to illustrate the point that you shouldn’t judge a person by their appearance – not an actual piece of writing – but for the sake of argument I’m going to pretend it actually is about writing. We do judge books by their covers (to an extent), and we always will. Some of us are suckers for a Penguin Classic, whilst others are into weathered hardbacks. We all have our own idea of what makes a good-looking book, but when we clap our eyes on one we like we’re drawn to it. Think of the content you’re tweeting out as the book, and think of the image you tweet out with it as the cover; the more eye-popping or intriguing the image, the more people you’ll have following the link.
We’ve been told (and told, and told) how important it is to include good images in blog posts and anything we write for quite some time now. Some people say the reason this is so crucial is because it breaks up the blocks of writing, whilst others say it’s to help you illustrate whatever point it is you’re trying to make. I’d say that it’s both. All good writers know that paragraphing and breaking up your different individual points is vital to the success of the piece, no matter what it is. It provides necessary pauses which helps to allow the reader to process the writing, not to mention keep them actuall reading. In addition to this, healthy-sized paragraphs also help to stop the writer looking like a frantic, scribbling maniac.
When you share any article or piece of writing of any sort on social media – whether it has images in it or not (though 99.9% of the time it will) – you must include an image with it, even if it’s just a thumbnail size.
Don’t just use any image
Including an image just for the sake of it is totally pointless. Don’t just settle with the first picture you come across on Google (or whichever image library you use). It’ll be extremely obvious that you’ve either not thought about it or have failed to recognise the importance of it altogether. Either way this won’t reflect well on you. In modern content marketing, your choices of images are just as important as your choice of words – and I say that with absolutely no exaggeration whatsoever. Boring images are just as bad as boring writing. Visual appeal has become one of the boxes we must tick.
For example, if the piece of writing you’re linking to is about coffee, don’t just attach an image of any old cup of coffee to the tweet. Try to be imaginative and pick an image which would cause you to click the link – if you pick an image which wouldn’t raise your own eyebrows, how can you expect it to raise anyone else’s?
If I was tweeting out the hypothetical coffee article, I’d try to use an image from, say, The Sopranos or maybe even Twin Peaks, in which characters are often seen enjoying a good piping hot cup of the stuff. Images of said characters drinking coffee aren’t very hard to find on Google at all. Moreover, cultural references can work really well – they show that you’ve actually got a personality and aren’t just some faceless bore who isn’t into anything. I certainly wouldn’t read anything written by a person who came across that way.
I’d definitely be more inclined to click a link to an article if it had an attached image of Tony Soprano and friends sipping espresso, as opposed to some boring stock image of a totally nondescript latte or something like that.
(Exhibit A: the lads, enjoying some espresso.)
(Exhibit B: just some latte.)
Your choice of image should be specifically dependant on the audience(s) you’re targeting
Just as within the piece of writing itself, the image you use when you send out links to content on social media platforms should always have the target audience in mind. This is why cultural references are so good – they’re highly recognisable to a lot of people. However, if you do use an image which makes reference to popular culture, make sure it’s popular culture which actually is likely to be recognisable and (moreover) relevant to the vast majority of your target audience.
Try to let the image do at least some of the talking
Tweets with images, a link and very little text (i.e. the caption) can be very intriguing sometimes, if done correctly. Of course, I’m not saying be as laconic as Ryan Gosling in Drive, but a less word-heavy approach in tweets can prove quite successful. Ambiguous captions which don’t make a whole lot of sense on their own will reel quite a few people in. The Independent, for instance, are pretty good at tweeting out articles with decent images and little text. This approach might not work for everyone for some reason or other, but it certainly can work very well indeed in some instances. You need to say just about enough in the tweet to get people’s attention, but once you know how to do that, you’ll be laughing.
(Big Ry silently enjoying a coffee in Drive, seeing as we’ve talked about coffee a bit already.)
The reason you’re using an image – other than to stand out more on social media timelines – is to say something and to illustrate your point. After all, [insert that clapped-out cliche about how many words a picture says here].
Videos count as images
The picture you send out with the link to your content doesn’t have to be static – footage can also do the job (sometimes an even better one). Video content can perfectly complement an article sometimes, especially when the subject is a little bit hard to describe with words alone (for example, the way a complicated or industry-specific piece of machinery works).
Video content is also very inviting for readers who prefer not to read a great deal of text. We must remember that 21st century content does not just consist of good writing. Good videos and good images also count as forms of content within themselves.
Try to be imaginative and original wherever possible
If you can, try to incorporate the sort of images nobody else is using – especially your competitors. If you can create your own graphics (such as infographics) to tweet out with your links, you’ll find that your social media presence becomes much more distinctive and professional-looking (by professional I don’t necessarily mean stern – as I mentioned earlier, you’ll definitely want to convey some personality no matter who or how big-time you are).
Don’t just imitate what others are doing. Try to think outside the box if you can, and now that you can attach multiple images to one tweet (up to four), you can be quite imaginative and use this feature to your advantage. For example, showing a process happening over four stages could be a good idea.
If you’re a company who would like to convey the fact that its staff is made up of approachable and interesting human beings, why not take pictures around the office and share them? You can be as professional or as tongue-in-cheek as you like (of course, this will depend largely on the nature of your business), but candid photos of your employees will get across the idea that you’ve got personality and a human element.
Why Instagram should be embraced despite the fact you can’t link to content on there
Instagram is a social network which is dedicated solely to images. Minus the caption and the comments there is no text – the idea is that the images do all of the talking. It’s worth noting at this point that you cannot even link to any website in the caption of an Instagram image. Perhaps it’s for this reason that so many people and organisations neglect this particular social network, but I personally think that any company which does so is making a massive mistake.
You can include the URL for your company’s website in your Instagram bio – which, if you post interesting pictures, people will click on. Going back to the example of the coffee-related article, there’d be nothing stopping you posting a coffee-related image on Instagram with a caption which reads “Today’s topic of discussion” or something like that. The chances are that people who see this will then be much more inclined to actively seek out your website.
Ending note
What did you think of this blog? I’ve tried to steer clear of a ‘top ten’ list of the sort of images you should use – as there’s already loads of those – and have tried instead to focus on what makes images so appealing in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, top tens are good and I like reading them, but I thought I’d try to approach it differently and actually discuss the engagement aspect of it.
I think that it’s only going to get harder to be noticed on social media platforms from here on in, as they all seem to be increasing in population (or at least our timelines indicate so). Therefore anything you can do to help your tweets (especially those with links to content) be seen, you should do without any hesitation. Maximising the potential of attached images is certainly one of the surefire ways to improve your visibility. It’s not a massive task – all you need to do is put five or ten minutes aside and have a good look for an interesting image.
D’you think there’s anything else which should be considered when it comes to images on social media? Let us know in the comments section below.