Storified Guide: Visual Storytelling in Content Marketing in All Its Glory, Shapes, and Forms
Visual content is a powerful medium that lets you do lots of things in a short amount of time, that’s nothing new.
Technically speaking, all that you see and read is some kind of “visual content”. The human brain sees letters as little pictures to first identify, then figure their intended meaning. It seems almost like words are little puzzles that we’ve been taught to solve from an early age, and here at Storifyme, we love words and all the possibilities they offer (hey, don't take our word for it, but rather check out our storified blog to see for yourself!).
However, when it comes to web stories, acquiring & keeping the attention of other fellow humans - "the real" visuals tend to do much better than "wordy" one.
Text vs or ft Visuals?
Well, digital marketers, content creators, and other practical storytellers of today have one goal in mind: get the spotlight and turn that attention into a profitable commodity. That being said, walls of text alone can hardly ever be described as attention-grabbing and exciting, right?
Who among us didn’t think “oh come on, I don’t have time for this” after landing on some page that had no pics or other fun additions? Even if that page contains the greatest story ever told, you lost interest long before you started reading. If you add in storified visuals here and there, that won't happen!
An Emotional Connection & Necessary Intermission
If info transmission of any kind is your ultimate objective, you have to be very particular about how you deliver that information. Visuals help to "section out” larger chunks of textual content, so the reader doesn’t get intimidated or bored while reading your carefully crafted storified article.
Besides, we’re all familiar with “a picture is worth a thousand words” spiel and all that it entails. Sometimes, pictures convey one’s message more effectively, even when prudent wording can be more nuanced.
Moreover, images can transcend language barriers and tend to stay in our thoughts for longer periods of time. Visual storytelling combines both of these wonderful forces of expression and comprehension: visual for emotional impact and textual for context.
All the Shapes and Forms of Visual Mediums
These lovely pieces of visual content that help us with product storytelling are not all the same. They come in various shapes, sizes, styles, and tones, and if you want to make it in the online world today, you have to know your way around this visual language the internet speaks fluently.
With an unfathomable number of web stories, web sites, and storified micro-stores going live daily, your first step to a successful marketing campaign is learning all the ways you can make your story better. Let’s see what kind of visuals there are in this wonderful, storytelling world of ours:
Photos
A regular photo can be a useful part of your visual content marketing strategy and storified ad in so many ways. No matter the social platform you’re using, pictures are a fantastic way of literally or symbolically conveying your message or concept without wasting your words. Whether you’re sharing your web stories through Facebook albums or counting on colorful filters and edits of Insta posts to engage your audience, whether they have that professional polish or self-made charm - a little picture can go a long way.
Memes & GIFs
A meme is an image with some text that makes some current topic, universal truth, social idea, observation, a cultural symbol, or anything else in between funny or thought-provoking to people who know its context and back story.
GIF is a soundless sequence of images or a short video relevant to pop culture that is on a constant loop. There can be text included, but it’s not necessary. GIFs tend to express thoughts, reactions, and emotions better than photos and/or memes because they include movement of some kind.
These two are a bit controversial when it comes to their pronunciation, but don’t let that stop you from utilizing them as a breath of fresh air in between business-focused paragraphs or posts. Out of context, they can make little to no sense, but if you know what you’re going for, they are engagement boosters that show off your human side.
Custom Illustration, Images, and Animations
Combining a few words with custom-made images and/animations is also a creative and interesting way of getting your message across. No matter if they come as little comics or animated videos they can do wonders for the dynamics of your online presence.
They are a great alternative, personal alternative to stock photography or videos, although we know that not everybody has the budget and personnel to pull these graphics endeavors off. If you have the chance and means to go this way, be sure to do so, but keep in mind that if all else fails, there are plenty of stock photo/video libraries online that will get the job done anyway, albeit not as adorably.
Graphs, Charts, and Infographics
In case you need some complicated info presented in an ingestible and understandable way, this trio will be your greatest ally. Not only that colorful graphs and charts can showcase your data in an organized manner, but they can also do so much more! When you combine them with some cute and relevant graphics, they can be entertaining and shareable as well.
And last, but certainly not least:
Videos
The audience’s favorite, they can be the sum of all things above. You can do music, sound effect, voices, and other fun stuff, the sky and your imagination is the limit. A great way to demonstrate your services and execute product storytelling in general, since we tend to recall videos the best out of everything above-mentioned.
Use Your Visuals Wisely, Your Words Even More So
Now that you know a little bit more about the visual storytelling language of the interwebs, feel free to test and experiment but remember:
Your audience doesn’t have all day on their hands to dive into your posts and ponder their deeper meaning. Be concrete and engaging as much as possible if you want them to land to your storified landing page!