Service Providers

Social media 101: Value the visuals

Amanda White BlogOver 500 million Tweets are sent a day. Over 16 million local Facebook business pages have been created between May of 2013 and October 2015. How do you compete with all this activity on two of the BIGGEST social media platforms around today?

One word: Graphics.

Research has shown that visuals increase interaction rates by 85 percent on Facebook and a 35 percent increase in retweets. Graphics grab attention and convey a message much faster than the written word. Although well written copy remains essential; visuals are necessary to grab attention.

TYPES OF VISUALS

Photographs — Ex. dealership photos, staff pics
Banners — Ex. sales, promotions
Product Images Ex. pics of your motorcycles, ATVs, gear and accessories
Stock Photos — Ex. photos of common places, general public and everyday things/activities
Infographics — Ex. charts, tables, thinking bubbles, lists, screenshots

ACQUIRING VISUALS

  • Create your own visuals — You can use your own photographs of the dealership, the team, inventory and merchandise to create posts and tweets. You could employ a professional photographer or marketing/promotions profession to capture these shots.
  • Purchase stock photos — If allocating resources to a person to supply the images is not an option, then you can visit the plethora of stock photo sites and purchase their images. There are some stock photo providers that offer FREE graphics too. Some of them are; Pixabay, com, Wikimedia Commons, Compfight.
  • OEMs usually have promotional images available to authorized dealerships for marketing use. Your web host provider should have access to these images too and if they offer the service, can create graphics for you. Keep in mind, there may be a fee for the custom work and advance notice is most likely needed.

CONTENT, ACTION, MOOD:

The visual should have content that informs, educates or calls the audience to learn or do something. The text that you place on a visual should be concise, easy to read and read in first person. Do not write a novel to lay over your graphic. A short description with instructions aka “call to action” to learn more is sufficient. For example, “2016 Yamaha YZR1000 Arrived Last Night. Click here for Specs & Pricing” in white text with a stock photo of the mentioned model with a dark forest background. The white lettering and dark background creates contrast, which makes the words POP. The dark greenery of the background also conveys the mood to start. The green means go feeling.

QUALITY

You can tell when a picture was taken by an old smartphone or camera. The older the technology (especially cell phone cameras) the lower quality photos are produced. Another common quality issue is using low resolution images that are too large or small for the intended space. The quality of the image is the first impression your followers will get. If you do not take the time to post a clean image then it does not warrant the engagement you were going for. Each social media site provides guidelines as to the size of your cover photos and profile images.

Overall, your goal is to create good looking visuals for your social media platforms that represent and support your dealership’s brand and mission.

Amanda White is an account manager for DX1 and PowerSports Network.

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Website: psnsales.com

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