Recently, many marketing experts have been highlighting the breakout trend of visual marketing, which has shown to be highly effective in transforming marketing data into a compelling asset. In fact, according to statistics released by marketing expert Heidi Cohen, business to business (B2B) companies who use visually oriented infographics as a marketing tool can increase their traffic by 12 percent.

According to research, visual information is processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than traditional text, with 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain being visual. Thus, it is not surprising that in the world of Internet marketing, over 46 percent of people consider website design the number one criterion for determining a company’s credibility. Additionally, photos are liked twice as much as text updates, with videos being shared 12 times more than links and text posts combined. Around 42 percent of Tumblr posts are photos, and 700 YouTube videos are being shared on Twitter every minute.

Experts agree that it is still important in visual marketing for companies to choose the social networks that are best suited to their particular business brand and service and product offerings. For instance, if a company’s industry is more text oriented, then Facebook will be a better venue for marketing material than Instagram. However, adding a visual component to the marketing piece provides a great pull for viewers. In fact, according to MDG Advertising, an average of 94 percent more total views are going to be attracted by content containing compelling images versus that content with no visual accompaniment. And if a particular industry leans heavily on visuals to begin with, then circulating visual marketing material within highly visual forums can translate to much wider exposure overall.

While Instagram leads visual marketing networks, Pinterest is becoming more relevant as it gains followers (currently over 3 million followers are on Pinterest, with 68 percent of them female according to research conducted by Modea). The hardware store chain Lowe’s recently ran a highly successful campaign on Pinterest (their Build It! Board), designed to appeal to the forum’s primarily female user base.

Reference:

Yu, Jim. “Visual vs. Textual Marketing: Choosing the Right Social Media Platform for Your Business.” The Huffington Post. 3/13/14.