5 Reasons Why Visual Storytelling Improves Engagement

You open a blog because of its catchy title, get hooked to the opening paragraph, and then suddenly lose interest because the post mostly all text. You can’t focus on the text because of its monotony. That’s when the content lacks visual storytelling.

Consumers today, come across various social media channels that result in a challenging digital environment for marketers to advertise and promote their brand. To stand out and drive brand awareness, they use visual communication as the primary language for consumers to comprehend their brand. 

Reasons Why Visual Storytelling Improves Engagement
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Visual storytelling uses print and digital media to convey a message – making it a powerful means of communication. Blog posts with pictures, videos, or infographics bring your story to life. It’s an interactive medium that triggers meaningful connections with the target audience.

Many businesses are using this technique in their marketing strategies due to their immense success in the digital world. It is an effective way of increasing engagement with the audience because a human brain grasps videos ‘60,000 times faster’ than random information.

Here are some reasons which explain why visual storytelling improves engagement and drives leads for businesses.

1. Encourages Social Shares

Social media has changed the way of how things work. Around 1,148 billion videos are being watched every day just on YouTube, while other platforms promoting visual content include Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Visual storytelling is different because it’s not like raw content. It provides users with a powerful message—evoking emotions in the audience. Great visual content inspires the audience to such an extent that they are compelled to make a purchase decision. So, people prefer it over text-based content.

For example, Tasty, DIY food preparation, uses visual storytelling to convey recipes. It has over 30 million followers; it’s a great example of how to use storytelling to increase engagement. It includes short video clips to retain user attention and shows precisely how a specific dish is cooked. Its videos include over 165,000 shares on social media. 

 

Visual storytelling content encourages Social Shares
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With the introduction of new features on some social media platforms, marketers are involved in producing visual storytelling content. Remember, viewers on social media would only share videos if they are entertaining and appealing. Brands create videos that offer a strong message, increasing engagement. 

Types of content that encourages Social Shares
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As shown above, the share of videos is higher than news articles or blogs. Videos that allow consumers to relate to a brand personally are given more importance as compared to funny videos.

2. Audience Engagement

Visual storytelling targets a massive pool of audience. With busy routines, no one has time to read long paragraphs and bulky information. Such information is often discarded by users. People prefer quicker means of communication, such as videos. It conveys a message within a span of minutes, creating a powerful impact on the minds of the consumers. 

Also read: How can Ephemeral Content Boost your Brand Awareness: 2019 Edition

Videos grab viewer attention because they are fascinating. Human brains are prone to capturing sounds and pictures effectively. That’s one of the reasons why content is often posted along with photos. A research study revealed that people who watched videos remember 95% of the message whereas people who were shown information only retained 10% of it.

Why Visual Storytelling Improves audience Engagement
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Today, people want more visual content. When introducing a product/service, don’t just tell how it’s used — show them. It would help if you made sure that your videos are not longer than 2-3 minutes because it would drive away the interest of the audience.

3. Higher Search Engine

Marketers know Google has developed algorithms to facilitate all Internet users. Since the demand for visual storytelling is increasing day by day, Google has started giving higher rankings to websites that have some video content because it can recognize video content efficiently.

Reasons Why Visual Storytelling Improves Engagement
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Rather than increase rankings of your website, it also helps with click-through-rate, backlinks, and bounce rates. Some statistics suggest that if your website or social media has even one video content, it will increase engagement by 530%.

You need to produce unique, entertaining videos with an impactful message rather than outsourcing videos. Here are some ways through which you can create engaging videos.

  • Include all the relevant information, subtitles, and descriptions
  • Don’t make them longer than 2 minutes
  • Use pictures, visual media, colors, and graphics to make it look appealing
Once you have made a video, post it on social media. Having a video on your website would increase the chances of your brand being ranked higher on Google, which would increase your online presence.

4. Ensures Brand Credibility

Brand credibility is the base of increasing online engagement. Most brands try to attract customers by selling and promoting their products. Instead, they need to attract customers by providing details that grab their attention. It would make your customers feel valued and appreciated.

People are often skeptical of making online purchases, especially if you’ve just launched your brand in the market since many out there is spam. Video Marketing develops credibility in the eyes of the customers, which means there are higher chances of customers trusting your brand.

Statistics suggest that 57% of customers reported that visual storytelling helped them when they were confused about online shopping.

Ensures Brand Credibility with Visual storytelling content
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If your business provides video content, then it won’t just ensure credibility, but it would also develop trust and loyalty with customers.

Many brands get help from influencers to promote their business. Recommendations from an influencer are likely to inspire their followers. Their word of mouth holds excellent value – being their true selves, they create authentic content which will establish the credibility of your brand amongst millions of viewers. Testimonials also help in building trust and reliability since the customers visually tell their story to other potential customers.

Also read: How To Turn Your Blog Into A Successful Brand

For instance, the fashion brand Fashion Nova has built a massive customer base due to compelling advertisements. It posts pictures of celebrities and regular customers on Instagram that get ‘likes’ and ‘comments.’ It has developed a fan base because it provides attention to its customers by posting their photos on its social media accounts. 

Visual storytelling ensures Brand Credibility
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Visual storytelling offers a chance to convey your message to the audience – it’s an initiative to attract customers towards your products and services.

5. Higher Conversion Rates

Conversion rates represent the percentage of people who visit your website. All those businesses who wish to increase their conversion rates to increase engagement need to offer customers something valuable, such as visual content.

For better conversions, it is essential to identify your potential audience – your target audience. Once you understand the needs of your audience, you need to establish the visual content which caters to them in every way.

 

Higher Conversion Rates via Visual Storytelling
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Many big brands use visual content to boost their conversion rates. Red Bull is using visual storytelling to give its audience an inside view of the organization – how things work for Red Bull.

Make sure you have a website optimized for mobile because 92% of visitors access YouTube through mobile devices. It is better illustrated in the picture above. 

Also read: 5 free social media tools to increase conversions

The Bottom Line

If you think generating videos requires much effort and hard work, the results it produces are indeed worth it. Since first impressions matter, you need to make them powerful enough to retain customer attention. The overall construction of the story is another crucial aspect that needs to be present while promoting your brand. Then comes the wrap-up, which provides the ultimate purpose of storytelling.

| About the Guest Author:

Guest Author
Sohail Rupani is a senior SEO strategist at PNC Digital, a digital marketing agency based in Orlando. He specializes in SEO and SEM techniques. He is passionate about technology and loves to analyze the tech industry in his spare time and stay in touch with the latest happenings. He also writes technical articles about SEO and digital marketing. Follow @sohailrupani for more updates.


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