How to use visual content

It’s the age of the visual culture which means more visual content. With shortening attention spans, marketers and content creators have to constantly think of new ways to capture our attention. According to an article published by Hubspot this year, coloured visuals increase willingness to read a piece of content by 80%.

You’re definitely on the right track if you’ve been integrating visuals into your content strategy, but when does an image work better over a video?, or a GIF over an image?

Images

With social networks becoming increasingly image-centric, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that brands should be including high-definition images in their marketing mix. Images are visually-captivating and easily shareable.

When should I use images?

Besides images being easily shareable on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, Pinterest is another brilliant image-sharing medium with 100 million daily active users. The shift to visual content is clearly emulated here as brands can ‘pin’ beautifully captured images to their ‘boards’.

Tory Burch, an international fashion brand, has had success in marketing their products through images on Pinterest. With almost 200,000 followers, the brand’s images on Pinterest are carefully curated and categorised.

Example of Tory Burch Pinterest success

GIFs

Remember the moving photos in photo-frames and newspapers in the hit movie series, Harry Potter? Well, the brilliant invention of the GIF brought us a step closer to the wizarding world! GIFs are the hybrid between images and videos. They move, of course, but they’re not as lengthy as videos. Because they’re short and have no sound attached to them, GIFs are easy to digest. A GIF typically focuses on a specific moment in a larger picture. GIFs are also cheaper to produce than videos and take up less resources.

When should I use GIFs?

GIFs work best in e-newsletters. They are quirky and provide marketers with the opportunity to draw attention to specific products. Here is an example from an email sent out by NastyGal, an online clothing store, to promote their gift card:

Sample of gift card giveaway from Nasty Gurl

Videos

According to a report published by Cisco, video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic by 2017. You don’t need a host site like YouTube to publish videos because you can now post directly to social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. These platforms have become more video-friendly, with Facebook pushing out Facebook 360 and Instagram allowing longer video posts.

When should I use videos?

Videos are great pieces of marketing and allow brands to tell their stories in more comeplling ways. A video is more immersive and offers viewers a more engaging experience. With YouTube amassing 4 billion daily views, your brand’s online reach is endless. Always consider the audience you are trying to reach out to and make sure you get your message across articulately. Creativity is a must! GoPro’s YouTube channel has more than 4 million subscribers. What makes the brand so popular? Their videos are cleverly grouped into several categories that showcase the different uses of its main product. Here is an example:

 

It’s great to integrate images, GIFs and videos into your content marketing strategy but remember not to overdo it. The last thing you want is to overwhelm people and have them flag your content as spam.

Get in touch with us at hello@mutant.com.sg for all your content needs.

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Content Marketing for HR: Attracting the right talent

Hiring good talent is tough. The recruitment process can be long, expensive and exhaustive, especially in a competitive talent marketplace like Singapore and wider Southeast Asia.

Over the past few years, recruiters have had to become increasingly creative with how they attract and connect with the right talent. Today, we know this goes well beyond well-written job descriptions and Facebook likes – you’ve got to go deeper and think long-term about how you make effective candidate connections.

One of the best ways to do this is with content. Regular, targeted and insightful articles about your company, its core values, your people and the way you operate (for starters!) is an enormously effective means of drawing in potential talent with the right skills, personality and mindsets to match your culture.

Then, you can go deeper. Engage your audience with thought pieces from your senior management; share your opinions on newsworthy topics and relevant industry happenings; provide inspirational stories and videos about employees who have done great things within your organisation, or share your insights around any research or data your business and its various units has released.

Let’s be clear: this is not a short-term strategy. In order to actively promote your company as an attractive place to work, you need to consistently and effectively write and share stories on the platforms and networks where your ideal talent spends their time. From brand awareness to creating a desire to click “apply” for a role you are advertising, content can seriously change the way you recruit if you capture people at the right point of the sales funnel.

Why does it work? It’s simple:

  • Because people who agree with you and what you write about will share your content with like-minded people.
  • Because if they don’t agree with your culture or values presented in your content, you weed them out early on.
  • Because if you are regularly producing interesting content for potential employees to read, you’ll likely see an increase in the quality of candidates you interview.

If you’re brand new to the content marketing game, don’t worry. It’s not something that can (or should) be rushed, and it requires a decent amount of planning and strategic oversight to get it right. In fact, producing poor quality content hastily could actually do more damage in the long run.

If you’re an HR professional or business leader looking to get started with content, consider the following:

Do you have somewhere to host your content?

Your content is yours. Make sure you have a good, easy to find, platform on your company website or careers page to host the dozens of articles you plan on writing. You’d be surprised how many businesses think plonking an article on their ‘news’ page amid other press releases and internal announcements is effective. If you can, make sure these articles, videos and other pieces of content really stand out to anyone who finds their way there, and is easy to navigate.

Do you have a social recruitment strategy attached to your content marketing plan?

Although you need to have a place to host your content on your own site, potential talent isn’t just hanging around on that page waiting for you to post new stories or blogs. You need to ensure what you produce is being shared on platforms they frequent. Content needs to be promoted and boosted in targeted areas to boost exposure and ensure the right people are clicking through to read what you’ve written. Anyone can spend money and advertise a post to get thousands of likes, but if you’re not increasing the chances of the right people applying for a job with you, then what’s the point?

Your current employees can be your biggest advocates

But it’s not as easy as forcing employees to share your company’s articles. There is a deeper element of employee engagement that plays a part here, and any HR professional worth their salt knows they can’t simply dictate their employee base to like and share content – they have to want to do it. And if they do want to do it, it’s quite simply one of the best ways to show that your business really is an awesome place to work.

Your content marketing efforts should strongly tie into your overall employer branding strategy and company culture. After all, how can you write about what an amazing culture your business has if it’s not exactly true?

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If you’d like to discuss how content marketing can help your business attract talent, please get in touch with us at hello@mutant.com.sg