Social Media Lead-Generating Machines: For Visual Marketing

In the last two blog posts, we talked about how social media can be used effectively for generating leads for B2C and B2B businesses.

Now, let’s ignore the distinction between the two for a while and focus on one aspect of your social media strategy that certainly applies to both types of businesses: your approach to visual marketing.

I’ve talked a bit about visual marketing in the past — why it matters, how it should be done, and the tools you can use to improve its efficacy in your overall social media strategy. However, I think it’s also important to stress that there are differences in the way visual marketing is and should be done across different social media platforms.

Another thing: Even the simple act of updating your profile picture on Facebook or Twitter actually involves a lot more than simply picking a square-shaped drawing of your favourite cartoon character, or a picture that you think makes you seem less fat/oily/haggard-looking than all of the other ones you took of yourself. (Don’t worry — we all go through this, trust me.)

Keeping your visual content on social media is a vital part of your strategy that you should not simply cast aside because of the following reasons: –

• we’re naturally more inclined to better absorb information when presented in visuals,
• a well-optimized image could mean the difference between captivating your audience and helping them decide to move along to the next business and just ignore you.
• the visual content we post on social media reflects our mindset and preferences, thus affecting how your followers and the rest of the community look at you.

I’ve prepared a list of guidelines for posting images on social media below — this includes image size specifications for a handful of popular social media sites, as well as special best practices for Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube.

By the way, speaking of those three platforms, I’ve prepared an infographic of fun facts about them. You can check it out now, or after you’re done reading the rest of this article.

General Social Media Image Guidelines

For Facebook

Did you know that Facebook posts with images generate approximately 120% more engagement than just plain text updates? That’s why you should put more thought into the kinds of images you post, especially if you’re planning to establish thought leadership and a stronger presence.

Size specifications for Facebook images:

• Profile Images: 180 x 180 (scaled to display as 160 x 160)
• Cover Images: 851 x 315
• Post Images – Desktop: 1200 x 1200 (scaled to display as 403 x 403)
• Post Images – Mobile: 1200 x 1200 (scaled to display as 560 x 560)
• Post Images (Link) – Desktop: 1200 x 627 (scaled to display as 403 x 210)
• Post Images (Link) – Mobile: 1200 x 627 (scaled to display as 560 x 292)

For Twitter

Visual content on Twitter results in 150% more retweets, 89% more favourites, and 18% more clicks than text-only content; that’s why you should always add photos in your tweets.

Size specifications for Twitter images:

• Profile Images: 400 x 400
• Cover Images: 1500 x 500
• In-Stream Images: 220 x 440
• Background Images: 2MB Max. (top left justified)

For Google+

With photos, you can drive more of your readers to share your Google+ account and post on your behalf to improve your CTR. You might want to consider getting better profile and cover images that align with your brand identity.

Size specifications for Google+ images:

• Profile Images: 250 x 250 (displayed as a circle)
• Cover Images: 1080 x 608
• Post Images: 620 x 620

For LinkedIn

Unsurprisingly, LinkedIn has proven to be one of the best platforms for lead generation for businesses. Much like the rest, posting images on LinkedIn entails following a set of standards.

Size specifications for LinkedIn images:

• Profile Pic: (Company Logo) 100 x 60 px; (Personal Profile) 200 x 200 px
• Cover Photo: 646 x 220 px
• Link Post: 180 x 110 px (scaled to display as such, regardless of original size)
• Background Photo: (Premium Feature) 1400 x 425 px

Best Practices for Instagram

Take photos of the people you work with.

Create memories of team activities by taking staff photos and uploading the results on social media to help build confidence in your brand and camaraderie in the team.

Display your products and services.

Use Instagram to display the process of creating and packaging your product. I’m sure your audience is interested to know more about the work that goes into the whole procedure.

Return the favour and follow your Followers.

This can help you get to know them better by observing how they behave on the platform and the kinds of things they post.

Best Practices for Pinterest

Create a blog board.

This will make it easier for your followers to read your blog posts.

Pin wisely.

Focus on pinning relevant and interesting content at a steady pace to keep the momentum. Also, feel free to repin, share, like or comment on anything that is significant to your brand on Pinterest. Engagement still matters, even on a platform that is quite image-heavy.

Also, feel free to repin, share, like or comment on anything that is significant to your brand on Pinterest. Engagement still matters, even on a platform that is quite image-heavy.

Return the favour and follow your Followers.

This can help you get to know them better by observing how they behave on the platform and the kinds of things they post.

Best Practices for YouTube

Make more than one video.

Try making 8, seriously — that’s what YouTube recommends. 😉

Invite your audience to subscribe to your YouTube channel.

Lead them towards converting by giving them more visual demonstrations to help them further understand the work that needs to be done.

Promote your videos on the other social media sites where your target consumers are.

Use different social media platforms to share your shots with the rest of the world.

Carefully study the stats.

Take time to get to know your viewership better – this will help you in preparing future content that is even more relevant to your audience and, ultimately, to what the brand seeks to achieve.

I hope you can apply these social media image posting best practices soon! With the right guidance and a solid social media action plan, your brand will have no trouble at all in attracting customers, increasing conversions, and making itself known to a global audience.