Visuals and Social Media

Lots of useful information about creating and using visuals as promotional tools to engage your audience and sell.

Resources

 * Social Media Examiner: optimizing images for multiple social networks (Nov 20, 2014) / How to Optimize Social Media Images (Apr 2, 2015)
 * Highly recommended! Image creation and sizing for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
 * Infographics guide by Social Media Examiner
 * Facebook image dimensions: "Sizes and Dimensions" page!
 * Page header, Dec 2016: 851x315 px
 * Comprehensive guide to Facebook photo sizes
 * by Miranda Miller, Search Engine Watch, Dec 31, 2013
 * Youtube's channel art help page

General Notes

 * For SEO: ensure file names are descriptive
 * Keywords!
 * Use hyphens, underscores in file names, not spaces
 * SME recommends: always use lossless compression! (Apr 2, 2015)
 * Add alt tags and other metadata
 * Alt tags: no more than 125 chars
 * WordPress: title (60 chars), description (155), caption, alt tag (125)
 * Human brain apparently processes pictures 60.000 times faster than words (according to SME)
 * User-generated: invite users to share content! Anything that shows how they use my product
 * Give them an easy option to submit photos
 * Use Infographics and Slideshare to publish and disseminate your content!
 * Make collages if I have more than 1 good image (Service: Pic Collage)

Technical Info
Always Up-To-Date Image Size Guide - Sprout Social

General

 * Google+, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn: optimal choice: horizontalimages!
 * Ideal resolution: 1280x720 (16:9)

Facebook

 * Image dimensions:
 * Profile portrait image: 160x160 px (Aug 34, 2014)
 * Profile and page cover image: 851x315 px (Aug 4, 2014)
 * Group cover image: 785x250 px (as of July 4, 2014)
 * Event cover image: 785x295 px (measured by me, Aug 4, 2014)
 * Timeline linked article preview: 1200x630 px (reference: Facebook's guidelines)
 * Use this for your blog posts' featured images!
 * For FB ads: only 20% of image can be text! (5x5 grid - use grid tool!)

Twitter

 * Twitter header image (since May 2014 redesign): 1500x500 ratio (also works with larger actual resolutions)
 * Image size/dimensions cheat sheet (Aug 2014)

Youtube

 * Aug 4, 2014: refer to Youtube's template!
 * Channel art: 2560x1440 px
 * Text and Logo: 1546x423 px in middle center of image
 * Header as visible on PC browser: 2440x423 px across middle of image

Pinterest

 * Tall images perform best
 * Optimal size: 735x1102
 * This will grab most screen real estate!
 * Also good for Google+

Instagram

 * Images have to be square!
 * At least 900x900 pixels
 * Recommended: larger
 * Also good for Google+, Facebook

General

 * Make your image larger than the dimensions (e.g. 200x200 instead of 160x160 for FB profile pic), then let the website scale it down
 * Best image resolution: 72 dpi for web use / 300 dpi for print

Creating Visual Content

 * GOLDMINE article! Types:
 * Images
 * Video
 * Infographics (graphs, charts)
 * Presentations (SlideShare)
 * 10 visual design tools: includes "Pictaculous" for finding best colours for img overlay text
 * Draw it yourself, by hand!

Visual Storytelling

 * Visual Storytelling on Social Media: pictures are really important! Use:
 * Clever photo collections, (current world issues combined with my business)
 * Create stand-alone visual campaigns: "Market" - "Meerkat" example: their mascot has his own FB page and his ongoing story keeps attracting customers
 * Tell any story: e.g. behind my logo, location, anything unique!
 * Develop community around a charity: share my company's passion
 * Incorporate fan-generated content. Find user images to share by asking them to use a specific hashtag
 * Share your history
 * More on this:
 * Lifestyle angle: share hi-quality pictures with relation to people's lives ("how does this fit into your lifestyle?")
 * Show my product in use in real life
 * Show the human side of my product (share informal moments!), the real people and work behind it
 * Celebrate my audience's passions: highlight what they love, show what inspires me
 * Videos: create stories around my product features
 * "Meet the Staff" or "Behind the Scenes" videos
 * Testimonial videos
 * How-to videos
 * Parodies of popular material
 * Set up channels for niche audiences: don't use a one-size-fits-all approach. Have fun with specific content, drive them back to your site
 * Create memes
 * Featured customers (e.g. most loyal)
 * "Now trending"
 * Comics