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Worth Remembering: 7 Core Types of Visual Content

Memory is a fickle thing. Consumers are bombarded by more than 10,000 brand messages every day. How then are some of these remembered, while others are not? Three days after seeing a piece of content, we’re statistically likely to remember just 10% of what we read or hear. But add an image and that number jumps to 65%.[1] That might explain why the largest increase in B2B content was in visuals – up from 69% to 76%[2] – according to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). Adding visuals to your content marketing strategy can help to evoke an emotional response, recall information, and increase the odds of your content being shared. These seven visual content types can play a significant role in your integrated marketing strategy,

Data Vis

Images that include facts, figures, data, and stats force viewers to pay closer attention.[3] Data vis content is compelling, easy to scan, and works to add credibility to your brand. Stats and facts speak for themselves. Consider that 3.3 million Facebook posts are published and 500 hours of video are uploaded in just 60 seconds. Content shock is a challenge—data vis has the power to break through all the noise and demand attention.

Videos

Video has surpassed every other type of content, and is expected to claim more than 80% of all web traffic by 2019.[4] That’s due in part to its entertainment value. Videos keep consumers’ attention longer than static forms of content, and are highly shareable. In fact, according to one study, video is shared 1,200% more than links and texts combined. Short, impactful videos have the power to capture attention, extend reach, and drive viewers to act.

Infographics

Brevity is the soul of wit, but it’s also the heart of an infographic. You may have heard that infographics are liked and shared three times more than any other type of content.[5] That’s because Infographics are the trifecta of content: they’re visual, they’re jam packed with stats, and they’re easily digestible. This infographic shared famous innovators’ sketches and doodles, and drove users to The Innovator’s Guide to Modern Note Taking e-book.

Presentations

No longer relegated only to the board room, presentations are an ideal way to educate a professional audience, distribute valuable information in a skim-able format, and allow your audience to easily share via social media with their own followers. This SlideShare for our Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) helped employers understand that every professional has a productivity sweet spot.

Screen shots

If your goal is to provide detailed instructions to an audience, sharing clear screen shots can be an impactful visual aid. Screen shots (also called screen captures or screen grabs) can be used in video tutorials, e-books, or presentations to show proof of work in progress or product successes.

Interactive Content

Interactive content increases user activity by a staggering 591%.[6] It’s no wonder, then, that interactive quizzes, polls, checklists, calculators, videos, and games are highly effective at engaging users for a longer period of time. Roughly nine out of 10 marketers who use interactive content say that it successfully differentiates them from their competitors.[7]

E-books

E-books don’t have to be filled with blocks of text. Impactful visuals work harder and tell a powerful story on their own. The Behind the Data e-book was designed as a coffee table-style look book that showed how easy it is to take traditionally black-and-white data and turn it into bold images that tell a compelling story about your brand’s data.

There is a method to Microsoft’s content marketing madness. To learn more about how we usual visual content to educate and entertain, check out our blog post, The dynamics of an interactive experience and the corresponding infographic, An interactive approach to marketing metrics.

[1] http://www.brainrules.net/vision

[2] https://venngage.com/blog/visual-content-marketing-statistics/

[3] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/photos-as-web-content/

[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/02/03/video-marketing-the-future-of-content-marketing/#cbcf6916b535

[5] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/infographics-3x-time-more-likely-shared-social-media-documents-bill/

[6] https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Innovid_2016_Advanced_Video_Benchmarks_Final_US_Updated_2_26_16.pdf

[7] http://resources.outgrow.co/interactive-content-future