2012-06-13

Want to give your fans some Direction?  Want to engage them?  Want to encourage them to buy your products or services?  Then read on my friend, because here are 3 cheeky (and creative) ways to get results, using the creativity of Visual Marketing Strategies combined with the simplicity of a “Call to Action”.



Use Visual Images to Create a Call to Action for Social Media Results!

This post is the first in a series about “Visual Marketing” – How to Use Visual Marketing for leveraging engagement, exposure and results for your business.

Visual Marketing is all about sharing your message and marketing your services through visual media (ie photos, images and video).  Have you ever noticed that the brands that you know, like and trust often employ very good visual marketing strategies?  It is not always about the product – it is about they way they present information, by using simple, memorable and consistent visual images that evoke emotion, and call us to action.



A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

Visual information can be very powerful – a picture IS like a 1,000 words, and it is for this reason that I will be doing a series of posts – to help you to use visuals in your social media marketing. Why Visual Marketing? According to research:

approximately 80% of our learning occurs visually

we only remember 10% of what we hear, 20% of what we read and about 80% of what we see.

Is it not surprising then, that images are more readily shared on Facebook, and Pinterest is now driving more traffic than Twitter ?

Visual marketing, using images or video is simple, effective and versatile.   The best part?  Visual Marketing Strategies can be integrated into any of your social media networks, with just a little bit of creativity! Here are 3 ways to give your fans a Call to Action that generate  results:

CALL TO ACTION 1: Use your Facebook Tabs

On Facebook, one way to make a clear call to action is to take advantage of the Tabs or “Apps”.  Use Apps to showcase offers, deals, products and services right inside of Facebook.  The following Facebook Pages use Apps in a variety of ways to engage fans:

Air New Zealand

Air New Zealand have created apps that suit their branding, are visually appealing and “intriguing” – not an overly clear call-to-action in an obvious sense, but when you think about it, having a tab titled “Kiwi Sweet Spots” is pretty engaging. It makes me want to find out what they are!  And while writing this post, I found myself caught in a video vortex, checking out the “Kiwi Skeptics” videos, one after the other – very clever!



Air New Zealand tease fans into clicking - I find myself asking "What are the sweet spots in NZ? What is the Skeptics button all about? I want to click and find out more!

Skeptics?  There exists a friendly rivalry between Australia and New Zealand that goes beyond sporting encounters. Air New Zealand’s campaign targets “non-believers” to road test the beauty (and fun) of a NZ holiday…and they do so successfully! Personally, I love NZ, but you be the judge!  Will you click on the videos?

Easy Lunch Boxes

For those of you who don’t know Kelly Lester, she is the Singing CEO of the No1 Selling Lunchbox on Amazon – Easy Lunchboxes – and has created a massive online community through savvy social media marketing – all at minimal or no cost!  Kelly’s special talent is using visual marketing via photos, videos (in which she often sings!) and images/graphics to create engagement, generate buzz and give clear calls-to-action.

EasyLunchboxes do Calls-to-Action VERY well. Every tab clearly tells you what you should do, and the bright colour fonts, and simple, clear instructions make you want to click! Arrows help to entice your "trigger finger!"

If you want to see how to use social media and in particular, visual marketing, to skyrocket your business, then follow Kelly on Pinterest or check out her YouTube channel or Facebook Page for lots of great lunchbox ideas, recipes and a healthy dose of fun!

Easy Lunchboxes App thumbnails have branded, colourful, engaging calls to action. Bold. Simple. Clear. There is simply no question about what each app is about and what we are meant to do with them!

Social Triggers

Social Triggers teaches you how to get more traffic, attract more leads, and make more sales by applying the findings from neuroscience, psychology, and conversion rate optimization to your internet marketing efforts.

I am an avid reader of Derek Halpern’s posts since being introduced to his blog last year.  The Call to Action on the Social Triggers Page is as I would have expected. Simple. Clear. One Direction – provide your name and email and sign up for his free updates. It’s that simple.

For Derek Halpern at Social Triggers, the message is clear. There is only one call to action - sign up for free updates. Take note - it may be that only having ONE call to action is the best way. This is very powerful as there is only one action that you are asked to take. Do you think more people will take that action when given one choice?

Derek provides some amazing advice about how to make your website, and social media sites WORK – pulling away all the bells and whistles and stripping things back to what IS NECESSARY for people to love your content and take action.

As you can see from the examples above, some of the calls to action are really obvious, with direct instruction and enticing taglines – others are more subtle and intriguing…teasing you into clicking on the app. Both methods work brilliantly.

CALL TO ACTION 2:  Use images on Facebook, Google+ or Pinterest to call your fans and followers to action.

There are many ways that you can use images to give a call to action. Here are some examples of images used across a range of platforms to gain attention and direct fans and followers to click, pin, share and like!

Personalising an image on Facebook by linking it with the person “sharing it”

This is a really simple way of giving a call to action and getting some viral sharing happening, especially on Facebook! For the example below, we used a simple image with a nice branded font as part of the upcoming launch of a program called the Circle of Care (for our client Know Your Midwife).

A simple image was designed to encourage sharing. The secret ingredients? It evoked emotion, it was personal (by mentioning the person sharing the image), it is visually appealing and it is consistent with the brand (using Know Your Midwife's Fonts).

As you can see, when shared, the profile image is connected by the arrow - making it personal! Sharing with emotion.

Adding a Call to Action to your Google+ Profile Images

In the example below, the simple, but cheeky arrow provides a clear call to action – add to your circles!  The beauty of Google+ is that you can be very creative with the photo strip – either including one long photo or image or splittting it into smaller images.  This profile image is is a good mix of images.

Sometimes the most simple instruction or arrow can be the most enticing!

Adding a Call to Action to your Pins on Pinterest

The following pin example includes a call to action to “repin” in order to raise money for charity, coupled with a further discount voucher.

This pin captures more than one call-to-action - clever!

On Pinterest, Pins with a call-to-action are great for promotions and competitions.  Pins can include a description about the competition rules or link back to a website, with actions required of the “pinners” ranging from anything to setting up their own promotional boards, to posting comments, including hashtags, or emailing a link about their board and pins.

Homes.com used a visual image on a pin to promote their latest competition - "Pin it if you Love It"

CALL TO ACTION 3: Create a teaser video

Depending on how you have arrived at this post you may have seen the teaser video that went with it (see below).  The video does not have to be high production quality – an iphone is fine. And you don’t even have to have  intro or outro slides (Note:  they are easy to do on iMovie – trust me, if I can whip up a slide, you can!).  Put up a short clip and see what happens!

II have to give a big shout out to Amy Porterfield for this idea. Amy uses “teaser videos” for some of her blog posts, and also to announce new upcoming webinars.  She encouraged me to do the same.  To be honest I am not a fan of being on video,  but if I can do it, so can you!  I guess it is kinda like ripping off a bandaid really….once you do one, the others should come more easily.

Here is an example of one that Amy did recently for a blog post she created:

Be sure to add a hyperlink on your YouTube description to the blog post so that viewers can click through to your site.  It is another clever way to integrate your social media platforms with your blog!

Are you inspired by any of these calls-to-action using visual marketing strategies? Do you have an examples that you have used in your own social media marketing? Which, if any, will you try?

 

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