It’s All About The Visuals
You’ve likely noticed some striking changes over the past couple years with how all the social platforms look – both on mobile and desktop. There has been a trend that’s slowly developed over the past year to make desktop interface design very similar to a mobile experience. So what does this mean?
Overall navigating around is simpler, for any user. Screens aren’t cluttered as much with navigation links, ads and tiny text. The biggest change is bigger and brighter pictures. Almost all of the social platforms give users and brands much more visual space on their profile pages.
But that’s not the only change – visuals have been given more screen real estate. The biggest change falls in the newsfeed. Sure, platforms like Instagram and Pinterest have always been heavy with visuals but their success and popularity, as well as ease of use are what have caused the other platforms to take notice.
Twitter now shows visuals directly in the feed. You no longer have to click image links to see pictures.
Google+ has continued to focus on giving people a clean user experience and the visuals are continually getting larger. If you share visuals on Google+ you’ve more than likely noticed they are much larger.
Facebook has also become heavily graphic supportive. It’s even been documented that Facebook gives posts with images a better “reach score” than other posts per their post algorithm. Brands have also been pushed heavily to use images with Facebook’s Ads to promote their pages, boost engagement and post reach.
Images make the experience for users more enjoyable. Bright, creative visuals whether text or a photo captured attention – and in social it’s all about eyeballs. The more people see your posts, engage with you and take some sort of action, the better.
So what’s the take-away? Use more visuals with your posts, as much as possible.
If you’re looking for ways to create and find visuals, check out our other blog post: http://www.goingsocial.ca/easy-to-use-tools-for-designing-social-media-visuals/