You aren’t going to make it without visuals.
This is a fact that everyone should know at this point. Marketing comes down to a fundamental goal: connecting with your audience. Humans are visual creatures, which is why clear back through history you can see examples of advertisements containing drawn images, posted on walls through busy towns.
We aren’t much different today. A solid picture, a good color scheme, a snappy theme, an eye-catching video…these are all fundamentals in marketing through visuals. We incorporate it into every facet of the process, to reach that ultimate goal.
Influencer marketing might seem like it is far and away from the visual marketing process. You have the same general goal (in this case you are reaching a very specific audience), but the process has to be different. Doesn’t it?
Actually, no.
Visual marketing is just as helpful in reaching influencers as it is in reaching a more general viewership. In fact, it might just be what you are missing, and why you aren’t getting the results you hoped for.
Influencer marketing with visuals, like any other form of audience engagement, is all about innovation and creativity. So you are on your own when it comes to crafting your own campaign. But here are some tips to get you started.
Use Visual Quotes: A Lot…
So simple, so widely used, yet so effective! I’ve seen so many busy social media influencers, who receive hundreds of notifications a day, genuinely impressed by a nicely-done visual quote featuring them.
As a real life example, I was really amused by this quote and I did share it everywhere:
Studies showed that tweets with images received 18% more clicks, 89% more favorites, and 150% more retweets. And you don’t have to limit yourself to Twitter these days!
Post the visuals on Instagram, and reach the influencers by linking and tagging on Twitter. It gives you the benefits of both, while being a simple strategy to execute.
Useful tool: TrySpruce is the fastest way to create and tweet out a visual quote. There are many more tools that can help you create visual quotes but this one is probably the fastest.
Important: Tag influencers you are quoting!
How to tag people across major social media channels:
Note: Tagging is crucial! You want those influencers to see your visual quote: By tagging, you send them a notification (in many cases it will come through the social media dashboard as well as an email!)
| Using web-based interface | Using third-party app (DrumUp, Tweetdeck, etc) | |
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Type @ and start typing the Twitter username (Choose the correct one from the drop-down). Or simply type @ and copy-paste the full username immediately after it (no space) | Type @ and copy-paste the full username immediately after it (no space) |
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Type @ and start typing the name (Choose the correct one from the drop-down). The correct name might not be suggested unless you are connected on Facebook. In this case, try tagging a business page associated with the influencer | Not possible |
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Google Plus
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Type + and start typing the name (Choose the correct one from the drop-down). OR type + and copy-paste the full G+ user ID (it will be converted to the linked name once you publish the update) | Type + and copy-paste the full G+ user ID (it will be converted to the linked name once you publish the update) |
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Seems to be impossible from the web interface | From the mobile app: Type @ and start typing the name (Choose the correct one from the drop down). |
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Type @ and start typing the name (Choose the correct one from the drop-down). | Not possible |
See this Slideshare upload I put together to with screenshots for each one.
Feature Recognized Influencers in Banner Ads and Testimonials
Are you doing traditional banner ads to promote your service or product? There’s nothing more convincing than using the well-recognized face there praising you or the product you sell. Neil Patel is the prime example of that:
Re-marketing that banner on Twitter and Instagram is a great way to boost its effectiveness. Surprisingly, Instagram is very testimonial-friendly: You can see people interacting very actively with visual testimonials and banners there when those are done well.
You may want to come up with a “social media” version of your site banner with less text and more visual component to comply with Facebook 20%-of-text rule as well as make your testimonial more convincing. @BoxedWater provide good examples of a celebrity endorsement published on Instagram:
And here’s an example of visual endorsement on Twitter:
![[Example of a visual quote done by a brand and tagging an influencer on Twitter]](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/influencer-marketing-visual-marketing-01.png)
And these guys feature influencers’ testimonials right on the home page linking them to the tweets:
Useful tool: Bannersnack has a cool banner analytics feature which gives you great insight into how viewers interact with your banners. I especially like the heatmap view:
You can run your banner on your site for a few days to better understand how it is perceived by your site visitors and then re-market it on social media. You can read more about the analytics feature here.
Feature Recognized Influencers in Your Infographics
Infographic influencer roundups are not that common, but they are very efficient! Like visual quotes, infographics tend to impress influencers triggering more interaction and spread.
Here’s the recent example of an expert interview turned into an infographic:
Basically, this type of infographic can re-package your visual quotes by putting them all together!
Useful tool: You may be surprised by my choice, but I use Fiverr to find inspiration for infographics. Here’s one I did using Fiverr (I outsourced cartoons to feature people here) and if I had time, I’d probably re-use this idea for influencer outreach too (Imagine “Super powers in the SEO industry” infographic or something similar: Always works!)
Overall, Fiverr is the goldmine of creative ideas like that one: You just need to spend some time there looking for the right thing and ignoring all the fluff.
Take Advantage of Slideshare
Finally, when you have that collection of visual quotes and visual testimonials, why not re-package them into a neat presentation to re-market your content on LinkedIn and Slideshare?
I am a massive fan of Slideshare, but for some reason not many marketers share my enthusiasm. Admittedly it is a niche platform, and that limits its use in some regards. But it is less populated than other networks, and based entirely on slideshow presentations. Which are a popular and very effective form of content.
A good idea is to use this trick to re-connect to those you met at industry conferences. You gather the bare bones of a presentation, and make them into small slides. Posting them on social media is a great way to attract influencer attention, as they will be more likely to pick them up and share with their own followers.
Here’s a good example of the Slideshare upload curating notable quotes from speakers at the Authority Rainmaker conference. Notice the ingenuous use of tweetable quotes right inside each slide:
Clicking the Twitter icon brings you to “Create a Tweet” page that already tags the quoted influencer:
Useful tool: Haikudeck is the easiest way to put together beautiful Slideshare presentations. Upload your visual quotes, add text, and you are done!
Get Visual to Hook Those Influencers
A visual campaign is the best marketing strategy to connect with influencers who can spread awareness of your brand. Do you know of any case studies that have done the same? Have some tips to share? Let us know in the comments!
Image Credits
Featured Image: Image by Ann Smarty
All screenshots by Ann Smarty. Taken March 2016.
