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How to Make a Splash on Twitter with Visual Marketing

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Visual marketing is important on all the major social media platforms and Twitter is no exception. If you want more retweets and favorites, these Twitter tips will get your Twitter visuals in shape.

I know you're dying to learn visual marketing tips for Twitter and this week I have a treat for you. I have a guest post from my friend Aaron Lee!Β Aaron is the Grand Master of Customer Delight at Post Planner. When he is not writing, he's finding the perfect cup of coffee and trying to perfect his coffee art. Catch up with Aaron via Twitter @AskAaronLee or onΒ Facebook.

Aaron has built an amazing Twitter presence of almost a half a million followers so listen carefully as he shares his tips. Over to Aaron…

The way we see and use images have changed.

Today they are the center of our engagement on social media. [clickToTweet tweet=”Social media is all about the VISUALS. Our mind is just better at capturing images than text.” quote=”Social media is all about the VISUALS. Our mind is just better at capturing images than text.”]

If you know me, you'll know that Twitter is my BABY!

It was the social media platform that allowed me to connect with the world. You could say that I owe my career to Twitter. I wouldn’t be here without it. Here's the problem with Twitter recently: It's just too noisy. The noise level has increased due to the increase of users and the usage of annoying spambots. Yuck!

The good news is. You can still make a splash on Twitter.

The key is… you guessed it. VISUALS.

Today, I'll be focusing on how you can make a splash with visuals on Twitter. I'm here to show you how you can use visuals to change your marketing mindset.

Here are my best tips on how you can use visuals for your marketing.

1. Know the ratio

One of the most important things to remember is the ratio. This is your mantra. You need to remember that on Twitter, the ratio for images is 2:1.

That means if the image width is 800 pixels, the height has to be 400 pixels. 800x400pixels. If you don't use this ratio, your images will possibly be out of centre when you tweet it unless you've kept the wordings or the focus in the middle. That's okay!

If you don’t want to remember this complicated formula. Just use platforms like Canva.

2. Create your own

[clickToTweet tweet=”If you want to make a splash with visual marketing, you need to post ORIGINAL photos.” quote=”If you want to make a splash with visual marketing, you need to post ORIGINAL photos.”] Original photos tend to stand out better compared to stock images because people have seen generic images numerous times. (and it’s so boring)

Canva is the best platform to create original photos. It's easy to use and you don't have to be a pro designer to get started.

How to make a splash on Twitter with visual marketing

In fact, they do all the work for YOU! All you have to do is click a few buttons and voila! You have yourself an awesome image that you can use on Twitter. It’s that simple.

3. Quotes

Quotes are your new best friends.

In fact, quotes have one of the highest potential to make a splash on Twitter. I’ve seen it so many times. They never fail to work.

The reason they just work is because anyone can relate to them.

You, your best friend and your family can relate to them. It’s effective across multiple demographics.

Here's a quote of mine that was retweeted more than 1000 times.

How to make a splash on Twitter with visual marketing

4. Gif's

Repeat after me: Gifs are for Twitter.

THEY ARE! They are FUN and infectious! In fact, I've been posting gifs more and upping my game because my friend @sampavin showed me how.

I noticed they simply got more response when I included them in tweets. They allow me to express the tweets better, and catches people’s attention.

Gifs for the win!

5. Post proven content on Twitter

Is that even possible? Yes it is.

If you don’t know already, Post Planner has an awesome feature called Viral Photos that can help you predict content that are likely to get shared. It’s a secret algorithm cooked up by our awesome engineering team.

You can easily find content of any Facebook pages, Instagram account or Instagram hashtag.

Here’s an example of Peg Fitzpatricks’s most engaged visuals on Facebook. I can easily share this photo on Twitter and credit her in the tweet helping me to not only getting higher retweets and to get noticed by her.

How to make a splash on Twitter with visual marketing

6. No corporate stock photos!

Don't you get tired of seeing people in corporate clothing smiling and shaking hands?

Oh man! If I had a dollar for every time someone tweets with a stock photo.

Seriously, stock photos are overused and overrated. It just doesn't convert well. In fact, they may have the opposite result.

Good news is, there are tons of websites that will give you beautiful stock photos for free. Shopify covered quote a number of websites that you can quickly find beautiful stock photos

How to make a splash on Twitter with visual marketing

8. Personal

Everyone should post personal photos on Twitter. Why? It simply keeps us human. As a marketer and business owner, I know that we can get caught up with it all and sometimes forget that we're not just a brand. We’re human, and we're connecting with other humans.

Posting personal photos allow us to connect with others on a personal level. When people connect with you at a personal level, they REMEMBER you.

9. Tag people

Did you know you can tag people in images on Twitter? I bet you just got blown away when I mentioned that. Twitter allows you to tag up to 10 people. If you create a top 10 list of people to follow on Twitter, you can upload an image and tag those 10 people. How powerful is THAT!

When you tag someone in an image, your tweet will actually be shown in their mentions stream.

This allows you to increase exposure for your tweet.

10. Be consistent

To do well with visuals on Twitter, it boils down to: consistency, consistency, consistency.

You need to be consistent in using images if you want to do well. You can’t post it sporadically and expect it to take effect. It's about continuously doing it.

To post consistently, I recommend you use scheduling platform of your choice.Β  There are many great websites other than Post Planner to help you do this.

Summing up

Using visuals is not a gimmicky marketing technique. It's a powerful way to build engagement and help you grow your followers. Visuals aren't going away! It will only get better by the time.

What do you think? What type of visuals are you posting on your Twitter account? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

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20 Comments

  1. Useful and meaningful advice for me, Thanks you so much!
    Keep up and Good work.
    Brandon
    MosTra

  2. What valuable advice and resources Aaron!!! Thanks so much for curating this Peg. You both are so generous <3.

    I have a question: Considering IG is a photo-based app, is it okay to post the same images on Twitter and IG accounts or should we always keep images/content different on these 2 channels? Is there a certain kind of content that should only live on IG, or only live on Twitter so followers don't get bored with duplicates?

    Thanks so much! Big gratitude to you both.

    1. I agree. Life is short. Kill two birds with one stone and post them on IG and Twitter. People definitely won’t notice that you posted the same thing.

  3. Hi Peg and Aaron,

    Fantastic post, Aaron. Thank you, Peg, for featuring Aaron’s post here!

    I haven’t tried posting quotes on Twitter as part of our business marketing strategy. You are right. Everyone can relate to quotes. I love your idea of using them and will be giving it a try. Peg, your suggestion of creating graphics with the text in the center is golden so that they will show up on Twitter. Posting original photos instead of stock images is also a great tip.

    Thank you for sharing these Twitter visual marketing strategies!

    1. Thanks Robin. As Peg mentioned, a quote from your blog made into a visual can do the trick too. If could also be someone you want to get attention of. You can take a quote from them, turn it into a nice visual then tag them. That would definitely catch their attention.

  4. Great advice. I totally agree that businesses should be less business-like on social media and show humor and their human side.
    Thanks for the info!

  5. Hi Peg and Aaron. Thanks for the great post. A question about GIF’s. I have never figured out how to share a GIF so that it automatically starts playing when you scroll down the page. It always ends up to where you have to press play and/or it takes you to another page to play it on (such as sharing from giphy.com). Is there a trick to auto-play a GIF?

    1. Hello Rosie,

      I believe you’re posting a link perhaps? All you need to do is treat it like a normal photo, download the gif and upload it to twitter.

      Hope that makes sense.

  6. Times have really changed with social media. I mean, Twitter was one of the platforms where you didn’t have to worry about posing visuals, now it’s almost a requirement if you want more engagement.

    Also, it’s true that you really have to be personal. Even as a business owner, it’s important that I show my personal side. I get that it allows people to connect with you on a personal level, it just seems like you have to let people into your life more and more as times change.

    Thanks for sharing these tips Peg. I’m always looking to imporove my social media game. Especially with Twitter.

    1. I love how you put it Tiffany. I agree we need to let people into our life more and more as times change. Being personal just adds a flare that people can remember. Thank you for adding that.

  7. Hey Peg, I can’t find a way to contact you on this blog but a guy is using your Pinterest images for his own marketing purposes. I tried to let you know the URL but your commenting system won’t let me leave a comment with a URL. Contact me if you want more info. I’d say you want to let Pinterest know he’s using your images without your permission for his own marketing.

  8. Great tips, but I’m confused by No. 9. Surely you aren’t suggesting that we tag people with large followings, even if they are not in the photo or associated with the content? I tweet for a popular business and people who want to be associated with us tag us in photos all the time. I find this very annoying at best and deceitful at worst. People see the tweets because we’ve been tagged and assume there is a business connection when there is not. Can you clarify for me what you recommend? Thanks.

  9. Still hoping for an answer to my question from Nov 21. Peg? Aaron? Anyone? Have been using Canva since this post came out. Love it!

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