[New Post] How to Curate Bite-Sized Graphics for Content Promotion

 

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How to Curate Bite-Sized Graphics for Content Promotion Jamie Heckler When it comes to content marketing, you not only need to produce graphics and video that fuel your content engine, you’re also tasked with creating promotional images that drive traffic from multichannel distribution efforts to the content being promoted. As our new white paper Relationships & Discoverability explains, doing so will amplify the online reach of your content and even lead to media pickup — both of which are paramount to content marketing success. An effective promotional image must capture attention, represent your brand aesthetic, and most importantly, motivate the viewer to take action. How to Find and Create Promotional Visuals Sometimes a promotional image can be pulled right from the content itself, and other times you may need to whip up an additional graphic to meet your needs. The following are my go-to ideas when creating bite-sized graphics. 1. Existing visuals within the content: Using visuals from within the content itself will guarantee cohesion and offer the quickest solution. Spend a few minutes to ensure it is optimized for the promotional placement – additional adjustments such as cropping, re-sizing or even light editing may be necessary. Here are some suggestions: Cover pages or title slides are easy to grab with a screenshot and offer a preview of the actual content being promoted. Embedded photos or graphics in the content can also be a quick win, but make sure they can pull their weight in a promotional capacity. Video content offers several options: grab a still frame, pull out a preview video clip or convert a few frames into an animated gif. Beyond the title, you can pull a slide from deeper in a presentation or webinar to show the depth of information being covered. Tease out an embedded infographic by cropping it down to a single visualized statistic. For its multimedia news release promoting Hamburger Helper’s Watch the Stove mixtape, General Mills simply repeated the mixtape’s cover image to fit the promotional size requirements. 2. Quick photo fixes: When the content itself doesn't lend you much in the way of visuals, your next step might be to look for some photos you might already have in your archives. Experts, authors and speakers should be able to provide a professional head shot if you don't already have one. Even better if they can submit an "action shot" which will convey more authority to better help establish their expertise. For live events you can include a photo of the venue, city or even regional icons. Photos from the previous year's event provide a preview into what is likely to occur this year. Stock photos are an easy option, especially if you need to represent some abstract concepts. CNW used an action image of speaker David Meerman Scott to promote their blog interview via Twitter. 3. Simple graphic solutions: With a few minutes in Photoshop or Canva, you can transform the words or ideas of your content into some engaging visuals. Pull quotes are very social-friendly, and they also provide an opportunity to highlight the expert behind the thought leadership. Similar in graphic treatment to a pull quote, pull out an idea from the content and offer it up in a short, visualized summary. Give your audience an extra push with a direct call-to-action. Depending on your brand's personality, this could mimic a formal banner ad or go for a more conversational or playful route. For best results, be sure your visual message answers the reader question "What's in it for me?" Just because your content didn't include an infographic, doesn't mean you can't create a bite-sized graphic of your own. Skim your content for bulleted lists, processes or statistics that you can turn into simple visuals, charts or diagrams. @PRNewswire used a pull quote on Instagram to promote the CMO International Summit keynote address given by one of its experts. 4. Animated attention seekers: The data doesn't lie. Videos are viewed and shared more than any other content on social channels. Consider including moving visuals in your promotional messages to help drive additional audience engagement. Facebook and Twitter now both offer in-platform tools that let you quickly search and add a relevant GIF to your posts. It's an easy visual add, but be extra cautious that the tone of these visuals don't go "off-brand." Extend the graphic ideas above to produce your own animated GIFs. Knit together static visuals to tell a short story – show the steps of a process, walk through a list, build a chart. Create enticing and share-worthy micro-short video clips. Have your upcoming webinar speaker provide a quick on-camera tip, offer some behind-the-scenes footage on a big project, say hi to the camera from that tradeshow you're presenting at, provide a sneak peek or super short demo of a product feature, or create a video collage of still images – the possibilities are endless! For inspiration and ideas, take a look at what other brands and influencers are doing on video-friendly channels such as Instagram, Periscope and Snapchat. Taco Bell is known for having superior social marketing skills. Take a page out of their playbook by including animated imagery in your promotional efforts, such as this snack-sized Instagram video. Set Up a Process or Templates for "Everyday" Campaigns For on-going content promotion efforts, you should establish an easy-to-maintain routine for creating visuals. For example, every post on PR Newswire's Beyond PR blog needs to include a title graphic of a specific size that appears at the top of the post. One reason its dimensions were chosen is that they're optimal for our top social channels, making it easy for our social manager to regularly promote this content with a visual. We've also set up a series of templates for multichannel content campaigns. The template format can be customized for each new white paper while at the same time ensuring the visual message for each is uniform across our distribution channels. For PR Newswire’s on-going multichannel content campaign, we created a set of templates that allow for uniformity across channels while still using an optimal layout for each. Address Promotional Requirements at the Start of Larger Campaigns At the start of visually driven content campaigns, think through all the graphic requirements, including promotional elements. Collecting this input early on can influence the production process to help you get more out of your creative investments. Graphic designers can assemble images that can easily be broken up into one or more bite-sized pieces. Video scripts can be written to include a perfect quote for call out, and producers can make sure you get the clean shot of it that you'll need. This simple gif from @OpenTable on Twitter is one of my favorite visual nuggets I've seen. It appears to be an easily pulled out animation from one of the maps in their larger visual campaign. Ultimately, the multimedia you use will go a long way in promoting your content; however, it is only one piece of the overall picture. Download our white paper Relationships & Discoverability: Earning More Media for more advice on delivering the max­imum value out of your content efforts. Author Jamie Heckler is the Senior Creative Manager at PR Newswire. Follow her on Twitter @jamieheckle for more #design, #PR & #marketing updates.

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