With the recent rise of Instagram and Pinterest, social media is now changing to a more visual environment. We believe the reason for this, is that there’s no better way of getting across a message than a great photo/video. They express true individuality and displays how creative a business/individual wants to be.

Try testing it out for yourself. Lets say, for example, you’re selling a brand new type of music player to rival the iPod (good luck…!). You’re looking at driving new customers towards the product page on your website, so you write a status update on Facebook/Twitter telling people to head over to your website to check it out. This will work to some extent, and you’ll probably get a few page views and maybe some purchases.

Instagram gives the user it’s own little photo editing tool and instant sharing capabilities. If you were to take a photo of the new music player in action in Instagram, and then share to Facebook and Twitter, you’re viral reach will be much greater. People are much more likely to like, retweet, share and engage with unique visual content that they can see is real. In business, it cuts through the typical corporate sales advertising techniques of years gone by. Customers are much more savvy to traditional sales techniques, as there’s so much more information on the internet for people to compare and research products/services.

The infographic below from B2B Infographics is a great way of displaying the power of visual content via social media.