Why photography is so important for your content strategy

This guest blog is the first of many! Photographer Paul Tschornow has been kind enough to contribute a post which discusses the importance of imagery and the huge impact it can have on the growth of any business. Imagery is an important factor when it comes to representing your brand. Read on to see what Paul has to say, including why social media platforms such as Instagram have been so successful.

Why is photography such an important part of your content strategy? Because people have short attention spans. As media consumers we’re exposed to so much noise. Social media feeds are constantly updating, emails are pinging and binging, we’ve reached and exceeded data overload. As business owners, brands, publishers or however you categorise yourself, you’re competing in a crowded arena so you need to find a way to win the race for people’s attention. And guess what, the answer isn’t difficult, all you need is killer headline and a stunning picture.

Let’s face it, this isn’t a new approach, newspaper front pages have been doing exactly this for decades. They scream at you from the newsstands with their photographs and headlines. Yes, papers are in decline, but this is because of the shift to online news delivery. Now publishers compete on different battlegrounds such as SEO and social media. Therein lies the problem – SEO. Marketers are so caught up in the SEO mindset that when it comes to their content strategy they’re not focused on the quality of the content. Instead of creating compelling copy with catchy headlines and beautiful images, content producers are trying to tick the SEO boxes. They’re making sure the blog post or article reaches 300 words and the relevant keywords are contained in the first couple of paragraphs and headlines blah, blah, blah.

Let’s try mixing things up a little. Much like redheadPR, you must create more content targeted at real human people instead of bland copy designed for the Google web crawlers. Make content for social media instead. As we know from the success of Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest, people love pictures. Photographs tell half of the story before you’ve even written a word. As people have such short attention spans, a great picture and a little bit of text goes a long way. Image led tweets, Facebook updates and LinkedIn posts get more attention because your audience doesn’t have to invest much time in them. Once you’ve got people’s attention and they’ve clicked the link that’s when you expand with the written form. Remember, strong images are more likely to be ‘liked’, shared and engaged with, so let’s forget about the word count and focus on the photograph instead – picture first, then add some text.

Paul Tschornow is a commercial photographer and the owner of photoheads.co.uk