There are reports that suggest that, on average, we mere humans are confronted with anything up to around 4000 visual adverts per day; up from around 500 per day back in the 1970s.

Of course, it will all depend on the type of job you have & the person you are as to whether you see many, if any at all. If you’re a farmer yanking carrots out of the ground day in day out with only enough time to eat, sleep and shower in between, then let’s face it, you won’t see many. But if you’re an internet junkie and spend your life in front of a widescreen digital window to the outside world then you’re likely to see quite a lot.

By a lot, I mean really, a lot.

But as a generalisation, it’s impossible to argue we live in a highly visual world. In a world where millennials and hipsters love nothing more than Instagramming their smashed avocado on toast in all manner of delightful settings, ensuring their best selfie-face is within frame come rain or shine; it’s virtually impossible for the average person to escape this barrage of visual stimulus on a daily basis.

“As a sidenote, it’s a wonderful feeling knowing you can mute hashtags that contain ‘avocado’ and ‘selfie’ – seriously, your life will improve”

As a business owner, you need to be able to stand out from all that hubbub, ensuring your content is prominently in the faces of all your potential audience. Especially when sharing your content through various social channels, you need it to be highly noticeable; make it visual & eye-catching, encourage people to read further and click that link.

You need to grab their attention, and then keep it. (Keeping it is where enticing headlines and creative copy come into play; but with your visuals, you’ve initially hooked them on the line…..)

It’s human nature for our eyes to glaze amongst an unrelenting wall of text, which is why it’s commonplace to flick-scroll through our various timelines until we see something that is different from the ‘stuff’ around it. It’ll usually be a snazzy graphic, photo or a video, enticing us to dive in further; with colours, icons or elements that make it pop out from an otherwise fairly monochrome surrounding.

Think about your content’s theme. Does it have a particular message? Does it need to play on people’s emotions or feelings? What kind (if any) reaction do you want to provoke?

Whatever your content, it’s important to integrate eye-catching, but also appropriate visuals as an accompaniment, with it often being highly beneficial to maintain a consistency across your brand as a whole.
Allow your visuals to attract, but not detract.

So when creating your various blogs, posts and articles, consider the content as one complete living, breathing unit, and get into the mindset of who may be looking at it once it’s published to the big wide world. Then you can tailor it to give it the best impact possible.