Seven Ways to Leverage Visual Storytelling in Your Marketing

 

Our attention span as humans is decreasing each year. It’s now shorter than the ordinary goldfish. Depending on the source our attention span is roughly between 2.5 seconds and 6.5 seconds. For an average goldfish it’s 9 seconds.

 

We are visual beings. Ninety percent of what’s communicated to our brain is visual. Audio is important, but language is a relatively new phenomenon. Smart marketers know this and connect to the hearts of their customers by using visual storytelling. Here are seven reasons and tips on how to leverage it in your marketing:

 

1. Faster is Better - According to Ekaterina Walter of Sprinklr, “Our brains process visuals 60,000 times faster than text.”  TIP: Leverage images as they are a shortcut to the brain.

 

2. Improving Recall – How important are visuals in terms of recall? If you communicate using only words, retention is only 10% of what’s communicated. Add a compelling visual to those words and recall jumps up to 65%. This “picture superiority effect” means recall improves by a factor of five.  There is no excuse today not to use great images. TIP: Resources like Canva and Dollar Photo Club allow you to leverage images at $1 per photo.

 

Read the entire article here

 

A great opportunity to discuss the power of images and visuals.  Also an opportunity to tie it into social media and web development.

 

How does this relate to the development of a brand mark/logo?

 

 

USA Track & Field CEO's unorthodox approach diversifies sponsor base

 

USA Track & Field CEO Max Siegel has grown the 35-year-old organization with the speed of a world-class sprinter.

And long-term relationships he’s forged—including a 24-year deal with Nike inked last year—have given Siegel and his organization the staying power of a marathon runner.

The Indianapolis native and University of Notre Dame graduate has covered a lot of ground since taking over in May 2012 as USATF’s fourth CEO. And having signed three corporate partnership deals in the last two months, Siegel doesn’t look like a man leaning for the finishing tape just yet.

Siegel, 50, has succeeded at USATF by using a team approach, dealing directly with sponsors, and employing “a business outlook that the organization had lacked,” said USATF board member Jackie Joyner-Kersey, who won six Olympic medals in the heptathlon and long jump from 1984 to 1996.

“Max is a ‘we’ guy,” Joyner-Kersey said. “It’s about how we can do this together. That approach has created tremendous buy-in with athletes, sponsors and other constituents, which has produced tremendous progress for the organization.”

 

Read the entire article here.

 

Key to signing so many new corporate deals, Siegel said, has been “identifying what success means to our partners, proactively collaborating with them and doing what we promise.”  Discuss each of the three components (emphasis on "what success means to partners)

 

What are examples of "outside-the-box thinking"

How to Learn Social Media Marketing: 15 Blogs for Beginners

 

Are you blogging, Facebooking, tweeting, or pinning? If not, you’re missing out.

 

The Internet has become the primary means for prospective buyers to evaluate products or services. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest can take your marketing to the next level. However, many businesses aren’t using social media at all — they aren’t aware of what’s being said about them online and they don’t know how to start conversations with their target audience.

 

Of the brands that *are* using social media marketing, many of them don’t do much planning regarding their social media activities. They use what I call the Shotgun-Blast Approach — they have profiles on every social network under the sun, aimlessly push out links to their content in hopes that it will be discovered by thousands of people, and never engage with their followers.

 

It turns off people in droves and it isn’t a viable way to get results.

This post is Part 1 of a series I’m writing for social media beginners. Future posts will concentrate on videos, ebooks, podcasts, and more!

 

See the entire list here.

 

Examine the blogs, pick a few favorites and follow them as a class.  Or, have a couple students follow each one and then share what they learn in class.

 

I enjoy Hubspot, Social Media Examiner and Buffer.  (I also like Buffer's app!)