Visual Storytelling FOR SOCIAL MEDIA OCTOBER 2014
SARAH EVA MONROE Senior Creative Director, mstoner Sarah Eva Monroe began her career as a creative, working as a photographer, print/web designer, and art director. After earning her Master s degree in Integrated Marketing Communications from the Medill School at Northwestern University, Sarah Eva moved into the agency world, where she led digital/social media strategy for major brands in the higher education, non-profit, and advocacy space. On the client side, she s been part of internal marketing teams at three higher education institutions, as well as the Obama campaign s 2012 digital team. Sarah Eva s approach to solving client challenges is to create beautiful work that happily achieves functional goals, and loves the process of flexing creative work in response to analytics and user data. Tweet her at @SarahEva 2
VISUAL STORYTELLING Assumptions: You know the top social platforms Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr and how to post images to them. You understand that images drive engagement, but want a refresher on why and how to build a visual storytelling strategy that makes sense for your school. 3
VISUAL STORYTELLING Is interactive Presents a narrative Engages the listener s imagination
Storytelling and Social Media Social networks are two-way communication streams Social media engagement is optional: many users are looking to be entertained. 5
Speaking of Users... How are teens using social networks? 6
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Social Feeds Round Out Your Story 8
Visuals are Efficient Story Helpers The human brain can process entire images that the eye sees for as little as 13 milliseconds - MIT neuroscientists 9
Visuals are Efficient Story Helpers A cat wearing a birthday hat
Side: KISS with Typography A cat wearing a birthday hat A cat wearing a birthday hat a cat wearing A BIrtHdAY hat A cat wearing a birthday hat
Visuals are Efficient Story Helpers People don't always read an ad, but they can't help but see the picture. They are getting impressions of the brand all the time. Halle Hutchison, head of brand and advertising, Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile USA h8p://online.wsj.com/arbcles/sb116467838729434053
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+ = THE RISE OF THE VISUAL WEB iphone designed by Edward Boatman from the Noun Project Photo Gallery designed by Antar from the Noun Project Brain designed by hunobka from the Noun Project
As social audiences access more and more social content through mobile devices, consumption habits trend toward succinct content with strong imagery and design. -Ogilvy blog h8ps://social.ogilvy.com/the- rise- of- the- visual- web/
SO THE VISUAL WEB IS HERE & WE KNOW VISUALS WORK
But visuals are challenging A few weeks ago at the Food Network
Choosing an image strategy TACTIC Actual brownies? Funny brownies? STRATEGY Appeal to appetite, drive connection to the emotional satisfaction of eating dessert and/or the satisfaction of making a dessert your family and friends enjoy. Football demographic is into humor and it can strengthen personal connection with brand if users feel in on the joke. Use text within image itself so it s more shareable? Allow sentiment and branding to travel along with photo beyond original tweet. Show only brownies or people too? If people, what are audience expectations of gender, ethnicity, and setting? Our brains are hardwired to be drawn to faces and, especially, eyes. Using people can help viewers imagine themselves taking the action you are prompting. Careful attention to staging and details of an image can reinforce message resonance.
Need an asset ASAP! Buy a stock photo? Reuse a photo from the website? Shoot a new photo? Create a stylized illustration? (Try Canva.com) Next step: consider options
Choosing the right story helper What do we show? Actual brownies? Sources for actual brownies: Stock photos: you can get a nice shot for $5 (Veer, Getty, ShutterStock) Go to a coffee shop, buy a brownie and take a photo Flickr creative commons filter (must attribute)
Be smart when using stock images Dell and Gateway featured the same model and the same location in their back-to-school campaigns. (2004) http://womenlaughingalonewithsalad.tumblr.com/
Choosing the right story helper What do we show? Funny brownies? Sources for funny brownies: Make your own meme, but check knowyourmeme.com first so you are clear on the meme s meaning Embellish a normal brownie image with illustration or text
Choosing the right story helper What do we show? Use text within image itself so it s more shareable?
Color Theory A note about color: Explore brand colors first and prioritize coordination with image Pay attention to color theory but only as a secondary consideration
Choosing the right story helper What do we show? Only brownies or people too? If people, what are audience expectations of gender, ethnicity, and setting? Understand your audience: Access your follower demographics Think about context of message Monday Night football involves the NFL, which is under fire right now. Safe, comforting messaging is a better path than something edgy. Bonus points for taking into account geographies of teams scheduled to play
Choices, choices, choices
Choosing the right story helper
CASE STUDIES: THE STORIES WE RE TELLING 50
Images drive engagement
BarkBox
Vassar College
American University of Paris
VW: Throwback Thursday
Dogs Trust Digital Marketing
Acura NSX: Snapchat
Snapchat 39
Crema Cafe
Ivivva
Campaigns: Fordham University 2
The Goal: Influence yield of admitted undergraduate students planning to enroll in Fall 2014. m
The Audience: Active social media users. 17-19-year-olds. Admitted. m
The Strategy: Leverage popular platforms to generate excitement about choosing Fordham. m
The Inspiration: m
Reach 90 percent of all admitted students. Prompt 100 admitted students to generate content. Attract 150 new followers on Tumblr and Instagram. m
The Tools: Visual, popular among target audience, growing Visual, popular among target audience, growing m
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FordhamUniversity.tumblr.com m
The Results: 3 Emails 58% Open Rate 3.2% Click Rate m
The Results: 3,200+ Pageviews 900+ Visitors m
The Results: 6,238 Public Likes 511 Public Comments 282 Total Posts 180 Public Participants m
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Reach 90 percent of all admitted students. Prompt 100 admitted students to generate content. Attract 150 new followers on Tumblr and Instagram. m
http://mstnr.me/fordham4me m
Stabilize In low light, camera phones slow the shutter speed to let in more light and have a longer opportunity to capture movement. Hold the camera phone with both hands and brace your upper arms against your body when you shoot. source
Emphasize diagonal lines Photo tip: Diagonal lines generally work well to draw the eye of an image s viewer through the photograph. They create points of interest as they intersect with other lines and often give images depth by suggesting perspective. Images from Flickr
Rule of Thirds When composing a picture, imagine two horizontal lines and two vertical lines crossing like a tic-tac-toe grid on top of it. Place strong lines and divisions like the horizon on the gridlines and let elements of interest fall on the intersections.
Get closer When the background of your picture is cluttered and the lighting is questionable, fill the frame of your camera phone by moving in closer to your subject.
source Anticipate shutter lag Get used to your camera phone s timing so when something interesting happens, you ll have a good feel for the point when you need to press the shutter release to capture the most interesting moment.
Pay attention to contrast Get the right color tone. Shooting in black-and-white in any light can help develop your photographer s eye by letting you concentrate on the relationship between light and shadow without the distraction of color. source
Solid background Try using a black background to make a subject stand out. Black velvet material works great because it absorbs any light hitting it. As a result, no shadows or reflections appear in the picture. source
On the other hand, backgrounds can enhance and emphasize the main subject. Image Credit: Olivier Duong
Lighting sunlight is the best light Light, location and subject are entwined: it was only possible to take that photo in that place with that type of light at one particular time. It s almost impossible to reproduce the effect afterwards the uniqueness of the light becomes part of the image.
THANK YOU! SARAH EVA MONROE Senior Creative Director, mstoner @SarahEva @mstonerinc