How To Gain More Social Media Audience Through Photo Sharing

Share photos on Social Media Sites
Share Button

This is a guest post by Steven Papas.

People will always pay more in time to be entertained. The entertainment feature of social networking sites is in those fun words and creative pictures. Playing by this rule has pushed many businesses and brands to the limelight. Why write about your environment, what you saw on a vacation or how that last weekend seminar went, when you can take a few shots with your Smartphone and share them with your social media audience? If you appreciate online images, so will your audience.

But then, why stop on Facebook? People are gradually embracing the benefits of photo sharing on social networking sites, but most are yet to give it the commitment it demands which will change it from a personal and self pleasurable activity to a business-wise feature. When properly done, it brings the ‘human’ character to businesses thereby making them more caring and attractive to their potential customers.

Can Photo Sharing Increase Your Social Media Audience?

By nature, nobody wants to be sold to. Sales pitches, tweets and comments on social media sites can put your followers or audience on the defensive. Nobody wants to befriend anybody that is always interested in what they will gain from their friends; that’s in-human. On the other hand, people are attracted to simplicity. Show them the simple, human side of you and they will crawl to you like a bee to a bee-hive.

Why Are People Attracted To Simplicity And Natural Existence?

They want somebody who lives like they do, experience life like them and face the same problems with them while retaining the flag as an authority in their interest area. Believe me, there is no other way to prove this than to share personal touches and glimmers in photos which will highlight your personality and keep your audience engaged. I have seen top Internet marketers, like Willie Crawford and others use this strategy to gather even more crowd around themselves. Not with another sales page. No! But with a few photo uploads about their new born baby, the last weekend they spent on the beach with  friends or a major seminar they attended.

The Benefit Of Showing The World Their Personal Images

So, what does this accomplish for them? This shows you they are ordinary human beings but with a little more knowledge in a particular field, niche or subject area and thus explains why you should listen to them. You know how social media works. Once you leave a comment on what somebody shared on facebook, it gets posted on your wall for your friends to see. On twitter, people can retweet any tweet that interests them to send the news out to their own followers.

As an example, Mobal provides phone and communication solutions to travelers but instead of sell-pitching their audience on twitter, they share photos of pretty destinations. While they are not making money by sharing those pictures, the parallelism between this is, if you’ve got to travel, you’ve got to have a destination! And as a result, this has directed even more attention to their business while gaining them hundreds of views and retweets from interested individuals.

Photo Sharing For Personality And Business Promotion

To effectively harness the power of photo sharing on social networking sites, you’ve got to use some tools and a bit of creativity. Don’t just stick with Facebook where only your friends and fans can get access to your photos. Get a twitter account, a Flickr account and get Instagram if you have an iPhone. While selecting photos to share, put some finishing touches on them with photo editing tools. My take on this include Mixbook, Snapily and Smilebox. This will put your photos in the right format and shape; making sure that they will send the right message and gain the attention of the right audience once shared.

When you have the right images out there, they will continue to work for you, gluing every eye that sets on it and indirectly introducing them to who you are and what you do. Guess what? A new business lead is about to knock on your door! What are your thoughts? How have you used images to engage your website visitors and drive traffic to your website?

Share Button

Author: Steven Papas

Steven runs the Very Best Software company and works as a professional photographer. He loves writing about ways to maximize your social media impact and also about the technology tools he uses at work, like Blurb and Mixbook photo sharing. He uses and reviews online services for digital creations, including photobooks, ecards, personalized calendars and many others. From time to time he also publishes coupons and new upgrades when available.

69 thoughts on “How To Gain More Social Media Audience Through Photo Sharing”

  1. Isn’t this concept a lot similar to Pinterest? Pinterest is really becoming a lot popular lately and marketers are eyeing it for a good social media platform to utilize. There is a lot of potential businesses see in it and pretty soon we will be seeing a lot of changes to teh Pinterest website as it caters to the needs for business.

    1. Pinterest certainly does seem to have become the poster child for photo sharing. I’ve heard several success stories of businesses who have successfully used Pinterest to promote their business. Another tool for sharing pics to promote a business is Twitter. That works really well for businesses that are promoting a product. Starbucks uses that strategy a lot.
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Does Twitter Drive Traffic to Your Website Blog?My Profile

  2. Yes, Photo sharing is great way to increase website traffic. Pinterest is interesting example of photo sharing website which seems effective result of photo sharing. People like to read photo banners rather than content information. This makes photo sharing popular and gain Social media audience.

  3. Hi,
    This is a great way to attract audience.It has thousand words and increases our credibility.Thank you so much for this! I will surely read this and share this to my other friends. It is a great idea.
    Bharat Bhushan recently posted..ERP Software CompanyMy Profile

    1. Hi Bharat,
      I’m glad you enjoyed Steven’s guest post. I was reading on another blog today on how important it is to include photos on your website. This article cautioned everyone on using free stock photography because your pages/posts will not stand out from others. Personally, I always license an image from Big Stock Photography. They’re not the cheapest but I find them affordable and it’s easy to find something that I like.
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Will Documenting Something Now Save You Time Later?My Profile

      1. Hey!
        I am totally agree with you. One thing i realized after reading your article. There are many things in this planet we do not know, we deal with them everyday, sometimes we use the but we don’t know everything about them (not even their origin). Great to know this!
        Thanks for sharing your precious thoughts.

  4. Hey Stevan

    Photo sharing is a great way to attract audience. As it is rightly said -‘A picture is worth a thousand words’. Images makes anything look more interesting and attractive. You can say a lot through images. Spending a little time on making the images better and appealing before posting can doe the trick for you. In this tech savvy world, almost everyone carries a smartphone with them and clicking anything interesting would not be a big task. Thanks for this informative share.

    1. Hi Richa,
      I agree with both you and Steven that incorporating photos into your website makes it more interesting and attractive. It helps to break up the text. I don’t always use photos in my posts (other than as a featured image to grab initial interest). I do use screenshots and other images to support what I’m talking about. Lots of people are visual learners and they need to see what I’m explaining. (A side benefit is that it does make my articles more visually appealing.) Thanks for taking the time to add to the conversation. 🙂
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Can Your Small Business Compete with the Big-Box Stores?My Profile

  5. When you talk with people, they may or may not listen to you. But when you talk with them through photos, chances are more that they will listen to you. This is why you can gain more social exposure if you share photos with people, rather than merely using texts for conversation. And this applies for businesses too. The social audience wants to interact with human beings, not profit-seeking organizations. Sales pitches, tweets, marketing broadcasts will only turn them away. Whereas photos will be more inviting. Photos will tell them that there are individuals behind the brand logo, who’s ready to listen to them.

  6. A snap is stronger than word to express something! So, it’ll be much effective to post some subjective and meaningful photos than posting an elaborate discussion. Thanks for sharing your precious thoughts for increasing the visitors.

  8. Photo sharing to increase your social networking is a great idea. Pinterest is a great example of putting photos together to fit into a theme or motif. It is beautiful way of displaying interests and passions. Pinterest is like a modern day collage.

  9. Photo sharing also can drive traffic to your website in my opinion. I enjoyed reading your post and all were really very interesting.

  10. Nice useful information about image posting. i fully agree with you that image posting increases our credibility if selected relevant pictures. I also enhances readers and buyers attention towards your brand so adding quality images speaks a lot.

  11. Photo sharing generates positive energy that makes people engage with your website in a natural way. Business photos with people bring personal touch to a website and its true that readers give response more quickly to those website which shows their human side. Thanks for your suggestion.

    1. Hi Syeda,
      First, I need to apologize to you for not replying to your comment earlier. Somehow, it ended up in spam and I didn’t notice it until today.

      I like how you phrased that “photo sharing generates positive energy”. That really resonates with me. Other than the graphics that I associate with my posts, I tend to insert screenshots more than photos. Now, you have me thinking that I should revisit that thought. Thanks for sharing your insight with us.
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Can Your Small Business Compete with the Big-Box Stores?My Profile

  12. This is true. Investing in excellent quality images will pay for itself many times over. Both your credibility, image and potential for sharing your content are all contingent upon this.

      1. That’s right Sherryl. You also have the right taste when it comes to choosing a relevant image.

        Thanks for stopping by Jeff. Sharing the right image does not only help in building credibility but also in improving engagement. Think of fixing those rather boring texts on a web page with an enticing image; it will entertain the visitor while offering value at the same time.

  13. I totally agree that photo sharing can increase your audience. To me Pinterest is one of the more popular photo sharing sites out there now, along with Tumblr. I posted a picture from one of my blogs and in a day there were hundreds of visitors from Pinterest. It wasn’t a personal picture at all. It was a recipe picture and lead back to my recipe blog.

    Depending on the site you run, photo sharing makes more sense than not.

    2. Yes, Pinterest is the latest social media crazy on the cyber space now and I have read several testimonies to its effectiveness. I have never failed to pin the images I used on my blog and have been getting a couple of visitors too. You said it right, when done the right way, photo sharing makes more sense than not. Thanks Linda!

  14. Usually private or personal photos attracts people more than business photo, and how to make business photos attractive enough to gain more audience belongs to another field that relates to creation. Thanks for your sharing anyway.

    2. Hi Jake. I have thought about this myself but come to understand that we all need that personal touch in our businesses. Ordinarily, people don’t like being sold; convincing somebody to take a particular action is always difficult, especially when it comes to making a purchase. And yet most businesses seek means of reaching more potential customers for their products, more clients for their services and more audience for their website. So, in that quest to sell a new customer, who wins? Is it the man that continually push out sales pitches hopping that people believe him, or the person that lives by example; showing potential customers what his products and services have done in his life and in the lives of other users? Bringing that personal touch to your business, website, or blog – many people are now waking up to the benefits of using the right image to achieve this.

  15. Photos makes posts searcheable. With the right tags and meta descriptions one could make photos appear during an image search. From a social audience point of view, with those services such as pinterest, it’s even better when somebody pins it or embed it with their own blogs or website giving more traffic.

      1. I agree with you George. And while making posts searchable, they also have a way of bringing liveliness to webpages thereby making them more enticing. When optimized like Sherryl pointed out, they can also increase the blogs reputation with the serps.

      2. Sherryl,

        Do you know or think this can be viewed as over optimizing or keyword stuffing with the new “Penguin” Updates? Or is that update more about off site practices?

        Any thoughts would be appreciated.

  17. Today picture search can bring you up to 50% of your traffic and it is very very nice if you make a genuin shots and share them with people.

  18. The ideas of photo sharing captures a thousand words. Photos easily got our attention and it get us curious every time we see an amazing pictures.

    2. That’s true Becca. The curiosity is what creates the buzz and when coupled with a nice description, photo sharing can make a valuable traffic generation strategy for any blog or business owner.

    2. Depending on the nature of your business, personal photos can gain you more trust from your audience, bring them closer to you and show them you are a living testimony to the effectiveness of what you teach, sell or the services you render. It takes common sense to figure out the right photos that can complement your products or services in this manner.

  20. Keeping balance between being human and remaining the “authority” is important. You definitely do not want to come across as ordinary, because then your message and brand can be diluted.

    Mastering the blend of human & the expert is key.

    Thanks for the post, great info to move forward with!

    1. Well said Venessa, and it is actually has to be done with hard work and 100% dedication, so that every one will get their goal.
      Arjun Rai recently posted..Bigcommerce ReviewMy Profile

      1. Thanks Arjun, I absolutely agree!

        Consistently keeping the goal (or outcome) you are intending in mind is crucial. Viewing the message holistically, instead of as an isolated exercise.

    1. Thanks Amit. Great to hear you are already leveraging the benefits of this strategy. And hey, those are nice tips on laptop shopping. They are handy!

  22. People like to engage more with friendly style blogs and photo sharing is one of the best way to make your blog more friendly and engaging. We could also add videos to catch more viewers attention.
    Pete Goumas recently posted..The Names of The Days of The WeekMy Profile

  23. Very interesting thought on photosharing. Somehow personally it would not be enough. I still need text to photos like on a squidoo lense. There are areas where photos add a lot of value such as showing once own creations in cupcakes or places to visit.

    1. When both are combined, they can work like magic; Photos entice and bring in interested viewers and the text delivers the message. Have you thought of something like that Peter? I am glad you liked the ideas!

  24. I have noticed this on Facebook Sherryl. I often share something that I think people will find important and it gets little response. I sometimes share images just because I like them and they do tend to get noticed, liked and shared.
    I was just reading some stuff about info graphics on the blog of a mutual friend and it’s got me really thinking about making some.
    Who knows, I might even get round to taking a look at Pintrest but I’m having a bit of information overload at the moment. Trying to get my head around several social sites at the moment.
    Men, we just can’t multi task!
    Steve recently posted..Traffic Travis 4My Profile

    1. It’s funny that you mentioned infographics and Pinterest in the same comment Steve. Infographics is the one thing that I share most on Pinterest. I have no fear of copyright issues sharing them because everyone who creates infographics clearly posts their URL and/or website at the bottom. I’m a huge fan of them but I haven’t created them either. I need to follow the advice in here and include more images in my posts. So far, my idea of an image tends to be screenshots. 🙂
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Marketer vs Marketing: What Difference Does a Keyword Make?My Profile

  25. I have my photos (with some art) blog separate from my business/tech blog – now you are getting me to think about putting some of my photos on my biz blog. If I can relate it to the topic…

    2. The good thing about this is, it helps to make your audience see the human side of you. When they can see that all these ‘tips and tricks’ are not coming from an alien, but a normal person with a bit more knowledge and experience in the field, it will gain you more trust from them… and you know what that means to any blogger! I am glad you found these interesting Leora!

    1. “Wordsmith” is a good word to describe both of us Jeannette. I rarely think of including photographs and I have to remind myself to include video. I have to confess, sometimes when I’m viewing gorgeous photography on a site, I can’t resist mousing over the image to see if the author optimized the image for SEO. I guess it’s my inner Geek coming out. :).
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..The Rise of the Cyber Cold WarMy Profile

    2. Yes, and the personal touch means a lot to any business that depends on audience/customers to survive. The right questions be asked, which business/blog/website doesn’t? People love and are attracted to ‘simplicity’ and this is one sure way of bringing this quality in any business with an online presence. Thanks Jeannette!

  27. I totally get what you’re saying. The old adage “A picture is worth a thousand words” comes to mind. I am an artist that creates and posts my work in my blog subject. My art has been a driver for my blog. I have just recently started picking up my camera as another way to create images to use in my posts as well.

    You have given much to think about and some ways I could expand interest in my art and my blog. Thank you for that. :), Susan
    Susan Cooper recently posted..Flowers For Mother’s DayMy Profile

    2. Thanks Susan! Those are gorgeous flowers for Mother’s Day. They will look as great on Pinterest; don’t forget that. I am glad you found these tips helpful.

Comments are closed.