What makes a social media campaign stand out and resonate with the right audience? Of course, you need a content calendar to maintain a consistent posting schedule. Also, you might need a team of graphic designers, photographers, animators, and other skilled professionals to create stellar visuals for your campaign.
But here’s the thing–uploading bland content isn’t enough to cut through the clutter on social media. You must ensure that your content establishes an emotional connection with the audience. The most effective way of doing that is to harness the power of visual storytelling.
Narrative-driven visual content helps grab eyeballs and engage your audience. It lets you present complex information in an easily understandable format. When done right, your audience will remember your content and share it on their social media profiles, too. You can even compel them to take other actions, such as registering for a webinar, subscribing to your email list or checking out a new product.
Nevertheless, many brands and marketers struggle with creating compelling story-driven visuals. In a recent survey, 20% of marketers who didn’t use video said it was too expensive. A third of marketers who didn’t use video said it was because they were time-strapped.
That doesn’t mean social media marketers with limited resources can’t enjoy the benefits of visual storytelling techniques. They just have to use the right tools to streamline the content creation process.
In this article, we’ll outline a few tools you can use to harness the power of visual storytelling for social media marketing. Let’s dive right in.
1. Lumen5 for videos to promote articles
When you think of visual storytelling, video is the first content format that comes to mind. However, traditional video production is resource-intensive, which is why many marketers hesitate to take the plunge.
Lumen5’s AI video creation platform helps overcome the challenges of ideating, creating, and distributing video content. For instance, you can use the AI Script Composer feature to turn blog posts, whitepapers, and other written content into captivating videos.
All you have to do is enter the blog’s URL or upload a PDF file. The generative AI-driven platform generates a script based on your content. Better still, it can generate relevant visuals to create a video that aligns with your blog post.
Engaging content with a creative video is healthy for marketing your articles. You can easily upload them on social media and reach a wider audience.
It’s an excellent way to repurpose written content into a more engaging format and reach a wider audience. The best part is that the process only takes a few minutes. If the article isn’t ready, you also have the option of creating a script and video from the outline.
2. Photoleap for photo enhancement
Photos continue to command high engagement rates on social media platforms like Instagram. Carousel posts with multiple photos attract even more audience interactions.
And no, you don’t need the skills of a world-renowned photographer to post stellar photos on Instagram. Instead, you can use Photoleap’s AI features to turn ordinary images into captivating visuals.
Whether you want to replace a dull background with something more eye-catching or extend an image beyond its original frame, you can do it with Lightricks Photoleap. You can fix focus and lighting issues and increase the resolution (up to 4K) with a few easy clicks.
Then, there’s the AI Image Style Transfer feature that lets you elevate a photo by applying its aesthetic flavor to another image. Plus, you have the option to add new elements or replace objects in a photo.
With these features, you can quickly turn dull photos captured on a smartphone camera into world-class visuals. In other words, you don’t need to invest in a high-end camera or professional photographer.
3. Moovly for animation
From cutout and whiteboard animation to flipbooks and claymation, animated videos come in handy drawing attention and explaining complex concepts. They can also help you attract audiences in different age groups and build a distinct brand identity.
But how do you create animated videos without hiring a team and building a full-fledged studio? You can use Moovly to create top-notch animated content with existing media assets.
You can upload your own images, videos, and audio clips and combine them with media from Moovly’s library to create animated presentations and videos. You can choose from more than a million royalty-free media assets, including illustrations, videos, music, and sound effects. That, in turn, allows you to create different styles of 2D and 3D animation videos.
4. Murf AI for compelling voiceovers
High-quality audio is an indispensable part of visual storytelling. Whether you’re creating a brand film or product demo, voiceovers help you capture and retain the audience’s attention. Plus, you can use them to convey a clear call-to-action and generate leads and sales from your content.
Murf AI, an AI-powered voice generator tool, eliminates the need for an elaborate audio recording setup. Instead, you can use the platform’s text-to-speech generator to create professional-grade lifelike voiceovers in minutes.
Murf AI lets you choose from more than a hundred human-like AI voices in 20+ languages. You can even find voices for different personas, including authors, coaches, educators, and marketers. Also, you can import images and videos and sync them with the selected voiceover, all on Murf AI.
5. Imgflip for trending memes
Memes are an excellent tool for capitalizing on the latest trends and building a friendly rapport with your audience. The use of humor in memes makes your brand seem more approachable and relatable.
With Imgflip’s meme generator, you can create branded memes from a library of pre-built templates. You just have to pick a template of your choice and add custom text. You can add other customizations, including illustrations and stickers, too.
Can’t come up with a suitable caption for your meme? Use the AI Meme feature to do the heavy lifting for you. Also, the “Hot Memes Right Now” section gives you an idea of what’s trending at the moment. Make sure you choose a template that’s relevant to your brand.
6. Adobe Stock for stock assets
Stock graphics, photos, and videos can be a lifesaver when you want to create visual content with minimal resources and time. They are just what you need to scale narrative-driven content creation for social media campaigns.
Adobe Stock offers an extensive library of high-resolution stock images, vector art, illustrations, and 4K video footage. You also get several royalty-free artist-designed templates for banners, flyers, videos, and more. The best part is that these templates are designed to work in Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, and other Adobe products.
Besides visuals, you’ll find royalty-free music from different genres, including film, folk, and pop, too. The library is also categorized according to different moods, such as festive, groovy, suspenseful, and more. That makes it easy to find the right music for your content.
7. Keyhole for social listening and analytics
Understanding what will resonate with your audience is a crucial part of visual storytelling. What better way of keeping a finger on your audience’s pulse than social listening?
With Keyhole, you can easily monitor conversations about your brand and products and analyze audience sentiment. Plus, you can keep an eye on content by competitors and industry experts to identify emerging and hot trends. These insights can help you create more relevant and valuable content for your audience.
Moreover, Keyhole offers a single dashboard to track content on different platforms, from Instagram and TikTok to X, LinkedIn, and more. You can monitor the reach, impressions, and engagement of posts on different platforms to get an idea of what’s hitting the right chord with your audience.
Streamline visual storytelling for social media campaigns
The combination of storytelling and visuals is the key to creating traction-worthy content on social media. The good thing is that creating narrative-based visual content doesn’t have to be expensive and time-consuming.
With the right tools, you can build a scalable visual content strategy, even if you have limited resources. From AI-powered photo editing software and voiceover generators to social listening platforms, you can use various tools to make content creation a breeze. All you have to do is select the right tools that fit your campaign’s unique requirements.
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Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is visual storytelling on social media?
Visual storytelling refers to the use of photos, graphics, animation, videos, and other visual content formats to build a narrative. From Reels and TikToks to YouTube Shorts, you can use narrative-based visual content to connect with your audience. You can even upload stories on Instagram or Facebook to give your audience a sneak peek into behind-the-scenes action in your office.
2. Why is storytelling important on social media?
Visual storytelling techniques help engage your audience by presenting information in an easily accessible and understandable format. They also help build an emotional connection with your audience and compel them to take specific actions. With most brands clamoring for attention on social media, narrative-based content is the key to standing out.
3. What are the six steps of digital storytelling?
Creating story-driven visual content starts with developing a thorough understanding of your audience. Next, you need to outline a clear brand message, choose your content format, craft the narrative, and create your content. The final step is to monitor content performance, identify best-performing posts, and create similar content to maintain traction.
