The strength of visual elements

I have come to realise that people in the 21^st century seem to prefer images to text (and for good reason!). Who likes reading a massive paragraph of text when you can just glance at an image and understand it? There have been so many new apps which revolve around posting an image with appropriate hashtags and captions, as that is what teenagers want. They don’t want an app which allows you to post a massive paragraph of text as they won’t bother reading it. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and all the various apps which allow you to improve your images by placing various filters, borders and effects on the photo are all photo sharing apps. Members of the public love using these, as it is an easy, fun and simple way to stay updated, informed and educated.

Whilst being at my internship at Lamont’s I have been capturing some images on my digital SLR to put on the Lamont’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. One of the girls at Lamont’s told me how users prefer to see an image of an upcoming event (even if it be a poster with the details of the event) rather than a paragraph of text outlining the event details. She proved to be incredibly correct, therefore I have been capturing some images of food and drink associated with the particular event and posted it on Instagram and Facebook and used a relevant caption to link to the event. This has been successful, however it is difficult to judge whether or not ticket sales for events have increased primarily because of this. The images do help to keep followers and fans updated at what is occurring at Lamont’s. 

Visual elements have proved to be very successful in the marketing world, through an ever increasing amount of people signing up to social media sites allowing them to post images of new products. From a personal view, I follow a few clothes stores online which post images of new stock and just the other day they posted an image of a dress which I really liked so I went down to the store and purchased it. I would not have dropped into the store if I had not seen that image, as I had no reason to visit the store. Social media has allowed anybody to easily be able to create and publish content with the click of a button and this has paid off very well for organisations, restaurants, retail shops and large companies. Overall visual elements are what people of the 21^st century are interested in and Lamont’s has helped me to realise how important an image is. As they say “an image is worth a thousand words” and “I didn’t believe it until I saw it”.