#ContentWritingChat: Finding/Creating Great Media to Go With Your Content
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#ContentWritingChat March 22 Recap: Strategies for Finding/Creating Great Media to Go With Your Content with Kelsey Jones

by | Mar 25, 2016 | ContentWritingChat

#ContentWritingChat March 22 Recap: Strategies for Finding/Creating Great Media to Go With Your Content with Kelsey Jones

Did you miss this week’s #ContentWritingChat? Well, you’re in luck because we have a full recap! We talked all about finding and creating media (images, videos, and audio) to go with your content. Keep reading for some of the highlights from the chat and start implementing these tips into your online presence.

#ContentWritingChat March 22 2016 Recap: Strategies for Finding/Creating Great Media to Go With Your Content

For this week’s chat, our guest host was Kelsey Jones. Kelsey is a Marketing Strategist and the Executive Editor at Search Engine Journal, where our CEO Julia is a guest contributor. We love SEJ and we were honored to have Kelsey join us! She shared her best tips on creating great media to go along with your blog posts, social media, and more – our hour was packed full with information!

Julia was unable to make it, unfortunately, due to her baby toddler being sick – but we still managed to have fun. 😉

Q1: How do you find or create the perfect video/image/audio?

When we’re creating media, we always want to ensure it’s our absolute best! How do you do that? It seems the participants of Tuesday’s chat were pretty unanimous with their answers.

Kelsey, Village Print & Media, and Hannah all agree that you need to keep your audience in mind when creating images, videos, and audio content. Your audience is the most important thing and you want to ensure you’re creating media that will resonate with them. Plan your message and figure out what your audience is most drawn to.

Q2: What are some tips on creating great images to share in blog posts?

When it comes to blog posts, it’s important to add at least one image to your written content. A great image will help get your audience’s attention and keep them interested. To create amazing images for your next posts, read these tips:

Liliana and Amel are spot on! Make sure the images you create for your posts are actually related to your written content. You can’t just put any old image together. It needs to complement your post.

Hannah offered some good advice with her answer: Learn, test, optimize. Don’t be afraid to try new things to see how your audience responds. You just want to make sure you always stay on brand!

Make sure you don’t go overboard with your images! As Brittany pointed out, images that are too large can slow down your page loading time. If your page takes too long to load, you risk losing out on potential readers who don’t want to wait.

If you’re looking for another way to step-up your images within blog posts, try Kate’s tip! She recommends creating graphics out of some of the strongest quotes within your posts. It’s a great way to ensure they stand out and are seen by your audience.

Q3: What are some tips on creating great images to share on social media?

It’s important to have a great image to include with your social media posts because it helps your content stand out in a busy timeline. Kelsey, ThinkSEM, Varun, Village Print & Media, and Partha all shared some helpful tips:

When creating images, you should always keep Kelsey’s advice in mind. Use the right kind of fonts for your brand/business. Fonts convey a certain personality and you want to make sure you’re using the right ones for your images.

For example, fun and playful fonts won’t be the best fit for a corporate company, but work well for a creative business.

As ThinkSEM and Varun said, make sure you keep sizing in mind when creating images for social media. Each platform has guidelines when it comes to an ideal size for graphics. Figure out which sizes work best for each platform and make sure you design accordingly!

As always, make sure you have your audience in mind when creating any kind of content! Village Print & Media suggests designing images that will get your audience’s attention and are relatable, inviting, creative, and neat.

Partha offered some fantastic advice with his answer: include a call to action (CTA). Use your images to tell your audience what to do next.

Q4: What are some of the best tools for creating great media?

If you’re looking for some new tools to try out to help you create amazing media, our chat participants offered a lot of great suggestions. Check them out:

ThinkSEM recommends using Photoshop/Lightroom, Canva, or PicMonkey. Although, sometimes it just doesn’t get better than getting behind the camera, right?

So many people in Tuesday’s chat raved about Canva, which should come as no surprise because it’s a fantastic tool. We use it here at Express Writers too! Pablo by Buffer is another good way to create images quickly and easily.

Thinking beyond images, Kelsey says she loves to use Instagram and Facebook for events. She also recommends everyone checks out Blab. It’s an awesome way to add live streaming video to your online presence.

Q5: Are there limitations to what you can create? When should you hire a designer?

Should you hire a designer? Should you do it all yourself? It depends! Here’s what we learned in the chat:

Kelsey and the team at Search Engine Journal know the importance of a great designer. Their designer helps create images for podcasts, webinars, and more.

As Brittany said, you’re only limited by yourself. If you want to get better at creating graphics, start reading up on design tips and implement them. You can get better the more you learn and the more you practice!

If you find that you’re still struggling to get your designs just right, consider hiring someone to help.

Q6: What kind of media works best in blog posts?

Are you wondering what kind of media works best in your blog posts? Netvantage Marketing, Shannon, Kelsey, Kate, and Kristen all offered some great advice.

As Netvantage Marketing and Shannon said: consider your audience. Give your audience the types of media they are looking for and make sure it fits the content of your post.

Kelsey recommends going beyond just sharing images in your blog posts. Add social media content and embed videos as well!

As Kate pointed out, you need to keep mobile users in mind due to load times, user experience, and data limits. Make sure you always test your content on mobile before you publish it. Your blog posts should not take long to load and they should always be easy to navigate on mobile devices. Also, remember that some people are limited to how much data they can use on their phones. If you embed a video, consider adding a written transcript for people who can’t watch.

Kristen knows that many people today love GIFs! Take advantage of that by incorporating GIFs into your blog posts when appropriate.

Q7: How can you work storytelling into your visuals/media?

Make sure your visuals/media tell a story to your audience. If you’re not sure exactly how to do that, read these tips:

Kelsey said it’s important to take the time to get your images right. It’s not just about what your images say. You need to make sure they have the right style and that they are high quality.

ThinkSEM recommends making your audience part of the content. Add quotes, statistics, and information relevant to your readers.

Your images can evoke an emotion within your audience. Make a connection with them by tugging on their heartstrings like McKinney & Associates said.

Both Varun and Kristen know the importance of incorporating real people into your media content. Varun says to share real stories of people who have been positively impacted by your product/service. Kristen agreed, saying that it helps to humanize your story.

Q8: What are safe practices to be aware of when using/creating visuals to avoid licensing issues?

Don’t think you can just go around the web pulling any images you like. There are copyright issues you need to be aware of. If you want to avoid any licensing issues, keep these tips in mind:

Like Kelsey, many people like to use Creative Commons to find images for their graphics. If you do, be sure to properly attribute the source.

You cannot just Google Image Search a topic and use whatever you find. Most of those images are copyrighted and could get you in a lot of trouble if you use them.

If you’re buying photos, make sure you know what the limitations are. Some photos can be used for any type of media, while others are for editorial use only. Make sure you take the time to read the fine print.

Finally, if you really want to be on the safe side, try taking your own photos. You can’t get in trouble if you’re taking the photos for all of your graphics.

We look forward to seeing you at the next #ContentWritingChat! Mark your calendars weekly for Tuesday at 10 AM CDT for great chats centered around content writing and marketing!

Tags: creating media | kelsey jones | twitter chat