Visual social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Vine have made it possible for humans to share photos and videos easier and faster than ever before. These tools have significantly changed the way we communicate. For example, you may not have much interest in your second cousin’s honeymoon to Spain. If she chose to share anecdotes from the trip with you via a mass email to the whole family, you might be treated to a wordy description of her hotel’s linens, the lovely view from the balcony where she ate dinner last night, and maybe even a paragraph about how a red dress in a window reminds her of your grandmother’s sense of style.
If she shares via social networks, you might see an autopost of her underwhelming TripAdvisor review with photos of the rusty air conditioner in her hotel room, an Instagram photo of her husband’s dinner plate with the sunset behind, and perhaps a nostalgic tweet with a Vine video of her twirling in the red dress.
These two styles of social sharing represent opposite ends of the text vs. imagery spectrum. If you’re not yet comfortable with the second style, buckle up, because the visual takeover is here to stay: Imagery only strengthens the asynchronous emotional connections social media has enabled.
Now that most Americans carry a camera in their pocket and many walk around with an ever-present connection to the Internet, it’s no surprise that we see more photos on the internet. What is surprising is how quickly it’s happening.
source: http://www.slideshare.net/fullscreen/kleinerperkins/kpcb-internet-trends-2013/14
With MMS, Google Hangouts, FaceTime and other personal visual communication tools, messaging by image is often easier, especially for the silver set. My in-laws joined Facebook last summer and the only items with which they interact are images; for them, Facebook is a community photo album. They post photos, like others’ photo sets, and share jpgs of inspirational quotes, but after a year, have yet to post a text-based status update. Facebook’s own usage data has long suggested that photographs were the company’s bread and butter, but until recently, the company’s image handling tools were rough at best. Attempting to upload a few images at at time resulted in a spammy, multiple-post stream of separate photos. This was corrected only a few months ago with some simple interface enhancements. Now Facebook has even released a photo app for the sole purpose of creating photographs that are Facebook-bound before they even exist.
Over the past several years, more and more social networks have been upping their game, and many newcomers specialize in image handling (Instagram, Pinterest, SnapChat). If the youthful early adopters who create trends are any indication, the visual takeover has already arrived. In my first days with the Obama campaign’s 2012 digital team, my co-workers (median-age: 22) introduced me to a new form of corporate communication: entire email threads containing mostly static images, interspersed with animated gifs. These weren’t mission-critical missives, but they were actual work emails filled with screenshots, Ron Swanson memes, MS Paint mockups, and even more memes, this time featuring kittehs. The interactions were clear and nuances were communicated, but few, if any, lines of text accompanied the images. Even reply-all emails that went to 300+ members of the digital team were often in the form of an image, rather than words. These professional pictograms became the norm–they added levity and were quicker and more effective than typing out a note. It’s important to state that these messages weren’t work breaks…they were the work, just in a visual format.
The other subtle shift worth mentioning is that photographs are no longer used primarily to record moments that have already happened. I’m old enough to remember my grandparent’s slide parties; after returning from a trip, they would invite the whole family over for a meal and treat us to a carousel full of their vacation photos. Ten years later, I would wait at the drugstore for my one-hour photos of shenanigans from night before, then rush back to my college dorm to share with friends. Today, a tourist is just as likely to text their travel companion a photo of a cafe as a way-finding device to help coordinate a lunch date.
That’s a big change: captured imagery is now part of the experience, rather than a way to remember the experience. In the context of expressing your institution’s brand in the digital space, this means that photos and videos are not companion content. They’re the main event.
Part 2 of this blog post series will cover visual media best practices for higher education and examples from institutions that are doing it right. Stay tuned!