Twitter images; do you have them covered?
If you have been experimenting with using Twitter images you might want to learn how to attach a picture that actually generates a reaction.
You might have thought all images are equal but you’d be wrong. Some are definitely more equal than others and a PhD researcher has proved this fact.
Would you post a selfie on your business account?
As a business owner you may well think that a selfie belongs on a teenage Facebook page. This is not so. Business selfies are gaining traction. They can help to personalise brands or corporations and provide a human face both literally and metaphorically.
Twitter images have the power to engage if you use the right one
Aditya Khosla studying at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab has been fascinated by the power of images to engage. Research based on more than 2 million Flickr images has enabled an algorithm to be developed. It shows just what chance an image has of being noticed and shared.
Colour, sexiness and tags
Having set up a specific website for people to upload their own selfie for assessment the resulting research has discovered the magic recipe. Your selfie image must have colour, an element of sexiness or desirability and tags.
We are victims of hard wiring
However technological and sophisticated we become, ultimately we are wired in a specific way to seemingly prefer bright colours. Pink and yellow are the key shades here. Blue and green tones should definitely be avoided in the foreground. So you might want to review those company selfies featuring green and blue.
Bikinis, legs and underwear
The depressing aspect is that sexiness is still a powerful currency. Shots that feature lingerie, plenty of leg and bikinis have a disproportionate amount of attention. You might want to call this ‘positive impact’. What that means in a politically correct environment is anyone’s guess. It appears monkey mentality prevails in some online behaviours.
Finally tagging will help your image be exposed to as many people as is relevant. Who knows where it will be shared across various networks. So when in doubt tag as many as is practical.
The human face is always fascinating wherever you see it
There are other findings too. For example the human face is still an overriding connector. It is almost 40% more likely to attract a ‘like’ and just over 30% likely to attract comments. Test it out. In terms of the number of faces or the gender included in any image these are not a major consideration.
Corporations, services and brands could do well to ensure their images contain human faces. We all need to work hard to explore just what will make them attractive to social media users.
Modify Twitter images to boost popularity
So what does this mean to any marketing team or individual using images on twitter to provoke engagement? Principally consider the colour, the image’s overall attractiveness and the tags you could use. Soon you will be able to automatically modify images to boost popularity. This may well make them more memorable even if you only amend the colour palette on pic monkey for example. You may also design eye-catching Twitter posters and covers by using these preset Twitter Post Templates and Twitter Cover Templates in Fotor.
Meanwhile if you want to test the potential success of your image try submitting it right here popularity.csail.mit.edu