How to Use Images that Stir Reaction in Your Writing
For years we’ve heard that content is king. And while this is true, the different kinds of content you interact with on the web can make a difference in whether your story is seen or read. Telling your story with words is great, especially if you’re a writer, but can be boring.
Tell your story with images. It grabs attention and stirs a reaction. Many people are visual. They need to see an image to understand what you are trying to teach them, tell them or get your point across. Lean how to take an image and grab your readers attention.
Influencing your readers by stirring some sort of reaction or emotion in your writing is an important aspect in your content marketing strategy. You want to get your readers to feel deeply, either positively or negatively. They will be more likely to share your content, remember you and return to your blog and more likely to buy from you.
Of course, you want to evoke emotion with words as well. But to get people to really see what you’re saying learn how to use images within your content.
Here’s some ideas on how to use images to stir emotions:
Use Images and Colors to Create Significance
Bright colors and vibrant images grab your reader’s attention. Choose colors that create feelings of happiness, trust or excitement.
Use relevant images. Don’t use clichéd images, though. Or overused stock images. If you’re writing about office supplies, select an image of a organized office instead of a simple stapler.
Basic color psychology can help you get a better understanding of how color affects our mood. A course I took in college on the basics of color theory taught me how different shades of yellow can make us feel happy and optimistic, for example.
Images that have blues and greens inspire feelings of tranquility and calmness. On the other hand, images with oranges and reds inspire them to take action.
Your image should show your readers an emotion.
A child crying.
A sunrise.
Street dancers.
A dog baring its teeth.
The mountains, ocean or waterfalls.
Search for images that evoke
- fear
- vulnerability
- compassion,
- laughter
- frustration
- fascination
- comfort
- curiosity
Choose images that are eye-catching or clever. For example, if you are selling a book on weight loss, an eye-catching image of a before and after shot is relevant.
Look for images that entertain your readers. These could be graphics or infographics you have created or cartoons or simply a clever image.
The best kinds of images to use in your visual marketing are images with a story and images that demonstrate. A story appeal image is best for the top of your page since it gives a strong sense of curiosity to your viewer. He sees it and wants to know what is going on in the image. So he reads the copy that follows it to find out.
Using images in your visual marketing is a natural way of showing as well as telling. You should be doing this using entertaining, clever, eye-catching images that are placed in the right area of your website or marketing product.
You can easily edit your images to get what you want by cropping or combining images. I use PicMonkey to quickly change the look of images.
Do you use images that tell a story? Share your favorite photo links andwhat they mean to you.
