Now, more than ever before, information is coloured by how well it is presented. The attractiveness of the piece of content you are sharing will determine how much or how little people will connect with it.

In the last 6 to 8 months I’ve noticed how massively visual website and blog design has become. Look at the re-design of Mashable.com – that alone shows how things are moving. I have to say that some of it is a bit too much for me – in that I have no idea where to look to find what I want and I have to step away from my screen to actually see what I am looking at. (Oversized visuals for my 15” screen). So I guess “balance” in design, as ever, is still key.

What I do like about the move to visual though is that it makes you really think about simplifying your message and reducing your text. The attention span of social media audiences is incredibly short, select and fickle. Businesses using the social space to market themselves and/or cultivate relationships with new and/or existing audiences have to understand this.

If you want to stand out as a business:

• Plan your content
• Take each piece of content and mind map how else it could be communicated (i.e. in text, or an image, or as an infographic, or as a Vine / Instagram Video / YouTube video)
• Mix up where you share the content (across all platforms)

Remember that high res images in your blog posts are really important so that when it’s shared across the different platforms it is still eye catching and draws interest. It is important to note here that once you get the hang of making more visual content – try to avoid doing the same kind of thing all the time. It is still crucial to mix up the format of content you are sharing (so not JUST visual sharing…but also text only, links, etc).

Struggling for inspiration for a more visual mode of sharing? Try looking at Flickr, Instagram and Pinterest more – in terms of following the usual people and businesses that you do. You will soon see how interesting you can make a message.

Some Ideas of visualising text:

• Embed testimonials in an image (picture or designed)
• Create an image with top blog points to insert in blog post
• Use infographics to demonstrate trends, top tips, demographics, points of view

I will also say – before closing off that Twitter has become more and more of a visual platform, so do not minimise the importance of also sharing more images on that platform!

What do you like “seeing” in your newsfeed – what catches your eye?