Say what?

Snap and share

Photos can make or break your social media reach. Experts say including some visual aspect, whether it’s an infographic, a chart or just a standard photo, will help a post go viral and increase interaction with other users. Take Facebook, for instance. According to the social media site, posts including a photo generate about 120 percent more engagement than the average post, while posts including a photo album generate about 180 percent more engagement (on.fb.me/13ekSoF). Following the trend, Facebook unveiled a new capability last year for users to upload photos into the comments.

Ready to break out that digital camera (a smartphone will also do) and start snapping? Here are three tips for incorporating photos into your social media streams:

1. Fill the frame.
In Inc.’s article “Better Social Media Strategy: Show, Don’t Tell” (bit.ly/inc-photos), the author recommends getting a close-up shot of your subject. Because photos are usually viewed as a small, thumbnail-sized version on social media sites, it’s important that a viewer can see the subject clearly in such a small size. So if you want your customers to see the unique patterned petals on your new petunias, make sure you zoom in and fill the frame.

2. Use keywords.
A photo of potted mums isn’t going to show up in search engines if the name of the file is IMG324.jpg. That’s why marketing expert Heidi Cohen says to “associate relevant text with your images” in her Social Media Examiner article titled “13 Tips to Combine Photos and Social Media for Greater Exposure” (bit.ly/sme-photos). She recommends using keyword-based file names and alt tags. To stick to our potted mum example, you might want to name it red_potted_mum.jpg, or something similar. Cohen suggests looking over Google’s image suggestions, which you can find at bit.ly/google-image-suggestions.

3. Avoid redundancy.
In her Small Business Trends article, “Social Media Tips for Small Business,” social media and marketing professional Ilana Bercovitz says that posting the same photo to multiple social media sites will result in a loss of followers (bit.ly/small-biz-socialmedia). She writes that you need to take the time to research the social media sites and post what is best suited to each. Photos of visitors to your greenhouse may be more suitable for Facebook than LinkedIn.