For several of our key clients we are testing out if adding images to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ posts increases customer engagement. With a visual statement winning out over just pure text, we wanted to find out if adding images to tweets and Facebook posts enhanced engagement?
For Facebook, if you insert an image versus letting Facebook simply import an image from the page content that you link to, you get two things.
- A larger image will appear on your Facebook page.
- You get to select the image versus only being able to select an image that appears on a page you link to. So you get greater control.
For Twitter, if you insert an image, get ready to re-write your post to that by the time the link is shrunk and the image URL is shrunk as well you have about ten to twelve words of text. That means you’d better have something great to say or you are just making your page look pretty.
This is what I have found out so far:
- Having images in Facebook and Twitter updates does make your pages on Facebook.com and Twitter.com look nicer.
- But, do images translate into more engagement – so far the answer is no.
- What gets engagement is still what you write and not necessarily not even what you link to and not the image you insert.
So content is still king, but having images does make your page look more appealing visually. My recommendation is where meaningful add an image like twice a week on Facebook and every several tweets on Twitter, but I would not recommend putting images into every update. Instead make your updates interesting and you’ll get a higher level of engagement.