Tag Archives: Pinterest

Show, don’t just tell: how visuals shine a light on your business

Two years ago, I had a client storytelling challenge on my hands.eye photo

A large healthcare company wanted to let its customers know that a new portal would more efficiently track their information. When customers called to update address or insurance plan change requests, they wouldn’t have to spend 20 minutes on the phone with a customer service agent who would usually have to go five different places on the back end to update. Since my client company had invested millions on its new portal, it wanted to give it some publicity on its intranet and website. I brainstormed with my graphic designer to come up with visual ideas to be part of the outreach.

If I had this challenge today, going to our iStock photo account to find an image to convey “portal” would have been only one of several options at our disposal. With more tools available now and the importance of video more widely known, we could post a short demo showing how customer service agents were using the portal, send an infographic to customers to show how much more efficient their call with the agent would be, or put together Slideshare  illustrating concepts and processes behind development of the portal.

And why would it have been important to use these visual tools for outreach? Continue reading →

Twitter is like handing out leaflets in Venice, and other social media musings

I occasionally let it slip to people that a set of images comes to mind when I think of the various social networks. I find these mental visuals helpful when I’m trying to decide how to best position a message, post, or strategy to fit each network.

My esteemed colleague Leslie thought my (possibly overactive) imagination might offer some insights into one of the ways we strategize for each network. Do you do something similar? If so, we’d love to hear about it in the comments below! Meanwhile, here are my musings:

Courtesy of CNET

Image courtesy of CNET

Twitter to me feels like an open-air market in a public square (specifically, I imagine the Piazza San Marco in Venice, Italy!). Although the image of Twitter being like a cocktail party is evidently a popular one, I personally envision every Twitter user as having a table in the circle of the town square. Most people have left their tables and are in the middle, milling around and observing news, information and opinions the other tables are broadcasting. Sometimes a group of loyal fans congregate around a specific table, studying its flyers and conversing with its merchant and each other; and some even pick up the leaflets and help distribute them amongst the crowd (those would be retweets!). And sometimes the whole square starts to buzz with common news and shared experiences (those would be the trending topics and #hashtags). Continue reading →