程阳：非结构化数据，人们喜爱图表的科学道理

 

 

10 Reasons Why You Should Care About Visual Content Marketing

FEBRUARY 19, 2015      BY DANNY ASHTON

 

http://neomam.com/blog/13reasons/

 

Creating visual content can be expensive, time-consuming and difficult to produce. So, why bother?

1. We are suffering from information overload

information-overload

 

Every day the average person is bombarded with the equivalent of 174 newspapers worth of data.i In the middle of this information age, the ongoing increase in data has led to changes in the way users deal with new information.

 

2. We have less time to make an impact

Research conducted by Microsoft has shown that:

10 seconds

The time you have to clearly communicate your proposition if you want to gain a few minutes of a user’s attention.ii iii

 

 

10-seconds-for-content-to-make-an-impression

 

Added to that, data collected by Chartbeat has shown that 55% of users who view a page spend less than 15 seconds looking at it.iv

Those first few seconds are really important. However, you can’t just relax after that.

website-page-visit-time-graph

 

The graph above is an interpretation of Microsoft’s research by the Nielsen Norman Group.v It shows that the probability of a user leaving your page is greatest in the first 10 seconds – and this probability doesn’t significantly reduce until after 30 seconds.

 

3. Speed is no longer a technical problem

 

When it comes to consuming content in our age of information, speed matters.

In the pre-broadband era, users had to deal with a restricted download speed. Under these conditions, plain text and HTML were the fastest way to consume information online.

Nowadays, the average global download speed is 22.05MB on desktop and 11.3MB/s on mobile.vi

download speed comparison

Internet speed issues aside, technology has allowed us to move past the need for consuming information as written text. The bottleneck to processing and understanding information now lies in our brains.

 

4. Our brains process images much faster than text

visual content understanding

The invention of the press by Gutenberg in the 15th Century was a crucial element in the popularity of reading and writing. We could argue that the widespread understanding of the written word is only 560 years old, when in 1455 the first mainstream printed book arrived: The Gutenberg Bible.vii

In contrast, the processing of complex visuals can be pre-dated back nearly 300 million years, with the discovery of a fossilised fish, which used colour vision.viii

evolution of visual content

 

Visuals are processed faster because they have had the benefit of 300 millions years of evolution.

 

5. Visuals are already a solution for a real-world problem

 

Traffic signs are designed to convey all the necessary information in as little time as possible. If they were to rely on text alone, they wouldn’t be fit for purpose.

visual content proof

 

The second example takes only a few seconds. Why? It’s all down to how your brain processes information. The mechanics of it all can be a pretty complex process to explain, and since this isn’t a dissertation, let’s keep it simple.

A sentence is a collection of symbols, which when combined, conveys meaning.

A traffic sign is just one symbol that conveys meaning.

Put simply, it takes you more time to digest multiple symbols, than it does one.

road signs visual content

 

6. Visuals also help to increase understanding

 

medical visual content

In a study of learning aids by the Educational Technology Research and Development Journal, the understanding of information jumped from 70% to 95% with the introduction of images.ix

visual instructions infographics

 

In one of the tests, the group using the text and illustrations did 323% better compared to the group using text-only directions.

 

7. Visuals help to improve engagement on a website

 

According to a study by Curata, the inclusion of an image increased the website click-through rate by 47% when compared to text-only posts.x

infographics boost engagement

 

As a practical example of this, consider the below:

woman-tear

 

Both are similar in concept – they communicate that a woman is crying – but which did you find more engaging?

 

8. Visual content improves the Retweet rate on Twitter

visuals on twitter

Twitter has released research based on the analysis of over 2 million Tweets in the hope of understanding what fuelled a Tweet’s engagement. According to their findings, the use of image-based content provided a significant increase in the number of people who took action and decided to click ‘share the Tweet’ on their timelines. xi

The most effective Tweet features across all the verified accounts Twitter looked at were photos and videos:

The inclusion of a video increased Retweets by 28%

Tweets that included photos achieved 35% more Retweets

 

9. Visual content increases shares on Facebook

images visual content facebook

A study published by SocialBakersxii showed that photos took 87% of the share interactions across 30,000 brand pages, with no other content type taking more than 4% of the shares. xiii

10. Visuals make it more likely that users will believe what you are saying

One of the most interesting studies we ran across while writing this article was an experiment in which researchers examined the impact of non-probative information on truthiness.

Participants were given random statements such as “Macadamia nuts are in the same evolutionary family as peaches” for them to respond “true” or “false.” In 50% of cases, images were attached to the statement without necessarily confirming whether it was true or not.

Macadamia Nuts

‘Macadamia Nuts’ by Richard Ashurst

 

The results showed that participants were more likely to wager a fact was true when it was accompanied with an non-probative photo.xiv

TL;DR

With the massive increase in information we receive, and the corresponding increase in data bandwidth, the biggest hurdle to content marketers now lies in the brains of their audience.

We are wired – through evolution – to process images faster than text, so when we combine written and visual content, there’s a significant increase in understanding.

Content marketing with visuals is already leading to significant improvements in web and social engagement. If we assume that the amount of information we receive is only going to increase, visual content marketing will soon move away from a competitive advantage to a fundamental necessity for any marketer wanting to speak with real people online.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SCIENCE BEHIND WHY WE LOVE INFOGRAPHICS [INFOGRAPHIC]

October 31, 2015 Pete Schauer

 

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/technology-data/peteschauer/2015-10-31/science-behind-why-we-love-infographics-infographic

 

It's okay, you can admit it—everyone loves a good infographic.

 

I'd be lying to you if I didn't agree, especially being in the digital marketing field, but did you ever take the time to think about why we all fell in love with these beautiful displays of data points?

 

Luckily, the team at NeoMam Studios did the legwork for us, compiling this infographic on the science behind why we love infographics. Instead of using the cop-out that "no one reads anymore," NeoMam Studios actually dug into the scientific reasoning behind what makes our brains tick in relation to infographics.

 

One of the most interesting points is the fact that visual information has increased across all channels, with the Internet being the largest at a 9900% increase since 2007, and even newspapers made the jump, increasing the visuals in their content by 142% between 1985 and 1994.

 

The data also shows that the whole 'not reading' thing isn't necessarily laziness on our parts but rather science, since the brain is responsible for close to 50% of the visual processing we do. And since it only takes us 1/10 of a second to process a visual, it supports that fact that it's a lot easier to digest data points in an infographic than in paragraph form. Visuals in general also play a huge role in what we choose to pay attention to, as researchers found that images with color increase our willingness to read by up to 80%.

 

The last piece of data to think about is the fact that people remember 80% of what they see and do, which is a big jump when you consider that only 10% remember what they hear and 20% what they read.

 

Take a few minutes to digest the rest of the data and statistics that NeoMam Studios put together and try to remember some of them next time you're looking at an infographic.