AUTHOR

Humritha K

Humritha has spent her life using her personal and career experiences in writing articles, engaging blogs, etc. Purses B.E in CSE, written 1000+ articles in both tech and non-tech related niches. An expert in SEO Optimization and worked as HR and all related activities.

How to Develop Visual Content for Your Business?

Visual content is a great way to attract audience and its impact cannot be denied. A website with stunning visuals is going to gain lot more followers than a website that lucks visual content. Look at the kind of impact Draftss creates by offering you to create your own customized website and the kind of design templates that are available to users. Lets look at a few statistics to understand the impact of visual content LinkedIn posts that have images are ninety eight percent more likely to get commented on average. Tweets with visual content have three times more engagement. Any Facebook post with photos gets more likes and comments. Fun fact: You are sixty five percent more likely to remember information with images than a bland text! Your visual strategy must include Knowing what piques your audience’s interest. Research and try A/B testing on your content to figure of what works best for you! Every social media platform is different and unique in it’s own way. An Instagram story has a different set of audience while LinkedIn needs a more professional approach. You don’t want to be posting memes on LinkedIn and hire people on Facebook, wouldn’t that be crazy? If you are an oat milk company, then using relevant theme is important. Using a cow milk themed post for oat milk would be inappropriate right? So yes, choosing an appropriate theme is important. If you, as a business, are coming out with offers targetting certain festivals like Christmas or Diwali, your content should be timed accordingly. There are some best practices for creating social media visuals Your image must be focussed on a single subject. Using natural light for your images. Too much exposure or too dark an image? Neither are good. An image with contrast provides balance and helps the audience since the content is easier to read. Your image and the message you are trying to convey must be easy to understand. Subtlety is good. Don’t use too many filters and animations on your content. While keeping the above points in mind, it is easier to hire a professional to do your work. But you could still have budget constraints for which there are plenty of free online tools and resources to work. Boundary Issues While working with visual content, it is important that there are boundary issues to be kept in mind. What do I mean by that is the copyright issue. If you are want to use images from other websites, it is best to use pngtree or unsplash which have tons of free images. Some of them offer a download limit on the number of free images you can download. While using free images that don’t have copyright issues is always a welcome, there are serious consequences for misuse of images with copyright. Read the fine print of the images, templates and inquire with the image owner wherever it is unclear.  Give credit wherever it is due While posting images, do not forget on one thing…And that’s the size. Using the wrong size can be kind of a mood spoiler. The wrong aspect ratio or low resolution photos can be blown out of proportion by being stretched or even cropped. You must use images of highest quality, not forgetting pixels and it’s resolution. There might be times when you want to post an Instagram image but the platform edits and crops out some parts of it. It is up to you to edit it and adjust it according to the platform that you are using. Here are some image sizing hacks Different devices display different stories and vertical contents differently. Remember that! Always preview your visual content before publishing. Use Google Analytics to get insights into the kind of device your audience use. You can animate your content if it if doesn’t fit the room. On Instagram, you can use carousels to divide your image before posting it. Since you are creating visual content, naturally you are bound to add some text occasionally. The text should be clear, concise, and readable. The text that you add should make your image stand out and add meaning to it. It should add value to your message. ProTips While adding text make sure to not commit any grammatical errors. Font affects your tone and legibility so choose it carefully. Mix fonts when needed. Write short sentences and not paragraphs on your visual content. Add pizazz to your text by animating it. If you are a photographer by profession and need your work to be recognized, do add your signature at the bottom corner of your image. It helps in creating your own brand! Diversity of Audience When you are creating content, considering the diversity of your audience always helps. If you are a music company and have fans among the LGBTQIA+ community, representing them in your visual content shows that you are both considerate and sensitive to their cause. It shows that you encourage diversity. If you are a company that encourages diversity hire, make a point to let the world know that you are open and appreciative. While keeping the above points in your mind, remember to add animation to your content. GIFs and videos ranging from high production to IGTV films narrate and add visuals to portray the subtle animations in your content. Wrapping Up There are times when a browser may not support your content. This is where adding an alternate text description will help. And in case your video is visible but not understood by your audiences since they belong to a different region, like Indian audience viewing Korean YouTube videos. Here adding subtitles will help along with a descriptive transcript in English. Most of all, do not forget to be creative. Creativity gets rewarded by likes, shares, comments, subscribers, sales and most of all loyal fans. The more creative you get, the more rewarding it will be!

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Unravelling The Dynamics Of Trends In The Content Industry

  As time has progressed, everything seems taking a new trajectory of its own. From designing to articulating. And from pictures to videos. It’s all fresh and dawn!  The same holds true whenever we refer to the content being created by any industry ( web, print etc.). Earlier when customers used to avail services from the company, it was all common and same for everyone. Moreover, there was hardly any creativity colour added to the product. How can you imagine the present age customers to consume “sameness”? Exoticism is today the key to the content industry. Besides that, a lot is happening in terms of playing with Content, experimenting with new concepts and coming up with out-of-box ideas.  Do you wish to know in detail about the changing trends in the Content industry? If you want to, then read these 5 amazing trends being followed by present content creators!  And get hold of the ones you like the most!   Best 5 changing trends in Content industry   Providing customized and user-friendly content   “Your customers want what they like, they don’t want what you like!”  This is the core mantra and guiding principle of today’s Content Industry. If you fail to please your customer, you lose the game. Creating content that is targeted to a particular user group has to be unique. For say you can’t make the same kind of logo/ graphic for a start-up than what you will do for a Multinational company. This varies from person to person and firm to firm. In a study, published in Demand Gen, there was a 20% rise in sales for those companies that delivered what their users wanted!  So this is something that’s visible today. There are many graphic designing companies like Draftss, who ask their customer what they want in terms of design. Thus, personalized Content is the new fad!    Less text and more visuals One will realise the importance of this trend when one will see what Apple is actually doing. In one of the most famous advertisements of Apple, you will see its iPhone with minimal text in the background. This is the strategy employed by renowned brands. They don’t really miss out on content part but then they do it tactfully. Rather than cluttering every bit of your layout in which you make Content, make it more diversified. In fact, diversification of content is what users want you to do. This means that today the trend is more of combining text, graphics, media, videos, art, infographics etc.   Niche based interactive content Now some industries are exploring by creating more interactive content. They are doing it through two-way interactions with their users by meeting them or creating content that touches their heart’s core. For say if a web designing company is making a graphic for kids, it will make it emotional. It also conducts regular surveys and polls. This way interaction is bound to happen.  Besides this, many companies are now making entirely exotic Content in terms of written material and products. They are doing so to set them apart from other commonly made content. For say Apple has unique iOS Content! Or Canva is renowned owing to its uniqueness!    More audio-video usage  Google is the best example of this latest trend. Today, what companies are doing is adding flavours to their Content. They are doing it by adding virtual assistants. Who doesn’t know the Google assistant? It’s the best example of how adding an audio assistant can make the content look creative and interesting. Besides that, companies are hiring graphic/web designers to make good videos for them. The video usage is going to make your content look amazing! And that’s what everyone is doing.    Influencer Marketing We all know the likes of content creators like Dolly Singh, Bhuvan Bham etc. on Instagram. They are social media influencers who are further employed by companies to market their brand. The companies are now complementing content creation with influencer marketing. They are not just making brilliant Content but also marketing and pitching it well.  That has made all the difference in the way content is consumed!    So we have figured out the way in which the content industry is improvising itself and setting new trends. The content is transcending all the rigid aspects and is now exploring the possibilities of doing something exclusive. After all, only when the consumers will consume good content once, they will consume it again!   

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Guide To Grow Your YouTube Channel And Create Better Content

Can’t stop watching videos on Youtube? Well believe it or not, you are not alone in this. According to a recent report, a single person anywhere on the globe is watching videos on this platform for an average of 30 minutes daily. This makes it the highest used video service platform of the world and that too for free! Well, only if you forget that it makes about 15 billion dollars annually from advertisements. YouTube has given content creators an amazing opportunity to publish their creative content and showcase it to the world. This platform has turned ordinary people into celebrities like Justin Bieber and Psy. In addition to this, the platform can turn any brand into a huge success by the use of video and banner advertisement, if it is used in the right way. According to a report by Go Global 2019, nearly 78.8%(i.e. 8 out of 10) of marketers consider it to be the most effective video marketing platform on the internet. This makes it ‘a place of opportunity’ for all. However, not everyone is doing great on this platform. There are a handful few, who are able to follow the winning Mantra and take the journey to the top. Therefore, the ultimate question to ask… Question: What is the winning Mantra? Answer: Observe and Analyse By observing successful Youtube channels, one can analyse a pattern followed by such channels. It is perhaps essential to see in which category your Youtube channel fits and what works in amassing not just a niche audience which consumes the particular information you offer but also audience in a general sense. Let’s discuss here some of the highly subscribed Youtube channels of different categories. Beauty and cosmetics: NikkieTutorials With about 13.4 million subscribers on Youtube, Nikkie Tutorials is one of the giants of Youtube channels in the beauty and cosmetics category. Started in the year 2008, she has been posting videos of DIY make-up tutorials, Reviewing beauty products and on hot topics related to cosmetics industry- Every week. Therefore, regular content creation and creating content of high quality plays a big role in growing your channel. Next is the use of Eye catchy thumbnails for her videos. This creates a good first impression and attracts the people visiting her channel to click on these videos to find out what they are all about. The use of beautiful graphics in her videos as well as in the designing of the thumbnails is exceptional. She also makes sponsored videos on demand from cosmetics brands to review their products which adds on to her fan base creating a trust factor for her audience. With the immense content created in the long run, she has been able to categorize them into video series which is a great tool available on Youtube and makes her subscribers consume huge content on the basis of their choice. When your content on Youtube is consumed by a huge audience, you also get the opportunity to monetize your videos by placing ads on them. This creates a source of regular revenue and also absorbs the cost of video creation in the future. Live videos or interactive videos are a great tool to keep your audience engaged and keep in regular conversation with them. They are used in a way where your subscribers watching them can talk to you on live chats during the video and you can answer them promptly. Art and Craft/ Life skills: 5-Minute Crafts Started in 2016, it has amassed an audience of over 67 million subscribers. This channel provides short videos of ‘Do it yourself’ art and craft which are graphically vibrant and addictive for any viewer to watch. But what makes these videos highly addictive is its ability to convince its viewers that these videos will just take a very small amount of time for them to watch. Interestingly, you will rarely find videos on this channel that are literally of 5 minutes duration. Therefore, short duration videos are more likely to be watched than longer ones. This can be achieved by either making the content crisp and to-the-point or by naming the videos in such a way that the viewer relates with them lesser time being spent like- ‘5 minutes craft ideas’. The use of exceptionally vibrant and catchy thumbnails makes it even more enticing for any viewer to watch. Graphic designing plays a big role in the making of these videos. Behind such scroll-stopping visuals is strong editing. No matter your skill level, a well-chosen YouTube video editor tool can help polish your content, keep viewers engaged, and grow your channel. Here too, you will find regular content creation being done and almost 3 videos per day being uploaded. With high viewership, they are able to monetize their videos and earn a lot of profit from ads placement on their videos. Gadget unboxing: Unbox Therapy Unboxing videos are becoming a huge trend on Youtube. The channel ‘Unbox Therapy’ has about 16.7 million followers at present and makes videos of unboxing new and trending gadgets whenever they are launched by big brands. This provides the channel with sponsorship from those gadget brands and keeps their fan-base intact with the right kind of reviews they provide to their viewers. The viewers of this channel get a kind of vicarious happiness of opening the box of a fresh new product and gives them a sense of satisfaction. The regularity of new and amazing content they upload on their channel, the graphically attractive thumbnails for the videos, the use of passive advertisement, live and interactive videos and categorization of videos in video series are a few takeaways from the growth of this channel. They also collaborate with other Youtubers who have gaming channels so that their viewers can have an opinion about the gadgets on the basis of gaming compatibility. Sports: Nike Nike’s Youtube channel is the highest subscribed among the different sports brand channels like Reebok, Adidas and Puma that are available on Youtube. Started in 2006,

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Visual Stories To Deliver Ideas & Influential Advertising

Throughout the ages, storytelling is something that has remained the constant and most preferred medium of delivering ideas. Whether it is ancient folktales that are passed on from generation to generation, or modern-day popular novels or comics, the storytelling is a wonderful way of letting a large mass of people know your idea, understand that idea, and get influenced by it somehow.Visual stories are told with pictures. They are a very efficient method of storytelling because human minds tend to remember pictures more than words. Thus, oftentimes we can recall the events shown in a film better than when we read in a book. This gives the upper hand to visual language over written language. You could use this to your advantage while selling any product or providing any service. Take, for example, you repair cars. Now, the most common form of advertisement is posters and written signboards, both online and offline. The farthest you can do is creating an official website with blogs promoting your service. But that would require your target readers to take out the time to read about your company and why they should prefer you. On the other hand, if you use unlimited graphic designs to tell a visual story for the audience which would require only 1 to 2 minutes then that becomes more preferable. What is being implied here is not that nobody reads nowadays or that no one cares about reading. It is not for that reason. The truth is, in the case of written language, the idea that you wish to share is confined to only those who speak or understand that particular language. But when you show something that has pictures or uses unlimited graphic design to tell something, the idea is broadcasted to a wider range of audiences. Those who do not understand English or any other popular language will also be able to understand your nature of service! So how do you tell a visual story that transcends the barriers of language, and is also appealing at the same time? Here are some top tips on how to efficiently tell a visual story: Try and tell a complete story This is something very basic and you have to keep in mind. When you are using visual stories for promotional purposes you should keep in mind that you will have to finish the story. It needs to have a conclusion where your service or your product saves the day or becomes beneficial. In case you want to create a series, your promotion should adapt to the series as well, and each episode should have concrete content that defines your idea and promotes your service. Moreover, you may choose from an illustration of still images like a comic or use animation tools to tell your story. In any case, use minimum words and more of action to show what you wish to convey. From this perspective, it is better to opt for animated stories as it captures movements better and the human mind can remember more of it. Your story should have a start, a climax and an ending or denouncement to mark the conclusion. While still images compilation are good as well, but the human mind is normally more attracted to moving bodies. Build a relatable protagonist This is something to keep the interest of your viewers glued to the screen. A protagonist is the main character of your story, and if this protagonist is someone too far removed from reality then your viewers will not be able to relate. Think about a popular comic, for example, Spider-man. The protagonist Peter Parker was someone quite relatable, with high school problems and being bullied. The supernatural elements were introduced upon a relatable character, which could have been any of us instead of him. This is what is appealing to the viewers- that the central hero could be one of them. Use this to your visual storytelling to hold your viewer’s attention. The fact that the problem that your service will solve could occur to any of your viewers is what you need to focus on. The protagonist needs to be someone ordinary at first, just as someone like the audience themselves. One with actual problems. This person seeks out the services of your company to get success at a particular area. This is hugely promotional. Understand the color combo! Graphic design colors in your visual story play a huge role, whether you understand it or not. Colors can bring out emotions and so it is really important you know which graphic design colors should be applied where. For example, darker tones of blue and grey are mostly used to create suspense or something mysterious. On the other hand, warmer tones such as red, brown, or orange might show a jovial mood. Lighter shades such as pink or yellow might depict playfulness or a cheerful environment. It is quite natural for you not to understand all the color codes or metaphorical use of graphic design colors and that is completely okay. Not knowing about this should not become a hindrance to your visual story. That is why there are companies such as Draftss that provide graphic design packages for small companies. They have a team of experts on graphic design colors and they will provide you with suggestions and ideas to improve your quality of visual graphics. Dark shades of blue and black and grey are used to arouse suspense. Note the mood this scenery arouses. Note the shift in mood for this image. This does not evoke the same eeriness as in the previous one. This is a warmer picture. Play your trump card at the end The most important parts of any content are the beginning and the conclusion. While the starting of your visual story should be impressive, the ending is what will remain in the minds of the viewer long after the story has ended. So save the best and most influential scene for the last.

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social media designs for your startup

Socialize your Startup

Digitalization In the era of digitalization, we are surrounded by information. It comes from anywhere and everywhere to a single screen. The traffic internet is observing stands at an all-time high and shows no sign to fall down in the near future. It, in turn, has provided a good base for the businesses and startups to reach out to a broader base of their customers with an influential concept and ease, businesses from their sideshow no less effort to attract the target base. Social Media Believe it or not, one of the fastest-growing media platforms has surpassed every other to stand out. The rise and reach social media has provided and continues to provide has left no stone unturned to attract the advertising industry from traditional marketing towards itself. The growth in a number of platforms and the network it has developed has been exceptional. But to the concern for businesses revolving around these networks and social media platforms to reach out to their customer base, it’s all about influence and what the customer base wants.   image source Design Industry The design industry has been surpassing all heights to discover the new horizons of the technology as well as visual aids. Since the era of traditional and now digital marketing, the constant stands tall. The customer base is observed to have been lured and attracted to the diverse colors of the industry. With all the services put forward towards them around a small canvas, designing has added flavors to social media marketing and has made its great contribution in the decisive part of the marketing strategies. Also to our astonishment, an overall of 90% is observed to enter our brains through visual sensory and this clearly marks the importance of marketing and designing put together.   People want to do business with you because you help them get what they want and this is what designing has done for the industry, to showcase the best and appropriate. The race towards the best is long and consistent and the journey to achieve it is longer. While social media has created a good reach for the businesses to the target base, designing has pulled over the base tight and quick. Designing itself has become a phenomenon in marketing and letting the customer base know and recognize you.   Types of Visual Contents Graphics Original graphics and attractive illustrations can make a huge difference when it comes to attracting customers and standing out of the ordinary. Here’s a unique example for a snacks business: image source Videos & GIFs The reach and involvement videos and GIFs have provided have stood unbeatable and continues to increase. Social media algorithms and the engagement possibilities have been creating the utmost platform for the video content and have made a great contribution. Photos Attractive and well-framed pictures with appropriate composition and effects help catch the eyes of the targeted customer base and increase the reach and engagement factor. And therefore it has become one of the most essential parts of a business to grow and expand. Reaching a larger customer base is no rocket science in the world where almost everyone has a digital presence over a platform of social media providing a platform for small businesses to grow with no boundaries but at the same time won’t be so easy while going without a proper graphic design and fighting over the algorithms of these social platforms.  

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