South African social media expert Dave Duarte has emphasised the use of infographics as part of online visual attraction in social media to boost search engine optimisation (SEO).
Duarte spoke last week at a Public Relations Network (PR-Net) event on the importance of social media in PR.
HumanIPO reported last week on the uses of evoking emotional responses through visual imagery on social media, another tip by Duarte.
Transforming data, usually found on documents and spreadsheets, into a visual template ensures bigger attention attraction, Duarte said on Thursday in Cape Town.
“It’s like search optimisation on steroids once you understand the principles,” he explained. “Put something out there and people just share it on social media.”
Social media is deemed the second most important ranking factor because of word association, following inbound links.
Duarte emphasised: “This for me is a critical skill and every agency needs that.”
Also serving as a novel form of content marketing, infographics can act as a replacement for technical methods to search engine optimisation including keyword building, key phrase lists and link exchanges.
“Now they suddenly got this infographics creation on and you know it sounds like churnalism. But the best way to get inbound links into a website these days is to create a visual release. Simple.”
Other tips shared by the social media expert include the importance of visual material captions, which draw out reaction.
“When you put things out there without description you are wasting a lot time,” he said.
It is better to use direct, “accurate terms” as a caption rather than not have any caption at all.
Referring to SEO, Duarte said the metadata associated with the picture or video will determine the search results as well as its ranking.
Furthermore, he recommends being engaged in online social community networking as much as possible in order to maximise personal or brand engagement.
Duarte added: “One of the ways in which you influence those you want to connect with is by connecting with the influential.”
Social media sharing with popularity markers such as “likes” and follows is based on the Matthew (13:21) principle, a Bible verse which states: “Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”
“The more you are liked, the more you will be liked,” Duarte formulated the application on social media.
Memejacking, the principle of engaging in a trending topic, is also encouraged.
