The Power of Visual StoryTelling

This book walks its talk. Filled with examples and stats to back its message, the book tells readers how to engage social media audiences through visual storytelling. The book espouses seven, core visual storytelling elements:

• Design - capturing stunning, powerful visual imagery to tell your brand story
• Personalization - personalization of content by platform
• Usefulness - using social listening to uncover key themes and trends around which to craft visual content
• Be Human - have a personality, value the relationship, share experiences, and understand when to listen, when to be serious, and when to have fun
• Storytell - strategy requires that the content's storytelling element be just as important as the use of the visuals
• Be Shareworthy - the fastest and most effective way to achieve brand affinity is not through the brand's own message, but through building a strong network of advocates sharing your information, and participating with your brand (e.g. #BestSummerMoment campaign by Coca-Cola)
• Real-Time Amplification - developing a robust image and video library filled with content to share in real time offers companies a strong opportunity to add value in the moment to customer interaction and current events (e.g. @benefitbeauty #beautyboost)

There are plenty of examples throughout the book on how to effectively incorporate visual storytelling through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest using an array of content (e.g. memes, infographics, cartoons, videos, collages, user-generated images, and more). Each chapter expounds best use tips for each channel, like this one for Instagram "Design and lifestyle are a big part of Instagram, so think how your product works in people's lives."

Overall, I found it a very helpful book that I am happy to have as a continued resource throughout my social media adventures. I highly recommend it for its examples, and thorough advice and ideas for generating strategic storytelling campaigns with social media.