07.12 NewYorkAdB CW - IABC€¦ · audiences about your products? Your mission? Your services? Do they help humanize your orga-nization and show a more per - sonal side? Or show the

8 Communication World • November–December 2012

communiquétech talk by shel holtz, abc, iabc fellow

Picture perfectPost it, pin it—but make sure the point is clear

Are you taking one of the latest onlinecommunicat iontrends for granted?

Visual communication viastatic images is hot—though it’snot especially new. The first webbrowser, Mosaic, let people postimages, so photo sharing goesback nearly 20 years. As fasterbandwidth and remote storagebecame cheaper and more com-mon, people started storing andsharing their photos on sites likePhotobucket and Flickr. Face -book built its success in part byserving as an intermediary forpeople who wanted to showtheir pictures to their friends.

But only recently has visualcommunication become acraze. The sudden and indis-putable successes of Pinter estand Instagram indicate thatsomething is going on, some-thing different than the ho-humdigitization of analog photoalbums and 35mm slidecarousels. And it’s not justfriends sharing vacation photos.Organizations are beginning to see the potential value ofthese sites to connect with con-sumers—but only when the

For far too many,

the temptation to

start sharing images

as an organizational

communication activity

results in a tactic in

search of a strategy.

Organizations are beginning torecognize promotional value in

Pinterest (right) and similar sites.

communiqué

posted images resonate with theintended audience.

Photo sharing as a social activityInstagram, an almost entirelymobile tool, boasts 80 millionusers. They share their photoswith friends, colleagues, family,even complete strangers whoopt to follow them, Twitter-like.Those photos—to which easy-to-use filters can be applied—can also be routed to Facebookand Twitter for broader sharing.

This probably sounds coun-terintuitive to anyone whoremembers sitting throughinterminable vacation slideshows at a friend’s house. Thereare big differences, though.First, you can choose whosephotos you want to see—there’sno obligation to follow anybody.Second, you peruse the photoswhen it’s convenient for you.Third, it’s not a passive activity.You can see how many otherpeople liked an image, show ityour own love, read the com-ments others have left and leaveyour own. It’s a social activity.

Pinterest is also image-based.At its heart, Pinterest is no dif-ferent than Delicious and a hostof other social-bookmarkingsites. Pinterest, though, usesimages as bookmarks—far morecompelling to peruse than theblue, underlined links of otherbookmarking services.

Infoposters are yet anotherform of image-based communi-cation that is experiencing asurge in growth. (While most of these information-stuffed

images are labeled infographics,they’re not. An infographic is avisual representation of infor -mation, data or knowledge. Asvisual design consultant ConnieMalamed explains, “Info graph -ics tend to be abstract visuals.They compress information andmake it manageable....Theyhelp us see information in newways, which gives us greaterinsight for understanding andproblem solving.” Infoposters,as Malamed calls them, convey“multiple segments of informa-tion typically using words andnumbers to represent quanti -tative data.”) Everyone, it seems,is producing or sharing long,scrolling infoposters.

Finally, there is the trend ofslapping some clever text (or textthat somebody thought wasclever) over an image and post-ing it to places like Google+ andFacebook.

The best explanation I’veheard for the sudden andintense popularity of image-based communication camefrom photographer Trey Ratcliffduring a stint on the technologypodcast This Week in Tech. Thelives most of us lead don’t lendthemselves to much visual dis-covery, he said. We’re bound tooffices, homes and cars. Once,however—and not that longago—we walked through theworld, taking in everything

food for thoughtNot only are people engaged more with images, they also are takingphotos they never would have taken before, just to share with others.Entire categories of photography have emerged. There are photos of funny and odd signage. Photos of interesting shapes. But nothinghas taken off like photos of food. People are sharing images of theirrestaurant meals and their home-cooked edibles.

The picture-sharing phenomenon iseven influencing older models. A greatexample: the “IABC Eats” Facebookgroup, where more than 200 IABCmem bers share posts about food, mostof which include pictures. Scrollingthrough the group as I write this, I findimmediate past Chair Adrian Cropley’sphoto of a bowl of coffee (at right), Martha Muzychka’s picture of peppers flash-fried in olive oil and sprinkled with coarse salt (a Galician delicacy), and Alexander Taratov’s shot of various dipsfrom Rumi’s Kitchen in Atlanta (Persian cuisine), to name just a few.

As on Instagram, there is considerable engagement on IABC Eats.You’re welcome to join in, by the way.

—S.H.

www.iabc.com/cw Communication World • November–December 2012 9

10 Communication World • November–December 2012 www.iabc.com/cw

communiqué

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around us as we did. When wescroll through pins on Pinterestand images on Instagram, werecapture some of that. OnInstagram right now, I see land-scapes shrouded in clouds;bowling pins; the back of a semion a highway; a sign welcomingvisitors to Silver Beach, Mich -igan; a sold-out crowd at theLondon Olympic Games; aLego umbrella; and a child sit-ting behind a dozen or so icecream pops she made.

The popularity of onlineimages has inspired the launchesof dozens of new services. Pin -terest alternatives have nameslike Jux, Fancy, We Heart It,Gentlemint and Clipboard.Insta gram has spawned Flixel,Lightbox and Molome, not to mention a flood of photo-editing mobile apps.

Keep your focus With this near-fixation onimages, it’s tempting for com-municators to jump into thefray. A lot of companies alreadyhave, some in a big way. Beforeyou do, though, consider thejudging criteria for IABC’s GoldQuill Awards program, whichare just as appropriate in thiscontext. For entries in theCommunication Skills category,judges are asked to determine(among other things):● How clearly are the need and

its effect on the organizationidentified?

● How clearly are the criticalcharacteristics of the audienceidentified?

● How well do the goals andobjectives meet the statedneed?

● To what extent does the over-all solution demonstrate a

strategic or creative approachto business communication?

For far too many, the tempta-tion to start sharing images as an organizational communica-tion activity results in a tactic insearch of a strategy. In a blogpost, Internet Society contentstrategist Dan York asked, “Dothe images help educate youraudiences about your products?Your mission? Your services? Dothey help humanize your orga -nization and show a more per-sonal side? Or show the peoplebehind the name? Do theyentertain or amuse people andhelp build your community? Do they inspire people becauseof how beautiful or artistic theyare? Do they promote yourbrand name or social account?Will you gain more followers/fans/etc.?”

There are good examples oforganizations that clearly arethinking strategically with theirvisual communication. RedBull, for example, uses Insta -gram to share photos of extremesports activities that serve as themilieu for the company’s entiremarketing campaign. Sharpie,the manufacturer of permanentmarkers, shares photos of draw-ings made with its pens. OnPinterest, one of General Elec -tric’s most popular pinboards istitled Badass Machines, a look atsome of “the biggest and baddesttechnologies produced by GE,”a reminder that the companyhas a large B-to-B componentand makes some pretty impres-sive, massive stuff.

Some organizations haveopted to focus more on theircustomers’ images than theirown. NH Hotels asked its guests

to “capture a moment whensomething is beginning, a zeroinstant” and share it onInstagram with the hashtag#WakeUpPics, a spin on thehotel’s slogan, “Wake up to abetter world.” More than14,000 photos were submitted,and the winners received luxuryvacation packages.

As for infographics and info-posters, people will soon growweary of ceaselessly scrollingthrough towers of text and data. If you take the infoposterapproach, try to keep it shortand simple. Better yet, put inthe time and effort with some-one who knows what he or she is doing to create a true info-graphic that displays quantita-tive information. Whatever youdo, make sure you establish avisual identity so that peoplebegin to associate the look and feel of your graphics withyour organization. Nobody hasdone a better job of this thaneMarketer, with its distinctivered-and-black motif that,despite the simplicity of thesevery basic charts, is instantly recognizable.

By all means, have fun delv-ing into the emerging world ofvisual online communication.In fact, you should get startednow, if you haven’t already.Which brings me back to themain point: Approach visualcommunication like every othertactic you employ as a businesscommunicator, so that it helpsachieve a business goal. As socialmedia expert and EdelmanSenior Vice President SteveRubel predicted in AdAgeDigital, “Businesses that bankon visual storytelling withimages will win.” ●

Make sure you

establish a visual

identity so that people

begin to associate the

look and feel of your

graphics with your

organization.

about the authorShel Holtz, ABC, IABC Fellow,

is principal of Holtz Com -munication + Technology in

Concord, California.