Choosing Images for Social Media: One size doesn't fit all

Marshall McLuhan, a brilliant English professor turned social scientist, famously declared that "the medium is the message." In other words, the means by which you communicate an idea will have greater impact than the idea itself.

But what kind of medium is the internet? What does it do well, and what does it do poorly? Most importantly, how can you use the Internet's strengths and avoid its weaknesses in order to optimize your business. 

It's difficult to generalize about something as vast and shapeless as the Internet, but I believe one basic fact should guide everything you do online. You must always be aware of the startling quickness and ease with which a viewer can break the connection with your content. Click! -- and they're gone. 

Consequently, everything you do on a blog or website should draw the visitor forward -- because if they're not drawn in, they're instantly going to be out. 

The first all-important element in this process is your selection of an image to capture a user's attention and motivate a "click-through." This is where McLuhan's insight can come in handy, because different areas of the Internet universe can be seen as fundamentally different mediums. Even within the sub-category of social media, the requirements of Twitter, for example, will be very different from those of LinkedIn or Instagram. 

Here's a good article about selecting images for social media. Since the picture is the first thing users will see from you, it's critical for the picture to motivate the next click. But even without a picture, I hope I've motivated you to click on the link below: 

http://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-choose-social-media-images/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=owned_social&utm_campaign=social_h