Public relations include many types of content, including the visual one. Naturally, public relations focus firstly on a carefully designed narrative that is the bearer of the entire story, but when we talk about PR campaigns, they always have visual content as accompanying material, which has become extremely important, especially in the last few years.
What is visual communication and why is it important?
Visual communication is the practice of using visual elements to convey messages, encourage change, or evoke emotions. It is a very wide area that includes graphic design, photography, animation, illustration as well as numerous photo and video editing programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator and Adobe Premier.
When designing a quality PR campaign, attention should be certainly paid to designing and planning the visual communication itself. Wondering why? The reasons are numerous.
Given the fact that many PR campaigns try to reach the media space, photographs are necessary to achieve this. In some cases, if you do not attach a (high-quality) photo with the invitation or press release, it is possible that the media will not publish your story at all.
In addition, visuals support textual content and can sometimes be a key factor that will attract the audience’s interest to read the news.
Visual communication in the context of social networks
Today, social networks are one of the main channels of communication and, along with the media, represent the most important segment of public relations. Many of them focus on visual content, so if you want to introduce your PR campaign to the general public, you will definitely want to communicate it on social networks.
Given that every day on social networks you can come across a huge amount of content, especially visual, try to stand out and make the visual communication of your campaign as original as possible so that it catches the eye of your target group.
Finding good visual content is a process that takes time. Be prepared to put it to test and perfect it as you go. Use your social channels and PR pitches as your tests. Try different messages and multimedia types to see which ones resonate best with each audience.
Evoking emotions with visuals
In addition, visual components are universal because they overcome language barriers, so they are recognizable around the world. With good visuals, your PR campaign can have not only a large regional but also a global reach.
Also, visual communication affects emotions. Humans are emotional beings, and public relations relies heavily on appealing to people’s emotions. This is an excellent method for improving KPIs such as audience engagement.
Numerous studies have proved the impact of visuals and even certain colours on people’s actions and purchase decisions. People want to buy from companies whose story they can relate to.
How does visual communication affect the audience?
In addition to inspiring emotions, a well-designed visual communication and quality visuals strengthen public trust in the campaign itself and the client for whom it was created.
Whether you are trying to increase brand awareness, raise public awareness of a certain topic or launch a new product on the market, it is crucial to be consistent in the process. In the process of planning, the style of visual communication should be clearly defined and thus guided throughout the campaign. This is exactly how the narrative creates the recognition of the campaign and the client.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so without good visuals, the narrative of a campaign, no matter how good it may be, does not necessarily make a campaign a success. Visual communication is necessary in order to bring what you offer, i.e. place on the market, to life in the minds of the audience.
And what about video content?
As with photos and graphics, the same rules apply in principle to the implementation of video content. In addition, video content has become more popular over the past few years, and more and more companies have turned to this communication channel as the main one. Video has experienced an additional boom with the arrival of TikTok,therefore more and more companies are investing larger budgets in creating video content as part of their marketing and PR campaigns.
Ultimately, sharing visual content is critical to its success and the success of the PR campaign. Knowing your target audience and creating content intended for them will lead you to actively involve the public in your campaign.
Depending on your audience, you will use photos, videos, or other forms of visual content. By tailoring your content to your target audience, you increase the possibility of adoption and sharing, resulting in a domino effect across all your social media channels, wider audience reach, and ultimately the success of your campaign.
