Post Submitted by Stipple.
We’re experiencing a movement towards a more visual culture, where technology and new media platforms empower the average person to become a photographer, a style icon, or a viral celebrity in front of a global audience. From memes to iconic, historical photos- images capture the social fabric of society. They carry a power that holds up in today’s saturated world because they emulate the way our minds freeze a significant moment.
The power of images is reflected in the shift to a more visual web: 250 million images are uploaded onto the web each day; 70% of all activities on facebook– from “liking” and commenting to looking at friends’ content or uploading your own — revolve around photos; and 60 instagram photos are uploaded every second. With thousands of photos published every season, brands are active participants in the online image ecosystem. Fashion enthusiasts socialize around and share these images across their pinboards, tumblr feeds, and blogs, taking the brand’s products to places you’d never imagine.
A simple online image search on Google images shows that images from a brand’s website are republished millions of times across the web. Take the Gap for example: over 480 million images tagged gap.com have been published in the past 7 days alone. If you’re a brand, most of your online presence effectively lives out of your control and off your site. Go ahead, try this calculator for your brand to see how much of an audience your images carry.
The Opportunity is BIG
A brand’s image channel is something that has grown organically – which means that every republication of their content is perfectly relevant to the site it now lives on. Imagine if brands could connect all of the people who are passionate about their products. By managing, measuring and messaging through their images, brands can use them as portals to reach their audiences wherever they live on the web.
Consumers are certainly looking for more. According to a recent Bizrate study, 37% of consumers engaged in online photo sharing did not purchase a product because they could not or did not take the time to search for that product online. The value to consumers of being able to access exact information, and even shop instantaneously, is immense. The stratospheric growth of photo sharing and image platforms like instagram and pinterest confirm what we’ve known since the camera was invented in 1816 – images matter.
Super Power your Images
Stipple believes in helping content creators, such as brands, photographers, and bloggers, tell rich, interactive stories through their images wherever they appear on the web. Interested? Sign up and try out Stipple for free. Request an invite here.
SFFT Note: This post was submitted by Stipple. All opinions contained in this post are Stipple’s. Stipple is an official sponsor of SFFT’s STUDIO64.
