When to use the Picture Superiority Effect for your Public Relations campaign

Founder EASTWEST PR and Host of the SPEAK|pr Podcast

In the SPEAK|pr program that stands for Storify, Personalise, Engage, Amplify, and to Know, engagement is about creating impactful content so that people can understand, share, and amplify it. Content creation is probably the number one problem that people face. They often have their message and know whom they want to talk to, but they can’t figure out how to format that into something that’s appealing, so here’s how to create content that will stand out.

Science says that 90% of all information is transmitted to the brain by visual means. The other senses like the sense of touch, hearing, taste, and smell are actually only receiving 10% of all information. This means that if the content being created is not visually appealing, that’s a massive opportunity wasted. Another important thing to note is that the brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text, and according to the Picture Superiority Effect coined in 1971, people can see the the rhinoceros or the tiger coming after them before they read about it. So, how does one then translate this into making content that’s appealing? 

A misconception about public relations is that it is all about sending press releases, but it’s not. Nowadays, 65% of people are visual learners, and 50% of the body’s neural tissue is in some way connected to one’s vision, so this emphasises the need to have content that might have text but also includes graphics, and this is the domain of the infographic where both pictures and text are incorporated together. Research shows that infographics are 30 times more likely to be read than text articles, and that’s because people see them. Especially now with the attention span of most people being less than say, 6-8 seconds, the content needs to be able to catch their attention immediately, and that’s what infographics can do. If the content is just text, people have to cut and paste large bodies of content, but if it’s a picture, it can be shared right away. Data can also be interpreted more easily through graphs andcharts, and apart from that, an infographic also can have colour and a logo. It’s increasingly hard to raise brand awareness, but with graphics, it’s made possible. There’s also some degree of web SEO improvement when sharing content that is tagged and it will help the links, especially when othersrepost or even embed that on their own website. 

People are attracted to images and even more so to moving images which is why TV and film are so powerful. So, how does one create content then that can be useful? With the use of a SPEAK|pr tool. EASTWEST PR is developing a Shareability matrix that can illustrate how people can develop content thatis shareable. There is a chart, a graph, and anengagement level. On the chart, there are four squares. The top left under Engagement level says ‘Hard.’ On the top right, the engagement level is ‘Easy.’ On the vertical axis is the subject matter, with the top of that saying ‘New’ and the bottom saying ‘Old.’ Basically, content in the top left can be hard to engage with but is new, therefore, it is possible shareable, moreso within a vertical or B2B specialist group. Content on the top right is easy to engage with and new, making it highly shareable. Content on the bottom left is hard to engage with and is old so it will possibly not be shared, while content in the bottom right is easy to engage with but is old, therefore, it is possibly shareable. The aim is to create content that is easy for people to understand, but also new in some way. 

This article is based on a transcript from my Podcast SPEAK|pr, you can listen here.

Cover Photo from Alex Rister