Every content creator and consumer online has one thing to talk about right now: the extreme video focus on all social media platforms post the success of TikTok. Some like it, and some completely hate it.
We get it, forcing one format of content on everyone is not what anyone envisioned democratized internet to be. But it is important to understand that there is a reason behind TikTok’s immense popularity among consumers of all ages, marketers, creators, influencers, and brands even in the B2B segment.
More than motion graphics, it is the art of engagement and storytelling that has captivated most of the world with video content.
But what do you do if that is just not your thing or is not the thing you are best at?
Nobody should have to compromise their medium of expression based on what’s trending.
Thankfully, there is a middle ground here.
If you want consumers to sit up and take notice of your content without it being video, carousel posts are the next best thing. Even if you create videos but need a long-form medium, these work well.
If you have been on Instagram lately, photo dumps have been a thing for a long time now. Carousels have been extremely popular for this reason, but they can be more than that, especially for creators and brands.
You can leverage carousel posts for :
And the best part is you do not have to worry about the reach and engagement too.
Social media users have long been a fan of anything that makes them swipe. Because it plays perfectly into their built-in curiosity and hooks them in longer than a regular image-based post would.
Understanding the need to balance out social media feeds, top social media platforms have been promoting new features in Carousel posts so that creators, brands, and consumers get the most out of them. This is proof enough that it is not all about videos all the time.
Let us take a look at how the top social media platforms have been growing the carousel format.
There have been a lot of complaints regarding Instagram becoming a TikTok relic and losing the charm of being a photo-sharing platform. Now, whether or not you share this sentiment, Instagram is not just sitting back and taking criticism. It is expanding its offerings beyond videos too.
Carousel posts get the highest engagement possible after videos on the platform. In fact, the platform is also developing some unique features to improve the UX of carousel posts on Instagram. Last year, the platform announced users can delete a single image from the carousel, which was impossible before.
Now, this may feel like a tiny step, but the takeaway here is that the platform is noticing the growing demand for long-form content in photos and videos and is doing something about it.
Of course, how you design your carousel posts plays a vast role in its overall success, but these are good indications that they work.
Graphic design and media posts are becoming a staple commodity across most social media platforms. Twitter, specifically, has been laying out guidelines on how users can experiment with photos, videos, and carousel ads on the platform.
Twitter carousel ads have been immensely successful in generating brand awareness, web traffic, and product conversions for brands. To improve user experience and its impact, Twitter now allows its customers to :
The platform believes this improves the CTR by 20% and allows brands to explore a detailed storytelling approach in their advertising efforts.
While carousel posts have been a staple in D2C niches or for the creator industry, the B2B industry is not very behind. LinkedIn, the primary B2B lead generation and networking platform, was a little late to join the game.
But now that you have carousels on LinkedIn, sharing informative content in the most engaging format is not that difficult anymore.
Have you noticed that Google shopping queries are now returning results in the carousel format? Yes, they are, and while this may not be an immediate action item for marketers or brands, this is almost proof of concept. They also appear for most other traditional searches.
This tells us that one of the most complex search engine algorithms has determined that the carousel format is an engaging and effective model for presenting information online.
Every day there is a new trend in social media marketing. One day, brands are not posting enough stories and the next day, they are posting too many stories. It can become quite overwhelming to choose what works for your brand specifically.
So before we tell you how to create the best carousel posts for social media, let us take a look at the benefits they add to your social media marketing plan.
Content distribution is a major part of a successful content marketing strategy. And repurposing your long-form content pieces for social media is one of the most effective ways to do that.
While repurposing blogs, articles, and white papers into videos takes a lot of effort, carousel posts are a breeze. With the right design and template at hand, you can replicate the results of your long-form content marketing on social media too easily.
Often, a concept is best explained with a combination of images and videos. But this is rarely possible on social media unless you are a savant at editing.
Carousel posts do not discriminate between images and videos, allowing you to weave the story you want to. In fact, carousel posts with a combination of images and videos have the highest engagement rate.
Content fatigue is a real thing, nobody can or should deny it. Consuming the same content format can induce fatigue and make customers long for a break in the clouds. Well, this is your chance to stand out from the crowd and make your content shine with carousel posts.
Only 19% of all Instagram content is as a carousel post despite their high engagement rate. Be part of that 19%, instead of the other 81%, and your customers will seek you out instantly.
We know that only 19% of Instagram content is carousel posts. And the numbers are even lower for LinkedIn, Twitter, and other such platforms. But this is your chance to shine. You must put your absolute best foot forward so that it forces people to consider you to be the pioneer of getting this format right.
And how do you do that?
We have a few design tips that will make your carousel posts impossible to resist for the swiping fingers.
In a blog, the introduction is the most important part. On social media, the attention spans are even lower thanks to infinite scrolling. So you have to attract the users’ attention so that they stick around to swipe ahead.
Every carousel post needs a dedicated cover image that :
Carousel posts are ideal for the branded storytelling format without investing in video. But how you plan the story decides whether the customer swipes ahead or scrolls away. Customers want to be taken on a journey with highs and lows, and you have to do this without letting the attention slip away.
Design your posts using emotional triggers that can keep the audience hooked for a long time.
Seamless carousel posts take storytelling, aesthetics, and continuity to a whole new level. These images may look separate, but they are just tiles of a bigger canvas.
Imagine you had a long film roll, and instead of just showing you ten small photos, they all joined to build a bigger picture. That is what a seamless carousel post does. With this format, you can almost compel your customers to swipe to get to the end of the story.
This is a visually charged format and needs a skilled and aesthetic eye to pull it off.
Ideally, seamless carousel posts work best for :
In a sea of video content, you are sure to stand out with your carefully crafted carousel posts. If consistently coming up with carousel posts seems overwhelming, work with an unlimited design service that can take care of all your marketing designs including the diverse kinds of social media graphics.
