When it comes to the online space, content is indeed King. What you say is the driving force behind the reason people continue to visit your website. The social online world tends to afford its content providers more creativity in the name of sharing, so when it comes to social content, a picture can truly be worth a thousand words. Two online sharing properties are now proving this to be true in branding: Instagram and Pinterest and both are beginning to reap the benefits of popularity in business.

Say Cheese

Instagram has been known as a favorite photo sharing site of iPhone enthusiasts since 2010 allowing people to take a flick, throw on a filter and share through the most popular social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. With brands looking for ways to “humanize” themselves, various company representatives took to preparing their own close-ups—tagging their product experiences encapsulated in any relevant moment in time—and the relationship has not stopped there.

Recently, luxe brand Tiffany & Co. enlisted the help of photography to go along with an important part of their What Makes Love True campaign. By using relatable, street-style imagery and a specially designed Tiffany’s filter, the blue box and the contents within retain their importance and exclusivity while becoming more reachable and attainable.

Pin the tail on the…

Pinterest is the new site on the social block and has brought the mood board to virtual life. The boards organize your thoughts, dreams, desires, or products for other users to like, share (re-pin) and comment. Simply put up a picture and a short blurb and people are sure to begin engaging with you when they find your pins interesting.

These boards also work as a wonderful way to create and hold contests, gain opinions and, most importantly, begin to build communities online, thus segmenting and organizing your friends, or customers, into customized groups. Retailer Lands’ End used many of these procedures in their Pin It To Win It campaign where users were encouraged to browse the Lands’ End site and create pins of the items they liked the most. This goes to show how a simple conversation that’s firmly ensconced in community building, helps a brand portray their personality—one of the most important qualities to any customer base.

Take Your Pic

What channels you use in your marketing mix, as with any business decision, should be based in your strategy. There are sure to be campaigns where both methods above make sense, times to only use one technique and instances when neither should be used. We should remember that, in business, there is always a social component. Mutual communication is imperative to your business if it deals with anyone besides you. However, if your business has any sort of inherent visual aspect, your pictures are sure to help and sharing them effectively is important to keep people interested and connected.