The final step is to publish your content. Choose your platforms and which content will go on which. Here are some guidelines for using visual content.

Stamp Your Content with Your Logo

There’s always a chance that someone will steal your visual content. Any piece of content you publish could be copied and pasted elsewhere. One way to make it harder for people to do this is to add your watermark to your images.

A watermark is a small signature that shows an image is yours. You can use your logo as a watermark. The key is to make it large enough to be visible and legible, but small enough that it doesn’t distract from the image. Also, make sure your watermark doesn’t disturb the composition of the image. If it’s too big or noticeable, it might shift the balance of an image.

Any image editing software will allow you to add a watermark.

Use the Highest Quality Possible

For each image, use the highest quality possible. Consider the platform first, and size your image so that it’s the highest possible resolution for the platform’s specifications. High resolution images can be easily resized for different mediums. Avoid low-quality images, as they don’t adapt to different screen sizes and can make you appear unprofessional.

Image Formats

You’ll also have to consider image formats. There are a few formats that are the most commonly used:

.PNG – This format is high quality and can be shrunk to very small sizes with little loss of resolution, which makes it great for logos and infographics. It offers very high color depth. The downside is that it’s a relatively large file size.

.JPG – This format is somewhat of an industry standard. It also shrinks well and offers high quality, but is a smaller file size.

.PDF – This format is good for downloadable visual content. If you’re using visuals in downloadable content and you want the quality of the file to be high, this is a good format to use. A PDF looks the same no matter what operating system, device, or software is used to view it.

.TIFF – Similar to PDFs, there is no loss of quality when a TIFF is downloaded and it looks the same across platforms and devices. There is no compression, so TIFF files tend to be quite large.

.GIF – GIFs are images that use animation. They have simple colors and the resolution is low, but the advantage here is that they load quickly.

Publishing Your Content

The next major decision is where to publish your visual content. Go back over your notes and review. Create a strategy that identifies what type of content you’ll post where. Keep in mind that you can always change your strategy once you start publishing and tracking your results.

How do you know what’s working and what isn’t? You can start by looking at the native data you’ll get from the platforms where you publish. Facebook and other social media platforms offer analytics, in addition to the simple data you can see, such as number of comments, shares, and likes.

You can also ask your audience for their feedback. Ask them what content they enjoyed the most and what they’d like to see more of. Ask them for ideas of topics they’d like to see you handle.

A more rigorous way to discover which content resonates is to split-test. This means running two versions of the same image with just one element changed. You run them both and see which performs better. This tells you which element your audience prefers.

For example, you might run two versions of the same image, one with a border and one without. If the one with the border gets more engagement than the one without, this tells you that your audience likes borders.

Monitor your visual content and see how it’s received by your audience. You can then make the necessary changes for future pieces.