With the growing number of internet users every day, plus the fact that most have access to a digital camera or a smartphone that has a camera, the power of visual communication has continued to increase and evolve. This is why in social media, using quality images in your posts is highly important for you to make an impact in a somehow noisy world online.

Working as a social media manager and handling my blogs’ presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+, I have seen how effective images are versus text only messages. As a social media user, I can also attest to how people now prefer to read texts in an image.

Studies, surveys and insight reports reveal that social media posts using images perform better than any other kind of content. On Facebook alone, photo posts get 50% more interaction over links, videos or text-based updates. On Twitter, tweets with image links (Twitpic or Instagram – and Twitter also now shows expanded photos on the timeline!) get more engagement too.

Based on my experience, it’s not just about using images in your posts. As I said earlier, QUALITY is also important. People don’t usually react when they see a blurry or pixelised photo, so it’s just as crucial to ensure you are pushing out attractive images too.

Originality is also vital, especially when you intend to go viral (ooh that rhymed!). Thankfully, you don’t have to take your own photos or design them in Photoshop yourself. There are many excellent resources online where you can get stock photos that you can use in designing your own images or coming up with an original meme.

There’s Graphic Stock, which has over 100,000 images, with more uploaded daily. They have 7-day free trial and you can download 20 images a day. Plus, you can cancel anytime directly on the site. And, the best thing is, you can keep all the images you downloaded for future use.

I have used stock photos from sites like this and it’s been essential in my freelance graphics design job. There are a ton of high quality stock images available to us online, and other resources that can serve as your inspiration, so make that part of your social media strategy.