When I flip through my Instagram feed, each photo takes me back to a specific memory. 

We’re seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. We’ve just brought home a new sibling from the hospital. We’re sledding down the neighbor’s hill. We’ve got a new bucket calf.

Each picture is tied to an emotion, and those ones are all happy. There’s also yellow Jell-O^® — a photo from my mom’s stay in the intensive care unit (ICU) — or my kids dressed in their Sunday best, but celebrating Easter at home during the COVID-19 closures. A quick glance and I can feel both the uncertainty of those moments and the faith that carried us through. 

According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), it takes as few as 13 milliseconds for your brain to identify an image. My head says that’s too fast to be true, but as I scroll through my own Rolodex^® of memories, my heart knows that must be right. 

Try a little experiment out for yourself. Swipe through your phone’s photo album, your favorite social platform or even an old-fashioned photo book (no really, do it; I can wait).

That is the best personal illustration I can provide for this point — high-quality images are key to your marketing efforts. 

The experience of looking through your own photos shows the gravity of information conveyed in a single second. 

I’ve read piles of marketing articles by experts both inside and outside agriculture, and they boil down to this truth: imagery matters because it’s memorable, evokes emotion and helps sell your product. 

Imagery sells

If you haven’t invested in a good photographer or videographer or honed the skill yourself, here are the top three reasons you should:

1. Images are often your first impression.

As new customers are looking at all their options for buying Angus bulls, they’ll often spend a fair amount of time pursuing the World Wide Web. What shows up when they search for you?

You want your first introduction to showcase your family, your environment you operate in and the herd you’ve built. A quick cellphone shot from seven years ago might not be cutting it, if you know you have mere seconds to convince them to keep looking. 

2. If you do more showing, you’ll have the opportunity to tell.

No matter how much someone likes you, they’re never going to make a purchase unless they also like your cattle. In today’s data-driven world, numbers matter; but most every cattleman I interview says some variation of, “But I have to like the way they look first.”

Make sure your lot, herd sire and donor pictures and videos flatter the animals they’re showcasing. If you get them hooked on “look,” then you’ll have time to direct them to the expected progeny differences (EPDs) or other data to back them up.

3. You’ll be more popular. 

This may seem a little vain, but what I really mean is this: for any digital content you create (both organic on your own page and paid digital advertising) you’ll tap into what makes the algorithm click. 

For example, Facebook doesn’t reward photos in and of themselves, but they do show posts more often that have gotten higher engagement. Photos and videos tend to get higher engagement, and so, they’re automatically elevated in the feed (or shown more often to more people who may also engage with it.)

You can do social media without a good photo, but I wouldn’t recommend it.  

If you’ve already captured some standout imagery, we’d be happy to share ideas on ways to use your pictures or video to reach more people. We can also help take your photos and videos to the next level. Give us a call today at 816-383-5200. 

Whether you’re doing it yourself or have a hired a pro, we’ve gathered tips to make picture day less painful. Read "The Shot that Sells.”