New York SBDC Research Network

There is no question that the way that social media has developed, images play a central role more YouTube enjoys over 4 billion views daily. Instagram has bypassed Twitter for mobile users. photographs on Facebook draw 53% more "likes" than those without. Pinterest is the 2nd largest referrer of social traffic. It grew by 50% in a year. These tools are driven by images and require (almost) no words. The fact that FaceBook was willing to pay the big bucks for Instagram is testimony to the importance of images. than ever before. There has been a dramatic shift towards visual marketing. Everyone needs to start thinking in these terms. As I visited the RN Pinterest Page I searched on "SBDC" to see the results and they were patchy. A quick visit to a few SBDC websites demonstrated very, very few images.We are often looking for good pictures from the various centers for different uses. Potential clients visiting our center sites would benefit from a glimpse at wha

Tired of the same old clip art? Bored with the usual stock photo people? How about a Garbage Pail Kid card to brighten up your blog post? (This one didn't seem too tasteless, and I am cold.) Even if Garbage Pail Kids aren't your thing, check out Mashable's list of 13 Fantastic and Fun Image Generators . Creating your own warning signs, magazine covers, movie posters, presidential seal, or comic book page, may be just what your next publication calls for.

Sharing your best pics Beautifully crafted cabinets, comical before and after plumbing or electrical shots, clothing, jewelry, interesting photographs of anything - this is an opportunity to be creative and show the beauty in daily life. While you cannot use Flickr to advertise your business, you can still use it to store and share photographs. And like LinkedIn, and Facebook, it is another social networking resource. Build a repository of photos to share with colleagues or the world at large and you can decide who can see which photos. Label them with your website name and without screaming your message, you can still show your stuff. In this situation, less is definitely more. But check out Flickr and just browse and see the beautiful and interesting things you can see.