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| An image is worth a thousand retweets. |
The old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" was long attributed to Confucius as a Chinese proverb, but the expression was actually first used in a 1911 newspaper article discussing journalism and publicity.
The exact phrase first appears in an 1918 newspaper advertisement for the San Antonio Light which says:
One of the Nation's Greatest Editors Says:
One Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
The San Antonio Light's Pictorial Magazine of the War
Exemplifies the truth of the above statement—judging from the warm
reception it has received at the hands of the Sunday Light readers
Today, the phrase is a full blown cliche, forbad by journalists and newspapers around the world. But with the popularity of social media and its ever-growing reach, the context of the phrase now takes new meaning.
Today, with the constant stream of posts, blogs, and tweets, it can be difficult to differentiate and emerge from the masses. But one simple way to draw the eye to your posts, and to your account, is with images.
If the objective of every social media account is to gain followers, and the intention of every post is to promote engagement, then the best (and easiest) way to attain your goals is by adding a photo, picture, or image to everything you do. But don't just add a profile picture and cover photo (which you should definitely be doing), you should also add an image to every tweet, every blog post, and every Facebook update. You'll see your likes, favorites and retweets increase almost immediately. And before you know it, every image will be worth a thousand retweets.
