I have become a habitual Instagrammer.

When I am out cycling, walking or just sitting admiring the view or the passing parade, I am looking for photo oportunities that I can snap and then share on my Instagram “app”.

All I need to be carrying is my iPhone or iPad and with my Instagram app waiting patiently for me, I can capture that photo, apply a snazzy filter and click the Facebook and the Twitter share buttons and it flies around the world.

It then showcases in my follower’s streams and updates and invites them to engage with me by commenting, liking or sharing.

Jamie Oliver a “celebrity chef”, understands this and with over 412,000 followers on Instagram has  embraced the power of photos to market the Jamie Oliver brand.

Not surprisingly, the better the photo the more it drives engagement and Instagram takes my ordinary and average photos and gives them that “zing” factor (a good example is my Instagram photo from Istanbul, Turkey in the top right corner of this post) .

The Age of Visual Culture

We live in the age of the “camera in everyone’s pocket” and with more than 2.5 billion camera phones in use we are entering a new dynamic era around image creation and content according to Bob Lisbon from Luminate.

This can be broken into three phases as we enter the age of visual culture and language.

Phase One: Massive increase in photo creation

Ten percent of photos taken by humankind took place in the last 12 months

Phase Two: The Rise of Image Centric Social Networks

Photos are becoming the “universal language”. The fastest growing social media networks are not surprisingly Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram.

These social networks are the names on everyone’s lips as they have embraced the visual medium and have made it easy to upload and share images and photos online.

Phase Three: Images become Interactive

Pinterest is one of the first platforms that allows you to interact with static images and Luminate’s image apps (which are used by more than 100 million consumers) is also an example.

So how and why should you use images in your business communications, marketing and social networks?

6 Reasons Why Images are Important

If you have an online store, issue press releases or even just have a Facebook business “page”, then here are 6 reasons to publish images and photos as part of your business marketing tactics.

1. Articles with images get 94% more total views
2. Including a Photo and a video in a press release increases views by over 45%
3. 60% of consumers are more likely to consider or contact a business when an image shows up in local search results
4. In an ecommerce site, 67% of consumers say the quality of a product image is “very important” in selecting and purchasing a product
5. In an online store, customers think that the quality of a products image is more important than product-specific information (63%), a long description (54%) and ratings and reviews (53%)
6. Engagement rate on Facebook for photos averages 0.37% where text only is 0.27% (this translates to a 37% higher level of engagement for photos over text)

Read more: http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/05/28/6-powerful-reasons-why-you-should-include-images-in-your-marketing-infographic/