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X (formerly Twitter) · Lesson 11 of 43

Adding Images and Videos to Posts

Attaching images and videos is a great way to make your posts stand out in followers’ feeds.

1 Learn the concept

Attaching images and videos is a great way to make your posts stand out in followers' feeds. Visual posts usually get more attention than text alone. This lesson shows how to add media, choose images that work at small sizes, and include short descriptions so that your content is accessible to everyone.

A mock social post showing a caption, an image and numbered notes on what makes it workA POST THAT STANDS OUTYYour BrandJust nowPower cut? Our cafe is still open by candlelight.Come in for hot chocolate.A warm, high-contrast photoLikeReplyRepost1One clearimage2Short caption3Timely andrelevant
A clear image plus one short line works better than a long text post.

2 See it in action

  • Use clear, high-quality images that read well on a phone.
  • Keep videos short and add captions.
  • Add alt text so people using screen readers understand the image.
  • Make sure the image supports the message.

Worked example

Text-only versus image

Text-only post: "Our new menu is here." Few replies.

Image post: a bright photo of the new menu with the line "Which would you order first?" More replies.

Rule: use clear, high-contrast images that read on a phone, and add alt text describing the image.

Check: view the post on your phone at arm's length. Can you tell what it is?

3 Study an example

Real-world case study

Oreo: one image and one line, ready in minutes

What they did. On February 3, 2013, a blackout interrupted the Super Bowl. Oreo posted an image of a cookie in the dark with the line "You can still dunk in the dark". About 15 people from the agency 360i, Kraft and MediaVest worked from a "war room" with creative staff on site and approvers monitoring remotely. The post was put together in under a minute and went out at 8:48 p.m. after a quick client approval.

What happened. The tweet received more than 15,000 retweets and a great deal of media coverage, and is still cited as a famous example of real-time marketing.

What to take away. The speed came from preparation. Oreo's vice president of cookies said "It took two years to do that tweet", referring to the daily content series that had trained the team to react to the news. One strong image plus one short line was easy to read and share.

Counts are as reported by the people involved.

Sources Digiday: oral history of the Oreo tweet

4 Apply it and download

  1. Create three posts with media.
  2. Write alt text for each image.
  3. Compare which type gets more response.

Worksheet Media planning sheetOpen, print or save as PDF

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