Over 3.5 million photos were shared every minute in 2016 (Deloitte). Visual conversations are happening all around us. Our social feeds are filled with personal stories told through pictures on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter.
Within our pictures are gems of information such as brand logos, locations, activities, information on gender and age. Specific information such as how we are using products, when, where, with whom, and in which environment. In a more visual environment and with increased visual conversations, brands can no longer rely on text mentions alone for social media metrics, image analysis must be included.
What is image analysis?
Image analysis is the ability for computers to recognize attributes within an image. Image analysis can show you all of the posts that contain photos of Nutella, where as social media metrics that are based on text-based mentions or direct tags will only include posts that contain the word “Nutella”. As a preference for visuals increases all around us image recognition analysis is an important social media metric as companies would be missing out on these gems of information.
Two companies leading the way are Brandwatch and Google Cloud Vision.
Brandwatch has created an image recognition platform that can track and analyze any logo. Brandwatch Image Insights is the first technology of its kind in the social intelligence industry. Their technology is able to recognize logo’s anywhere on an image i.e. clothing, billboards, or even a tattoo.
Google Cloud Vision is another image recognition platform that easily detects broad sets of images and categorizes them.
Lessons for Others
Social media platforms are overflowing with visual content that companies simply cannot ignore in this visual storytelling era, and extracting insights from these visual stories is the future of social media metrics.