It's a world of small screens delivering big pictures. A world of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. A world where nothing is complete without a #hashtag. Making your content stand out can be hard, not to mention keeping it fresh and achieving regular engagement with shares and likes.  We understand this world and we can help. Cognitive have a strong track record when it comes to creating bespoke content that boosts social engagement.

Visual content is 40 times more likely to be shared on social media than any other content (Buffer 2014)! Coloured visuals increase people's willingness to read a piece of content by 80% (Xerox 2014) and infographics are liked and shared on social media more than any other type of content (Mass Planner 2015). Our infographics and animations play to all these criteria and consistently boost social engagement. We have made films for clients including Coca Cola which have had over 910,000 views, the RSA which have had over 100 million views and Cynthia Hall Productions which have had more than 139,000 views on Facebook and 2816 shares.

Why Whiteboard Animation is brilliant?

We were very fortunate to strike up a relationship with eminent psychologist, author and magician, Professor Richard Wiseman. While working on Whiteboard Animations for his book “.59 Second” we spoke about the psychology of Whiteboard Animations and the effects it had on viewers. Working with Professor Wiseman, we carried out research that compared Whiteboard Animations with “talking head” videos. We found that Whiteboard Animations resulted in a substantial 15% increase in the retention of factual information, were a considerable 33% more entertaining than “talking head” videos and 66% more likely to be shared by viewers. You can find the full report to download at the end of the post.

The proof is in the pudding

The UN's 17 goals for sustainable development were launched in 2015. These goals represent fundamental steps to a better world including no poverty, renewable energy and quality education. Inspiring work, but how do you keep social momentum and engagement high three years down the line?

Enter Cognitive: working with Project Everyone, we created content for The Global Goals social media platforms to engage and involve the public; highlighting the goals and celebrating the progress that has been made.

Why an illustration? As the research above shows; it works well on social media – visual communication is much more engaging. Static illustrations are easily shareable without any danger of ‘buffering’.

Our illustrators developed unique illustrations focusing attention on often very delicate topics. They took dry data and Project Everyone's branding guidelines. From this they created bespoke visuals that were informative while also being accessible, engaging and more memorable than written text.

The Global Goals campaign results were extremely positive. On Twitter alone, the average post received 51 shares and 79 likes, with the highest getting 238 retweets and 397 likes. The #FactFriday about Gender Equality in Parliaments (see above) globally captured the Zeitgeist during Suffragette month and got the highest number of likes of an Instagram post for the whole Global Goal's campaign.

Done sensitively, but with powerful imagery, people are more likely to engage. Turning this into a weekly campaign using #FactFriday helped to build a regular engaged audience who kept following because they didn’t want to miss out on what was coming next!

What did Global Goals have to say?

Georgia Alford:

'With the images that Cognitive create, we are then able to be slightly ahead of the curve, and sometimes we have a massive leap in our reach just with one image that can be seen, understood and shared instantly by thousands of people'

Paddy Delaney:

We work with Cognitive because they have a track record of being able to present data and facts in an appealing and immediately engaging way..and their work with us often has a massive reach'

Working with Project Everyone has been inspiring: not just because the goals themselves inspire, but also because we can see the power our work has in creating positive change in the world. Read more about our work with Project Everyone here.

Do you have a campaign that you would like 'super-charged'? Talk to us about creating content for your social media campaign, contact us on 01303 253 693 or email contact@wearecognitive.com.

Download your copy of Professor Wiseman’s reseach (mentioned above) here: