By: Madelynn Graham
Account Coordinator

As social media grows, networks emerge under two major classifications: the journalistic-centered versions of social media that requires users to read the information presented, and the more recently popular visual social media that present information in an image-centric way. These categories reawaken the reading vs. seeing debate. Pinterest (recent statistics showed as the newest addition to the visual social media realm) as the largest growing social media network, while Twitter remains ahead in referral traffic by merely .01%. Is seeing the new reading?

So what’s all the buzz about? What attracts so many people to the online “pin board” of uploaded and repinned images? Using Twitter as the rival example of text-based social media, let’s compare.

  • Twitter:  users can scroll through tweets or search current events and stories based on hashtags that categorize subjects.
  • Most users utilize the Twitter feed as just a platform for further exploration by sharing a headline with a clickable link.  Even pictures are tweeted through links, so users decide by the caption whether or not they are even going to view it.
  • Twitter, in summary is a global conversation covering a conglomeration of news, events, thoughts, links and other written communications.
  • Pinterest: When browsing through Pinterest, profiles are secondary to the image posted.  Users choose who to follow based purely on what they see, not on the user’s background.
  • Pinterest yields limited search results, only returning the most popular images related to searched topics.
  • When a user pins something new, they have the option of sharing that pin on giants like Facebook and Twitter, because those are still more popular and widely accessed.

Which side of social media do you prefer: text-based social media like Twitter or image-based social media like Pinterest?

Blooming visual social media trends are quickly gaining interest. Instagram, or the photo editing app that started on the iPhone, allows users to self-generate their own images. Despite this easy way for even the least verbally-eloquent users to express themselves, self-generated written expression is not going anywhere either. Blog websites like Tumblr, WordPress and Blogger continue to grow.  Though not as sharply as the Instagram phenomenon.  These venues allow a way to integrate both image and text into combined form of expression. Even the most zealous Instagram users still primarily share their shots through other social media, just like with Pinterest.

As the popularity contest continues between written-based and image-based social media, we recall the timeless adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” But is it the picture that replaces one thousand words that we are really seeking, or is it the thousand relatable words, emotions and thoughts the picture generates?  What’s the real goal?