Color complexity in social media posts leads to more engagement, new research shows

We conducted four studies, looking at both real-world Facebook posts from two firms and experimental data using biometric eye-tracking. On the whole, we found that more complex images in social media posts tended to capture greater attention.

Posts made later in the day and those with images that took up more screen space tended to benefit more from color complexity. This suggests that the timing and visual prominence of posts play a role in maximizing engagement.

Interestingly, when images were paired with negative, feel-bad text, color complexity made less of a difference. This highlights the importance of context in visual content effectiveness.

We also found that pairing images with complex texts can actually strengthen the link between color complexity and user engagement, showing that more intricate strategies yield better results.

Read at The Conversation