A picture is worth thousands of words, er, likes

On social media sites, text and links just aren't cutting it anymore. If you really want to make something go viral, on say, Facebook you have to appeal to your visual audience.

Take this example from ProPublica:

The image was posted on ProPublica's Facebook on the night of Jan. 19, according to Media Bistro, and within two days of its posting it:

• Earned more than 17,000 likes
• Was shared more than 10,100 times
• Got 1,298 comments

Image what the response would be if ProPublica wrote out: Before the SOPA/PIPA blackouts and protests on Jan. 18, the legislation had 80 supporters and 31 opponents. After the protests, support dropped to only 65 with 101 now against.

Media Bistro points out that the numbers ProPublica achieved is a huge leap when compared to other posts on its Facebook page, which generally look like this:

Basically, if you want point to be heard loud and clear and spread through the Facebook world -- use an image and save the text and links for the image description -- should the reader decide to glance there.

Check out the rest of Media Bistro's post for more on why this image resonated so well.