The optimal text/visuals balance

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📝 Context

Topics: Social Media
For: B2C
Research date: August 2025
Universities: The University of Hong Kong, University of Nottingham, Shenzhen University

You’re building a new social media campaign for your latest skincare line and are brainstorming content ideas for the launch.

You want to showcase the new packaging design, but most importantly, you want people to know your product now has sustainable ingredients, something your clients have been asking for.

How should you balance showing off the new design with the key core messaging? What's more important, the visual or the text?

New research shows us how to balance creatives to get higher engagement.

P.S.: If you’re planning on using video ads rather than static images, this insight tells you what makes people tick based on brain scans.

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📈 Recommendation

When creating images for social media, follow these design rules:

• Ensure your text and visuals are saying the same thing, so they don’t compete for attention (e.g. don't pair an image of a model wearing a summer dress with copy about your free returns policy).

• Place the text centrally, and write it in a positive and informative tone.

• If the image is complex (e.g. shows a social situation with multiple people and elements), use smaller text overlays.

People will be more likely to engage with your image.

Pro tip: If you’re using videos instead of images, follow the optimal text overlay formula, have the text overlay be around 11% of the frame on Instagram, and up to 46% on Twitter

🎓 Findings

• People were more likely to engage with image posts on social media when text and visuals did not compete for attention.

• As part of an analysis of over 30,000 organic brand posts from 195 brand accounts across 9 product categories on Facebook and Instagram, researchers found that:

• Posts had lower engagement when:

  • Large text overlays were paired with complex images (e.g. containing multiple objects in the background, depicting social settings with faces)

  • Posts had bigger texts that overshadowed the visuals (e.g. the text was covering details)

• Posts had higher engagement when:

  • The text was not overshadowing the image (e.g. covering visual details), centered, with a positive tone, and informative rather than wordy (e.g. "New arrivals this season" vs. "Check out all the amazing new products we just added this week") 

  • The text and the image were communicating the same message (e.g. an image of a forest with an overlay “Amazonian coffee beans”)

🧠 Why it works

• We are naturally drawn to visually rich content (e.g. images showing many objects or faces), which instinctively captures our attention.

• When rich visuals are paired with big text overlays, they compete for our attention, and we don't focus on either.

• However, when we receive the same information both visually and verbally (e.g. an image of a product paired with a short line describing its benefit), we process the message more easily.

• This makes us more likely to engage with it.

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✋ Limitations

• The research measured engagement in terms of likes and comments only. It’s unclear how text-visual ratio affects views, clicks, or purchase intentions.

• The study found some effects were stronger on Facebook than Instagram, possibly because Facebook is less image-oriented. It wasn't tested how the effect would carry over to video-based platforms (e.g. TikTok) or text-based platforms (e.g. X), though it's likely the effect is similar.

• Only organic content was analyzed, it’s unclear how the effect applies to ads, though it is likely similar.

👀 Real-life example

PerfectTed is a matcha drink brand. They are one of the fastest-growing brands in the UK and are very active on social media.

❌ Issue: The post in which they invite their community to join them for their new product launch got a low response. The visual was not optimized for engagement.

✅ Solution: A few changes PerfectTed can make to future announcements:

• Keep the text in a central position, but make it bigger and more visible. For example, by making it look like a clear text overlay (in this example, the copy is easily missed).

• Add context to the copy (e.g. “You’re invited to the product launch”) and communicate the same message through the image and the text (e.g. show pistachios and images of past events).

• Tweak the messaging so that it has a social-related use and makes people think of others (e.g. “Bring your friends”), making them more likely to share the post

🔍 Study type

Market observation (analysis of 34,610 organic posts from 195 official brand accounts on Facebook and Instagram)

📖 Research

When Words Meet Visuals: How Content Composition Drives Social Media Engagement for Marketer-Generated Content. Journal of Marketing Research (August 2025)

🏫 Researchers

• Chu (Ivy) Dang. The University of Hong Kong

• Canice M. C. Kwan. University of Nottingham

• Jayson S. Jia. The University of Hong Kong

• Yang Shi. Shenzhen University

Remember: This is a new scientific discovery. In the future it will probably be better understood and could even be proven wrong (that’s how science works). It may also not be generalizable to your situation. If it’s a risky change, always test it on a small scale before rolling it out widely.

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