At the end of every year, we like to read through some of the major reports on inbound marketing, content marketing, social media, and online behavior.

It's amazing how fast things can change in just one or two years, and this year has a breadth of surprising statistics to reflect on.

This year, we've seen the continued importance of visual content emphasized by the changes that occurred across almost every major social network, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. At the same time, videos continued to grow as powerful tools for brands looking to communicate more easily with their readers, and virtual reality (VR) is finding its place as a marketing tool in numerous businesses.

To help you keep pace with these trends, let's take a look at some visual content marketing statistics that demonstrate the impact visual content has on reach, engagement, and sales. You can jump to the following categories to see statistics related to that category:

50 Visual Content Marketing Statistics You Should Know

General Visual Content Statistics

70% of companies invest in content marketing, which could include visual marketing strategies. (HubSpot)

The primary form of media used in content marketing is video. (HubSpot)

One fourth of marketers are investing in content marketing related to product promotions while just over 20% of investing in branded storytelling specifically. (HubSpot)

Source: HubSpot

Marketers spend the most time creating content for Facebook and their own company website, respectively. (HubSpot)

Design and visual content is the biggest challenge for 23.7% of content marketers. ( Adam Enfroy )

32% of marketers say visual images are the most important form of content for their business, with blogging in second (27%). (Social Media Examiner)

80% of marketers use visual assets in their social media marketing. Video (63%), alone, has also surpassed blogging (60%) in usage as a social media marketing asset. (Social Media Examiner)

When people hear information, they're likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later. ( Brain Rules )

) 11% more B2C marketers than B2B marketers say visual content is the most important type of content today. (Social Media Examiner)

Video Marketing Statistics

Mobile video usage has increased by nearly 10 million daily viewing minutes in the last two years. (Kleiner Perkins)

Cisco projects that global internet traffic from videos will make up 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2021. (Cisco)

70% of YouTube viewers watch videos for "help with a problem" they're having in their hobby, studies, or job. (Think With Google)

Globally, YouTube is consumers' leading source of video content, at 83% (Facebook is second, at 67%). (HubSpot)

Video streaming has increased significantly in the last several years. The live-streaming platform, Twitch, saw an increase of more than 13 million average daily streaming hours between 2012 and 2017. (Kleiner Perkins)

In a 2018 HubSpot survey, 54% of consumers wanted to see more video content from a brand or business they support. (HubSpot)

Source: HubSpot Research

Emerging Visual Marketing Trends

In 2019, 42.9 million people in the US used a VR product, and 68.7 million people used an AR once monthly. (eMarketer)

Seven in ten media planners want to add AR to their strategies in the future. (Vibrant Media)

A quarter of VR users believe it has a strong potential for brands and marketers. (GlobalWebIndex)

64% of consumers say VR has the most potential in gaming, while 52% recognize its potential in Film and TV. (GlobalWebIndex)

By 2018, 35% of marketers use live video. (Social Media Examiner)

Live videos on Facebook have an engagement rate of 4.3% compared to 2.2% for non-live videos. (Telescope)

90% of all video plays on Twitter take place on mobile devices. (HubSpot)

Videos 20 minutes in length or longer account for 55% of total video consumption time on smartphones. (Goyala)

85% of adults consume content on multiple devices at the same time. (Think With Google)

According to the Lowes home improvement store, how-to videos that were shown in virtual reality (VR) had a 36% higher recall by viewers compared to people who only viewed the YouTube video. (HubSpot)

According to a 2018 survey, 82% of respondents expect people to focus on developing augmented reality (AR) experiences for smartphones. (Perkins Coie)

Gaming, education, and healthcare are the top three industries expected to invest the most in VR technology for business growth. (Perkins Coie)

Source: Perkins Coie LLC

Infographic Stats for Visual Content Marketers

Infographics are the fourth most used type of content marketing. (HubSpot)

Infographics have had the biggest increase in usage among B2B marketers in the last four years -- now at 65%. (Content Marketing Institute)

People following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than people following directions without illustrations. Take content marketer Ryan Robinson's guide on how to start a blog as an example, where he teaches readers the process of building a blog through a combination of text, illustrations and infographics. (Springer)

Source: NeoMam

Social Media Stats for Visual Content Marketers

In a general survey of over 250 consumers, 70% said they watched Facebook Stories more often than Instagram or Snapchat Stories. (HubSpot)

Businesses that are on Instagram get up to 37% of their total impressions from Instagram Stories. ( Social Bakers

Instagram has half the user base of Facebook but a majority of its audience is young adults under 34. (HubSpot)

By the end of 2020, Instagram's share of Facebook's total ad revenue is expected to grow by 30%. (Recode)

Of the Instagram Story formats people prefer most, 35% say they engage with short narrative-styled Stories most often, followed by interactive Stories centered around quizzes and polls. (HubSpot)

Data Source: Lucid Software

85% of Facebook and Instagram users watch video on the platforms with the sound off. (Digiday)

In a poll of over 300 consumers, 56% said they "sometimes" watch social media Stories with the sound on, while 29% said they "always" do this. (HubSpot)

72% of teenagers use Instagram and nearly as many (69%) use Snapchat. Both have increased by more than 20% since 2015. ( Pew Research

Tweets with images receive 150% more retweets than tweets without images. (Buffer)

Source: Buffer

In an analysis of over 1 million articles, BuzzSumo found that articles with an image once every 75-100 words received double the social media shares as articles with fewer images. (Buzzsumo)

Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images. (Buzzsumo)

Source: Buzzsumo

There are more than 500 million Instagram users active every day. (Instagram Business)

By 2017, more than 500 million Facebook users are watching videos on Facebook every day. (Forbes)

By late 2018, 52% of marketers reported seeing their organic reach on Facebook decline in the last year. (Social Media Examiner)

92% of the videos on Facebook are published as Facebook native videos. (Quintly)

Snapchat had 187 million daily active Snapchat users as of 2018. (Bloomberg)

8% more B2C marketers than B2B marketers are interested in learning more about Pinterest as a visual content platform. (Pew Research)

Shopify users referred by Pinterest spend an average of $80 compared to the Facebook referral average of $40. (Jeff Bullas)

Source: Jeff Bullas