NC State: “Marketing researchers have identified the combination of characteristics that make people “like” images on the social media platform Instagram. For example, the visual complexity of images has a significant effect on whether viewers choose to engage with a social media post. “We are increasingly able to determine whether images included in social media messages are likely to garner interest from consumers,” says William Rand, co-author of a paper on the work and an associate professor of marketing at North Carolina State University. “But a lot of the variables that we know affect public interest have very little to do with the images themselves. “For example, a brand’s strength, and the number of followers it has on Instagram, is the strongest predictor of whether consumers will engage with an image,” Rand says. “The text accompanying an image is also important. “We wanted to look at the role the actual image plays, focusing specifically on how the complexity of an image drives consumer engagement. This is important information for the marketing community, because it can inform decisions about what sort of images to use to continuing building a brand.” Previous work found there are two aspects of an image that people respond to: feature complexity and design complexity. Essentially, feature complexity refers to fundamental characteristics such as color and brightness. Design complexity refers to the actual things found in an image and how they are arranged…”