Art of Posting - Lesson 7
Visual Authority
Which image types beat a creator's own average, and which quietly cost them
Most creators treat image choice as a design decision: pick something that looks good. The index treats it as a measurable one, because the type of image you attach changes the result more than the decision to attach one at all.
Every figure in this lesson is creator-normalised. Each creator's posts of a type are compared against that creator's own average, and we take the median across creators. 1.00 means the type performs exactly like that creator's typical post. This avoids the trap of crediting an image type for the fact that big accounts happen to use it.
document_note leads the table against the creator's own average image post, and lands in the Exceptional band far more often than the corpus generally. product_graphic sits at the bottom. The live figures are in the Visual Authority table; this lesson teaches the ordering, which is what stays true.
The Image Performance Matrix
Above average, and worth reaching for. document_note, the strongest in the table: use it when the post explains how you think, and let the marked-up page carry the proof. headshot_selfie, close behind: use it when the claim is personal and the reader needs a face attached to it. personal_life: use it on Connect and Inspire posts, where the photo supplies context the text cannot.
Also above average, and usually underrated. stock_illustration: a plain illustration is not the liability creator advice claims it is. team_people, the most widely used of the above-average types: use it when the post credits someone other than you.
At par, so the image has to earn its place another way. tweet_quote: only worth it when your commentary adds something the screenshot does not. infographic, the most-used visual in the index, sits within a whisker of the creator's own average, so the design effort buys nothing by itself. workspace and quote_card sit in the same place.
Below average, so use them knowing the cost. book_page and meme are mild. screenshot: heavily used and consistently under par, because a screenshot of a result is weaker than a screenshot of the work behind it. speaking_event: the stage photo flatters you more than it serves the reader. framework_visual: a diagram of your model is not the same as the model. product_graphic sits at the bottom of the table.
One caution on reading this table. Every figure is a median across creators, not a guarantee for your next post, and the samples behind the types differ by more than tenfold. The ordering is stable; the exact decimals are not, which is why this lesson gives you the order and the live table gives you the numbers.
The Document Note Effect
A screenshot of real work, an annotated document, a spreadsheet, a redlined draft, makes expertise visible. It shows the audience the evidence of your thinking rather than asserting that the thinking happened.
The numbers back the intuition here more cleanly than anywhere else in the image table. document_note leads on both measures at once: it runs above the creator's own average image post, and it reaches the Exceptional band around twice as often as a post picked at random. It is also the type nobody can fake, which is likely the whole mechanism: annotations are a record of effort.
Note the contrast with framework_visual, which sits near the bottom of the same table on a comparable sample. A designed diagram of your model performs well below a marked-up page of you working through it. What travels is evidence of the work, and a clean diagram hides the work by design.
Visual Proof Strategies
Match the image to the job of the post. Teaching and expertise posts want document_note. Personal claims want your face. Connect and Inspire posts want a real moment from your life. Posts crediting other people want those people in frame.
Then check what you are defaulting to. The three most-used types in the index are infographic, quote_card and screenshot, and all three sit at or below the creator's own average. Most creators are spending their design time on the visuals that move the least.