Do images really matter on social media posts? As a writer, I've been wrestling with this. I don't think they should, but do they? If Instagram is not your playground and you prefer LinkedIn or Facebook or X, you've seen it. Some marketers who like to write, always include a photo. They're sipping coffee, on a stage, or in front of a waterfall... But hidden beneath each well-crafted picture is a story. Why not just let the story stand on its own? I get the concept: an image is worth a thousand words. But my words should be powerful enough to stop the scroll and keep people reading. Right? Plus, I think, "I've got nothing worthy to show." After all, I am a fledgling software founder. What am I gonna do, show my split test results — boring. Those other people obviously have professional photographers and beautiful sets. All things I don't have. So what do I do when I'm writing about concepts and struggles faced by marketers? Recently, I started to hear a different story from my podcast guests. They explained how the algorithm works through the lens of YouTube. On YouTube, we all know the thumbnail is the key to getting the play. Could that insight carry over to text posts on other platforms? Well, it turns out that concept on LinkedIn opens a door. If you take a vertical selfie of yourself, it shows the whole darn thing in the feed. You get a few lines of text and then the more button. So it got me thinking… How about employing a pattern interrupt? Could I actually just take a selfie of myself working with NoteGo software, wearing my sweaty baseball cap in the morning? Of course I could. And then I thought, I don't wanna limit this to socials, I will also embed it in an email. And here's the key: my audience is a lot like me. They work behind a screen and are not always camera ready. So just maybe, there's something here. Will an image help get my stories read? I think so. Will the writer in me revolt? I know so. Is it worth an experiment? Absolutely. What do you think? I'd love to hear from you.