Content Marketing Using Photos
A picture tells a thousand words.
I cannot express enough how much success you can find in your marketing campaigns just by adding photos to your content marketing strategy. Using photos effectively is very important. If you have not already noticed while scrolling through Facebook, posts with pictures get more interaction.
Hubspot conducted a research on visual content marketing which you can read more on here.
Just to highlight a few facts from this article, they concluded that “46% of marketers say photography is critical to their current marketing and story telling strategies” and “content with relevant images gets 94% more views that content without relevant images.”
Have you ever noticed that even when you scroll through your social media account you may not even read anything but you do see images. This is because pictures get attention before anything else. Using the right picture for your content is very important.
Now that we know that using pictures is important in every content marketing strategy, how do we get them?
Taking your own pictures is the easiest way to get what you need. When you take your own photographs, you don’t have to worry about licensing or getting in trouble because you own the image. You can be casual with your business photos on social media. You can use any kind of camera. The camera does not have to be an expensive one. In fact, many people use their smartphones to snap a shot and upload on the go. If you choose to buy a camera and do not have experience with photography, consider taking a photography course. Try different angles and lighting until you get the photo that you want.
Not sure what to take a picture of? No matter what product or service you sell people enjoy seeing behind the scenes. Pictures are the perfect medium to share them in. Take photographs of your products, staff or share snapshots of your new product before it’s even released. Use your phone to take pictures during events and post them while the event is going on. Are you a restaurant? Take a pictures of your daily special and post it.
If you can’t take a pictures use stock photos on sites such as iStockPhoto by Getty Images, Shutterstock or 500px.com which is a stock photo site where independent photographers can share their work.
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Another option is to look for creative common license photographs on Flickr. You can search for an image and check the licensing information to make sure you the photo is licensed for commercial use.
Please do not search Google Images for a photography and then use it as you desire. If you do not obtain the appropriate license or permission from the photographer to use the photograph and you didn’t create it – that is breaking the law. You don’t want to spend hours searching and finding the best photos for your marketing and then have to change them all because you didn’t secure the proper licenses.
Finally, make sure you properly tag your photos with an appropriate hashtag. Hashtags are public and help organize photos from all users of a social network. Be smart about which hashtags you use so that the right audience is viewing your photo.
Happy Photographing!