When it comes to social media marketing, images are key. Not only do posts with visual content grab the audience’s attention, they also receive more engagement and conversions. But what images should you use? How do you use them to get the most out of your posts to make your content enjoyable for your audience and see good engagement for your business?
Our Marketing Coordinator, Lily (who has a side hustle as a photographer) gives her top tips on how to achieve this.
1. Shoot close up to show detail
This will intrigue your followers and help increase engagement – i.e. post a ‘sneak peek’ at some new packaging or a new product by only showing off part of the image or if people are the subject, make sure they’re the focus of the photo
2. Try a video or Boomerang
Moving images are a great attention grabber. Even a quick, repetitive image like a ‘Boomerang’ is enough to stop someone from scrolling past your post. Download the Boomerang app and play with content ideas. Boomerangs work well on movement – i.e. bubbles in a glass, jumping, running, cutting a cake, etc.
3. Photograph in good lighting
You want to show off your subject in the best way, so that means you should consider the lighting. Make sure you don’t have shadows that are too harsh or highlights that are blown out.
4. Take a moment to think about why a follower would engage with your photo.
Ask yourself – would you like it? Is it cool/interesting enough to share with my friends? Is the quality of the photo good enough? In a world where we are bombarded with images, our attention span has dropped to 8 seconds (that’s less than a gold fish!) – TwoSix (https://twosixdigital.com/blog/instagram-attention-spans/), so for your content to make an impression, it needs to look good.
5. Have fun with it!
“But what if I’m not artistic or a photographer, how can I achieve this?”
Smartphones aren’t called smart for no reason. If you have access to an iPhone for example, you probably have access to ‘Portrait’ mode (some older iPhones don’t have this) a function which helps take a really sharp photo of your subject while blurring the background.
Take these two examples. The one on the left is taken with no special settings, the one on the right, however, is using the camera’s ‘portrait’ mode. This helps to bring attention to the subject.
6. Watch out for your shadow/product shadow
The last thing you want is to spend time setting up a shot, only to forget about your shadow and leave it as a distracting feature in the frame.
7. Move around to find the best angle and light
If you can, move around your subject to find the best possible angle and light to show off your product in the best way.
8. OUR favourite photo apps (and why we like them)
Layout
- Free to download from for iPhone and Android
- Have a few images in one square photo
- Lets you size each element how you would like
Snapseed
- Free to download for iPhone and Android
- Good for minor adjustments, including cropping and brightening shadows
Canva
- Free to download (available on desktop too!)
- Let’s you design any size post
- Pre-loaded templates available (free and paid)
- Save your designs and come back to them later!
Quik
- Free to download on iPhone and Android
- Great for short videos
- Add clips and photos into one video
- Add music tracks (that won’t get picked up for copywrite infringement)
Taking the best photo all comes down to experimentation and assessing the results. If you haven’t tried these apps or photo techniques, experiment with your upcoming content and see if it makes a difference in the engagement. You can always look at the ‘Insights’ on your Business Page to see what posts performed the best. Good luck!
