Is your business invisible? Here's how to stand out.

Visual social media is now a hot topic in marketing.

It's not really surprising visuals: photographs and videos have been selling products for years. 

Our brain process images better than text and done well they work.  

These days all social media platforms have got their head round this and provided us with great ways of presenting images.  

Engagement increases by around 30% with a photo and 20% with video.  

That's the great news.  

OK there is some bad news...

Done badly it could really damage your business whether that business is you, a service you sell, or your products.



What are your options to get great photos? 

1. If you have the budget, hire a professional photographer who has the skills to deliver to your brief.
2. Buy from photo library and pay a much smaller sum for the use of an image. You pay for what you use, the more you want to use it the more it costs.
3. Use free stock photos, of which there are lots.  Yes, this could be an option but even free comes with a price...everyone else is using that image

How can you stand out from the crowd?

You must differentiate.

Don't have the budget?

There is one more route you can take, no it's not ripping off photos and hoping nobody will notice as copyright infringement comes with a hefty fine.

You can take your own photographs!

Yes YOU

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How?
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1. If you are only using these for web use a good smart phone, Android or iOS produces good enough quality, at around 2-4 mg you can even use these for publishing, so you no longer need a fancy camera.
2. Get familiar with some photo editing software these days you don't have to rely on Photoshop which is still a complex bit of software.  Try Snapseed for Android or for iOS
3. You need to change the way you think when you take the photograph, and I can show you how
4. You need to organise things

Want to find out more?  Read on...

• Dig around in the settings of your smart phone and adjust the resolution to the highest quality.

• Turn off auto flash

Get into the habit of taking photos all the time.

You may have a story/blog/brochure or quote you want to illustrate already in mind so think around the subject, don't always opt for the obvious.
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Photos can illustrate all sorts of things, here are a selection of mine, most of these are shot with a small compact or my smart phone

• Use the most ordinary things and think of a creative way to represent them.  
  
• Collect props.  
  
• Use natural light here it's filtered ie no direct sunlight.
  
•  
  

This photo could illustrate a food blog,
or be the cover of a brochure about healthcare or,
​inspiration for a colour palette

Be creative with your composition.  We don't need to see the child in the photo but it still tells a story, (you must have written parental consent for publishing shots of under 18's in the UK)

Leave a little bit to the imagination, and there's plenty of space to overlay text that will read.

Look for evocative images.  Everyone likes the sea....Usethe rule of thirds to compost your picture

This image is perfect for a quote which can then be used in Twitter, Pinterest etc
Or it could be used for an invitation, an illustration for a brochure...the list goes on.

I hope I've given you food for thought.

Keeping things tidy...

• Make sure you download all your shots to a hard drive or keep in the cloud.  
• Rename them something sensible, 
• These now belong to you, no-one else can use these without your permission. You may watermark them with your copyright or not, your choice.

​I used Canva to overlay text.  It's a really cool design tool.

In five years time, you will thank me for this advice.  Build your own library, it's valuable and it's yours.

​©Lynn Keddie