SOCIAL MEDIA PHOTOGRAPHY
In today’s economy, social media is not only a way for you or your company to gain more attention, it’s a necessary marketing tool. No matter the kind of business you run, being present on social media with well-branded photography is a must.
However, it’s not enough to simply have a social media account. You must have an active, strategic, on-brand message accompanied by impactful product and lifestyle photography. Otherwise, your social accounts will fade into oblivion.
Here’s what you need to know about setting up a social media account for your business and what kind of photography you need with which to accompany it.
Why hire a professional photographer for social media?
Most of us use our phones to scroll, post, and share on social media. So, you may be wondering why you should even hire a professional photographer for social posts if you could just take photos on your phone instead?
I totally understand where you’re coming from here. After all, taking photos yourself is free and you have total control over the content. But, there is a value in investing in professional photos that is unmatched by your run-of-the-mill iPhone shots.
First of all, as a professional photographer, I have an eye for what will work. I know lighting and framing, and I can help you pick poses, outfits, and backgrounds. I have the years of experience necessary to generate high-quality results time and time again.
Not only that, but you're not relinquishing any control over the results when you hire me. It’s as important to me as it is to you that you’re happy and satisfied with the final product, after all, these photos are a reflection of me, too. We are mutually invested in the project, and two heads are better than one.
If you’re relying on social media to help drive your business forward, you have to act like it and invest in it the same way you would any other advertising. This doesn’t mean you have to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into it, after all, the price point is one of the best things about social media. But it’s important for you to prioritize it and put some stake in it. By hiring a professional photographer to generate social media content, you’ll be adding value to your communications strategy and presenting yourself to your audience in a professional way.
Social Media Content at Your Fingertips
Most of the world now uses smartphones to scroll through news, buys products, and otherwise entertain and teach ourselves about life. Anyone can post to the web, and most do. However, not everyone makes a large impact on social media using simple product or lifestyle photography.
How do people create value from their social media accounts? They create personal, consistent, on-brand imagery that reaches clients, and makes clients reach into their wallets.
The first thing to consider before creating your social media accounts is whether or not you will be the creator of your brand image, or if you’d like to hire a professional social media photographer.
Social Media Content Photography
Taking photos of yourself (hello selfies!) and using product photography could, under the right circumstances, be completely free and under your control. However, there might also be long-lasting value in investing in a professional social media photographer with enough experience to understand lighting, background, composition, and how to get the highest-quality images for your needs.
Here’s how to know if you have the chops to be your own product photographer:
- You find taking photos and lighting your work professionally easy and fun.
- Social media is not your primary means for connecting with customers.
- You’re a new, small business and could invest money elsewhere before concentrating on your social media strategy.
The problem with being your own photographer is you might not have the necessary education needed to take professional looking photographs, and watching YouTube tutorials might not be the best way to learn.
Professional photographers are professionals for a reason -- they are experts at what they do. Plus, hiring a photographer does not mean you give up all control of what your sites will look like. It’s a photographer’s job to make sure you are satisfied with their work and it meets your expectations and overall brand vision. In the end, both of you should be happy with the work.
If you need a social media photographer to help drive your customers to your business, then you need to invest in it just as you would with any other marketing or advertising photography.
Here’s why you should hire a personal brand, professional social media photographer:
- You have a rapidly increasing social media following, connecting with new followers on a daily basis.
- You’re an amateur photographer who feels like taking pictures is getting in the way of running your company.
- The services your company offers include professional content. If you want customers to trust what you are offering to provide, you need to look as professional as what you’re selling.
Remember, creating a social media presence is more than producing pretty pictures for random followers. You need an expert in personal brand photoshoots. Someone who understands how to connect beautiful imagery, strategically, to customers who are specifically interested in what you offer. This isn’t an Amazon project of eCommerce product photography, it’s creating social media content strategically, and on brand.
Social Media Content Strategy
Certified Social Media Specialists are educated on the inner workings of internet platforms and know everything from what day and time it is best to update posts in your business category, to how to hire influencers and guest bloggers, and what your Google Analytics results actually mean. Most importantly, they think ahead.
One of the reasons business owners give up on social media is because they don’t have time to dedicate themselves to it. Keeping your social media feeds fresh is time consuming. Thankfully, you can create a content strategy months in advance, work with your personal branding photographer to do all your images at once, and then sit back and relax while your posts hit the live stream as scheduled.
Thinking ahead has numerous benefits.
For example, if your business is something like coffee, donuts, or baked goods, every time there’s a new holiday, there’s a chance to make a fresh impact through social media posts. Think of Starbucks’ holiday cups, the McDonald’s Shamrock Shake, or Dunkin’s “Five Drinks to Keep You Running on the Longest Day of the Year.” If you know your product celebrates a holiday, plan for it upfront by adding it to your personal brand photoshoot shot list.
Planning ahead also means you never have to worry about not having personal branding portraits to post. It means you can ensure the images you present to the public are consistent, both in content and message. It means you can dedicate a specific amount of time to social media, and then get on with your other work.
Photography for Social Media
If you decide to be your own photographer for your social media platforms, then there are a few things to keep in mind.
Lighting
First, lighting is the most important part of a photo. No matter what kind of camera you use, if the lighting isn’t right, your final product will be ruined.
The best lighting for taking pictures of products is natural lighting. Which sounds easy enough, except too much sun will mean your products have strong shadows, and too little sun will mean your photos will be too dark. For the best lighting, go outside on an overcast day, and you’ll find your products glow beautifully and naturally.
An artificial ring light is a great investment if you have to shoot your products inside. Because, let’s be serious, who can always shoot their products outside? If you’re really on a budget, check out lights for your cell phone that work similarly to the ring light.
Either way, with natural light or artificial, you don’t want to take a photo with your lens facing directly toward your source of light. You also don’t want to use a flash. The flash on your camera or smartphone will wash out your product and leave you with a less-than-desirable image.
Authenticity
A great selling point for many social media sites and the products they sell is showing real people engaging with your products. If you believe in your work, tell the world. And tell them in your brand’s voice.
A great example of inspiring customers through your interaction with the products is showing behind-the-scenes photos of your work. Include snapshots of your workspace and coworkers, and don’t forget to include that cuddly creature curled up the corner.
When it comes to social media marketing, being authentic is something customers always respond well to.
Clean It Up, Res It Up
Simple is best when it comes to social media photography. If you can, use solid backgrounds behind your products to make your work stand out as professional.
If you’re going in for a close up, don’t zoom in with your camera or smartphone. Zooming sacrifices the quality of your photo. Instead, use editing software on your phone or computer to crop your photo to the right size and dimensions.
Ensuring your photography has high quality standards means people who come to your social media platforms will perceive your company as professional and trustworthy.
Content Photographer
What is personal branding? As a content photographer on your social media platform, you have to decide who you are talking to, who they think they are talking to, and how you want your customers to react to your posts.
It’s easy to snap a quick pic and post it to Instagram or Facebook, but finding a style and submitting consistent content and messaging to your social media platforms is important for professional-looking businesses who want something from their followers.
Customers should be able to go to any of your social media accounts and find the same company, the same branding, the same products and services.
Photography for Instagram
If you have beautiful images to share with the world, Instagram is where you should post them first. However, your job doesn’t stop there. You need to learn how to interact with your followers so they keep seeing your content and coming back for more.
- On an organizational level, hashtags help categorize billions of Instagram posts across the world. It also gives customers an easy way of finding you. No matter what, include a hashtag or two on every social media post.
- If you use too many, different hashtags in your Instagram posts, your photos will dissolve into the abyss that is the black internet. However, too few hashtags, and you may never find an audience. While each post should contain a hashtag or two, overall you should be coming back to the same 20-30 hashtags repeatedly.
- Instagram only publishes square photographs. When you’re composing your shoots, make sure you keep this formatting in mind.
- In addition to the size of your photographs, keep in mind the different Instagram filters and changes in resolution. Get to know them, then use them to your advantage. It’s not cheating if you use the platform to enhance your image.
Tell Your Story on Social Media
The first task all social media platforms ask you to accomplish when opening a new account, is to create a profile picture. Easy, right? Not so fast.
Your profile picture should be as on-brand as the product images, lifestyle headshots, and behind-the-scenes photoshoots you brag about online. How do you tell your story on social media? Start here:
- Define your style. Are you playful and in love with kittens? Do you want to be taken seriously, academically, or as an advisor? Are you a mom blogger or home cook or do-gooder? There are so many ways you can present your persona online, but you need to pick one and stick to it.
- What is the emotion you want to come across from your brand? This should go hand-in-hand with your style.
- Check out a color psychology chart. If you want to come across as fun and happy, reds and yellows are your friends. If you’re in finance, blue is the color of trust. Want to talk about green living? Then go green. The colors you choose to use in your photographs should connect to the style and emotions you want from your customers when they view your brand.
- Define your target audience, then define their style, emotions, and connection to colors, and make sure you and your customers agree. It’s not a bad idea to set up a focus group and ask friends, family members, or complete strangers to tell you what they think of your brand. If your ideas aren’t jiving, update your brand’s look.
You may be telling a story on your social media platforms, but you want to make sure the story you are telling is the one you want promoted. Be you, curated.
Social Media Branding
From Facebook to Instagram to LinkedIn, and everything in between, you’ll find slightly different ways to connect to audiences with personal branding photography ideas, depending on the platform you are using. We already mentioned Instagram, which is the most widely used platform for visual imagery, but here are a few more tips:
- Use Facebook’s business pages when setting up your account and receive consumer feedback on your personal branding images for free.
- Fill in every blank available on every social media platform. Internet search algorithms incorporate more than what your customers are seeing, so make sure you have an about page, and fill in your descriptions, location, and bio.
- Use the same branding on all your social media platforms. The same logo, the same background, the same brand photography, everything. You should have a consistent brand look wherever you can be found.
- Your brand should carry over into all aspects of your company. If you type something, it should be in a specific font. If you use accent colors, use the same ones everywhere. Whether your company is featured in a static photo or a motion picture, your brand look should be consistent everywhere.
- Your brand voice should carry into the voice found in your captions and related copywriting. Social media accounts tend to have big personalities, so choose to be snarky, heartwarming, or informative, but whatever you choose, make it your muse for everything you write.
Lifestyle Product Photography Branding
Obviously, using the same couple of commercial photography product images on your social media sites over and over again is going to lose you customers. Don’t be afraid to get personal. Or, if that freaks you out, find someone to be your company mascot. Whatever or whoever that person/thing is, tell the world how they are, what they’re doing, and how they’re paying off your product or service.
Showing your brand at work in the world through lifestyle photography adds a human aspect to your business and allows customers to connect with you and your product photos. If you’re interested in saving the planet, tell us about it. If you can’t get enough of chocolate-covered almonds, make sure you make fun of yourself at least once each week abou it. We’ll be sure to give your snaps a thumbs up.
The more customers can recognize your photo branding and connect to your work, the more beneficial social media accounts can be for your company. All your hard work will be time (and money) well spent.
