5 Ways to Take Better Marketing Photos for Your Social Media Campaigns

Image source: Unsplash

Visual content and marketing photos are essential for brand image building and social media sales. The importance of the visual is confirmed by research:

• 56% of users first look at a product photo and only then start reading the description – Baymard Institute;
• A high-quality visual can increase conversions by 8% – Brandquad and Ozon;
• 82% of marketers use visuals as a social media engagement tool – Contently.

But we are not talking about flashy banners and images, but about marketing photos that work for sales, revealing the brand’s identity, its history, and positioning through color, tone, composition, rhythm or humor.

In social networks, a brand can find points of contact with the audience through dozens of touches – posts, stories, ads, mentions, recommendations, etc. Such an effect is difficult to achieve with a short TV commercial or a single advertising banner.

Therefore, at each stage of the sales funnel in social networks, there should be high-quality photos in the same style so that the user is involved, remembers the brand and does not confuse it with competitors.

Why do you need high-quality photos on social networks?

Let’s take a closer look at why you need a visual in social networks and why it is essential to create your own photo bank for business:

To sell goods and services

Visuals and marketing photos on social networks directly affect sales: high-quality photos attract attention and allow you to imagine what the product looks like in reality.

Selling visuals include photos of general and close-up products, small details, photos in the interior, examples of use, the process of providing services, and so on.

To create a brand image

Photos make the first impression and shape the feeling of a brand even before reading its description. They help the user understand what the brand offers and what values ​​it adheres to. You can use the online service by Photza to, for example, make some changes to your brand image to make it more suitable.   

To increase conversion

Thanks to high-quality visuals, marketing photos and a formed brand image, users feel that they need this particular product or service. Therefore, they buy more and, as a result, the conversion grows on all brand pages.

You can increase the conversion by presenting a product or service from different visits. Let’s take an example with jewelry and imagine what kind of visual can be used:

• a photo with the smallest details of the product – engravings, stones, bends that you just want to touch;
• video with the product on the model to understand how it looks on the person;
• video with putting on or taking off the product, how it fastens, slides on the skin or clothes;
• photo or video from a cafe, restaurant, from a walk, its combination with clothes;
• photo of the product in everyday life – on the bedside table or in the box;
• video or photo from a client with a review, etc.

For content localization

Sometimes international brands use the same photos in social networks without adapting them to the realities of other countries. When confronted with visuals of unfamiliar landscapes, streets, and values, it is more difficult for users to find contact points with the brand. In this case, it is better to make a local visual that will be closer to local users.

For example, in the global account of the Volkswagen brand, posts are published with the concepts of future cars, electric cars, cars against the backdrop of palm trees, etc.

Image source: Shutterstock

However, it is not always necessary to adapt. There are premium brands where the visual looks equally good in any country’s realities. There are also brands whose concept is associated with a specific location.

How to take better marketing photos?

To produce photo and video content to go quickly and not spend a lot of resources, you need to decide on the purpose of shooting, the audience and the budget, and then prepare visual examples and draw up technical specifications.

Let’s walk through the process of producing marketing photos step by step:

Step #1 Define a goal

Before you start taking photos, you need to decide what purpose the content will fulfill: sales, branding, or both. For sales, you need a subject shooting of goods or the process of providing services, photo and video reviews, and so on. For branding – image and atmospheric photos, lifestyle, storytelling and more.

Next, you need to understand what tasks the content will solve: stand out from competitors, warm up to sales, attract a new audience, engage in communication, make you want to repeat such photos, form the image of a modern brand, or vice versa – consolidate the image of a company that adheres to traditional values, etc.

Step #2 Define your audience

Next, you need to understand what audience the content will be for: age, gender, interests, hobbies, etc. The concept of shooting will depend on this: young people are unlikely to be interested in the image of a happy family with children, and a wealthy adult audience is unlikely to be interested in bright photos with balloons and unicorns.

Step #3 Develop a shooting concept

To create a concept, you need to develop an idea that will reflect marketing photos, analyze competitors and find similar examples of photos and videos. The concept should be based on the three main parameters that we wrote about above: goal, budget and audience.

Step #4 Find references and make a moodboard

Create a moodboard with references – photos and videos that show how the ideas of the new concept will be embodied, its mood, colors and style. Most often, references are searched on Pinterest.

Image source: Shutterstock

Step #5 Take a photo shoot

Now you can start taking photos. To take quality marketing photos, you need to remember the value of the product you are photographing. When you accurately determine the value of your product, you will be able to choose the right location for the frame, lighting, position of the product in the frame, etc. Don’t be in a hurry while taking photos. It is better to spend more time, but the result will be worth it.

After the photos are ready, they should be edited and prepared for publication on social networks. You can use the online service by Photza to, for example, make the photo brighter, or remove some object from the photo.

Conclusion

Alternatively, you can hire a virtual assistant to help with tasks.