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Big Fish Local

4 Tips for Social Media

How social media builds loyal fans

Every day, thousands upon thousands of brands post to their social media platforms. From Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn and more, social marketing is larger than ever. That means that your visuals — the photos you use to grab your readers’ attention — need to be striking, eye-catching, and overall interesting. Here are our top four tips for social media photos and how to make them stand out from the competition.

Brand photos when appropriate
When using stock imagery, it’s helpful to brand your photos with your logo. This is akin to television stations placing their logo somewhere on the lower right-hand corner of the screen. 

However, there are times when branding might seem out of place. There are also times when branding an image can feel obtrusive, especially if the logo takes up a sizable chunk of the main image. 

Our point? Brand photos tastefully, keeping the logo top of mind for your followers while not being a distraction.

Pay attention to licenses
Along the line of stock photos, you also need to be cognizant of the license and how you’re allowed to use it. Most of the time, stock photos are “owned” by the original producer of the photo. If you download their work and don’t make any edits or modifications to it, you’re essentially opening the door for others to use it without a license.

Licenses, especially through paid subscriptions such as Canva Pro, require a modification (color editing, cropping, or other tweaks) so that the original work remains behind a paywall of sorts.

Don’t overthink it
That being said, we’ve seen far too many brands that go crazy adding extraneous elements to photos. Sometimes, this is to adhere to our previous tip about licenses, wanting to avoid any chance of violating them.

In other cases, it’s a stylistic choice. However, this can have the effect of putting too much thought into a single post. Yes, social media photos should be engaging. Yes, you want to make them memorable.

However, the more elements you add to a photo can detract from the impact of your message. There’s a fine line to walk, and you’ll need to experiment with your audience to see what’s most effective.

Albums vs a “slow drip”
One of the experiments we’ve tried, and now feel comfortable recommending, is a “slow drip” approach to posting social media photos. Photos albums are great; however, keep the spirit of the event alive by posting just an image or two every day for a week as a daily recap. This can have a much larger impact on your engagement rates. Later, once you’ve posted all of the photos, you can then group them into an album.

Social media photos should be engaging
As a quasi-bonus fifth tip, remember your audience and their expectations. Your photos should be engaging, capturing the attention of your ideal future and current customer base. This process can take time to refine, though we encourage you to continually try new ideas and concepts.

If you need assistance with your company’s social media photos and content, let us know. We partner with brands across a wide variety of industries and would love to add you to our ever-growing Big Fish Local family. Contact us and let us know how we can help!