Tips & Tricks to create great social media photos

        How can you create great social media photos for your business?  Well, it’s not as easy as snapping a picture on your phone, uploading to Instagram & seeing instant success.  The beast of marketing, social media, has skyrocketed to the radar of those beyond the marketing field and into the hands of every business owner and individual.  It can be a blessing or a disaster depending on your tactics as a business owner. I’m a firm believer that we start a business because we have a craft or skill to share, however many don’t go into it envisioning they’ll be leading their own marketing departments.  And while hiring a professional photographer, such as Bluescapes Photography, would be your best option, it may not be in your budget.

        Yet, social media marketing is necessary!  It is where new customers can find your business, is the most easily shareable way to market yourself & how brands build loyalty,   In order to do all of this, it comes down to the content created for your social media pages – your photos & videos! Read below for ways you can upgrade your images from lackluster to profitable!

*Interested in learning more? Upswing is created a post about how to choose the best social media platform to be on for your business.

10 Tips to improve your social media photos

1. Composition

Music sounds better when it’s layered on, as opposed to one instrument playing a simple melody repeatedly.  Consider this when shooting pictures. You could easily place the focus of the photo directly center each time, but that overplayed melody will be skipped over quite quickly.  Instead change it up!

2. Take photos during the day

Outdoor light is ideal for most photography (and is my favorite to shoot in).  It’s extremely flattering and appears the most natural to the human eye. While some may not have access to sunny days throughout the year like we do in San Diego, you should then consider…

3. Lighting

If you can’t use soft outdoor lighting and are working with a cell phone for your business photos, check out this attachment to help add natural looking glow.

4. Find a good background

Depending on what you are shooting a picture of make sure your background doesn’t drown out the min object.  For example, if you are shooting a person wearing a black top who is standing in front of a black wall, you will end up with a floating head.

5. Change up your camera angles

Hopefully this is self explanatory, but mix it up with your stance.  Get low to the ground, try shooting diagonally, etc. Mix it up!

6. Align with your brands colors

Depending on your business and/or brand seek out colors that correlate to one another.  You can also tweak this by following tip #7 below!

7. Edit images to create a color aesthetic

Creating an aesthetic is visually appealing to all and what many gravitate towards.  While not always possible to do on your own, you can edit your images to match your desired aesthetic.  Here are tools you can download to do so, and ones that I personally recommend:

• Adobe Lightroom desktop: a highly powerful photo editing tool that professional photographers, like myself use.  *Fun fact- I edit photos for clients all of the time, please connect with me if you need your photos edited.
• Lightroom Mobile: the mobile version of Lightroom is free and great for newcomers to photo editing, however it is not nearly as powerful as the desktop version
• Snapseed: a mobile app great for brightening certain parts of images to make it look cohesive
• VSCO: a mobile photo editing app, it also has a video editing feature you can purchase
• Retouch: a mobile app that can easily remove unwanted objects from your pictures
• Facetune: a mobile app great for making small alterations if you are inexperienced with Lightroom
• Preview: a mobile app that helps with planning out your social media posts

8. Do NOT over edit

An over edited image is an eye sore to viewers, so be cautious when editing to not become overly excited with changing the colors to far from the original

9. Create a story

Like I stated above, aim to go beyond point & shooting an image.  People are oversaturated with visuals all day long, so they crave authenticity.  Building your brand goes beyond the color aesthetic & needs to include a story about you, your business, etc.  Having an idea in mind can create an even better image!

10. Hire a professional lifestyle photographer

Yes, this may be a bit obvious, as you’re reading this from a photographers website, however, spending hours learning how to use multiple programs, practicing taking great shots, and more are all of the skills that come with hiring a professional photographer.  My biggest piece of advice for this would be to openly communicate your vision with whomever you hire (hopefully me!)