Let’s face it, not everyone is a designer or a creative. If that’s you, it can create a lot of stress in your business to find creative content and photography that matches your brand and captures your audience. Brand photography is often an easy topic to overlook, but doesn’t come without consequences.
Now more than ever, the digital space is saturated with more and more brands every day – all trying to win users over with their content to increase their bottom line. With such increased competition, it’s important to realize that eye-capturing content can make or break your digital marketing efforts. Let’s briefly go over 3 things you can start paying attention to today to ensure your photography is best representing your business.
Where are you going to use the images?
Before you begin your search for creative visuals, it is important to understand where they will be used. For example, an image used in a Facebook or Instagram post should be around 800 pixels wide or more to ensure quality and legibility, while a photo used as the homepage of your website will need to be much bigger – upward toward 3,000 pixels wide.
Whenever you purchase stock photography, or take the picture yourself, the image will most likely be high resolution. However, when you browse search engines for images, take a photo from another person or page, or take a screenshot, it’s easy to find something that is too small, resulting in a blurry visual that will not help elevate your brand. Remind yourself to take the time and look at details such as this that will go a long way in giving your business a professional and polished look.
Is this the photography consistent with my brand and message?
Building your brand took a lot of time, effort, and thought. One of the key goals to grow your business should not only be brand awareness, but brand memorability. You should ask yourself, “Are people simply seeing my brand, or are they recognizing it and becoming familiar with who we are?” The latter is where you want to be.
Most likely, when you think of outstanding brands, they have outstanding brand standards. That is, their creative content always flows to a consistent theme, look, and feel. Brand reputation is fragile. It can take years to build up, and only one wrong message to break it down. When choosing photography for your creative content, it’s important to remain objective and focused on your brand’s long term message, rather than personal biases on a given day.
So, while certain photos may be appealing or amusing to you, it’s worth the time to double check the quality and tone before sending it off for the world to see. Remember, quality over quantity will go far in growing your brand’s recognition.
Will the image need to be cropped?
It’s rare that a photo will be used in it’s raw form. You may find the perfect photo that represents your message, only to notice later on that any given publication cropped off half the photo…then you’re in a mess trying to find a new photo, or paying someone to do design work.
Whether it’s brochures, advertisements, website background images, or other applications, a photo will usually have some form of text, border, or overlay applied for the final design. Whenever you find the photo you are looking for, make note of the focal point of the picture and how it may look when several adjustments are made. Then, communicate to your employee, designer, or yourself the most important aspects of the photo.
Building Your Brand’s Image
If your not a creative person, that’s okay! We all have our strengths. But maintaining a high level of brand standards for your business has to include all aspects, including social media, photography, design, advertising, etc. These, collectively, are the face of your brand. What are they saying?
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