How Marketers Can Create Picture-Perfect Images for Social Media

How Marketers Can Create Picture-Perfect Images for Social Media. How to find great images A great image is often customized, which I’ll get into next, but it’s imperative to start with an image that tells your story. You can always use your own photos, but if your own photos don’t drive your message, you can also find images that work well on a variety of stock photo sites -- either paid or free. Here are some of the top paid stock photo sites, although there are certainly several more out there. Some of our favorites are: How to customize images with your marketing message Now that you’ve put the time in to find images, it’s time to customize them -- even if they are your own photos! We’ll go into some suggestions for apps and web-based programs below that offer you several options for adding this simple customization. This will really brand the image as your own, even if others are downloading and using the same images. Some popular ways to modify images include: Zooming in on a particular area Creating a collage Adding a quote from someone famous Including your marketing message directly on the photo A word to the wise: if you’re adding a significant amount of text and planning to use the image as an ad on Facebook or Instagram, they are tightening up which images can be used for ads or boosted posts. Apps and web-based programs to customize images You’ll find, if you do a Google search, that there are tons of apps out there that you can use to customize your stock image on a mobile device. If you’re using your own photos, or downloading stock images and customizing them directly on a mobile device, then it makes a lot of sense to use these apps.

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How Marketers Can Create Picture-Perfect Images for Social Media

Images are everything these days, and the saying that a picture is worth more than a thousand words is even more true today. Images are used in marketing everywhere – from Medium.com, to Facebook and Twitter, to blogs and of course the image-driven social media sites like Instagram and Pinterest. It’s more important now than ever to have strong images that enhance your marketing message.

There are basically two steps to boosting your marketing image — finding images and then customizing them. But how?

How to find great images

A great image is often customized, which I’ll get into next, but it’s imperative to start with an image that tells your story. Now, you can certainly use solid colored backgrounds with language on front, but some of the most powerful image-driven messages start with a photo. You can always use your own photos, but if your own photos don’t drive your message, you can also find images that work well on a variety of stock photo sites — either paid or free.

Here are some of the top paid stock photo sites, although there are certainly several more out there. These are often purchased on either a subscription or image-by-image basis:

When it comes to free stock photos, make sure you’re downloading images from a reputable source. That is, don’t just download any image you like directly from Google. Instead you can use any number of royalty-free stock image sites that use the Creative Commons License to search for photos that fit your needs. Some of our favorites are:

How to customize images with your marketing message

Now that you’ve put the time in to find images, it’s time to customize them — even if they are your own photos! At absolute minimum, you’ll want to brand every image so that when that one image goes viral, people can find you. Ideally, you’ll watermark it with your brand name and web address. We’ll go into some suggestions for apps and web-based programs below that offer you several options for adding this simple customization.

But, most of the time, you’ll want to tailor your images even further to fit your marketing needs, especially with stock images. This will really brand the image as your own, even if others…

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