5 Great Ways to use Images to Enhance Your Social Media

Utilising images in your social media posts makes them much more eye-catching and unique to your business, on all social media platforms viewership and engagement goes up exponentially when images are included, and it gives a wonderful opportunity to attach your business’s name to a more shareable piece of content.

1. Keep the images brand consistent

Having brand consistency makes you much more recognisable when your post shows up in the news feed, it will build a familiarity with your audience each time they see it. A good way to implement this is with a strong colour theme that overlay or borders your images, or a shape that you use around your logo.
Utilise a consistent font for overlaying type onto an image, if you use a font for your logo you may want to use that to help it flow together. Always include a call to action so that you make it as easy as possible for a viewer to engage.

2. Have a clear message

Make sure that the image directly relates to the topic of the post as you don’t want to confuse the audience. Employing a distinct takeaway to the post and sticking to the point will make it easier for the viewer to understand.
Messages that evoke emotion are shared much more. A good way to do this is by having a strong social message to make people think, or to celebrate an achievement or milestone to spread positivity.

If you are putting text over the image; make sure it stands out and contrasts from the background, and position text in open spaces to avoid obstructing the image which will look messy and unprofessional.

3. Don’t look too much like an advert

People are often consuming large amounts of posts in a short amount of time, If the image looks like a blatant ad, it will turn people away and make them scroll right past it. The goal is to produce an engaging post that people want to look at. Once they have stopped to look at the post, they are much more likely to share or engage further.

If you are using your own image is it a good idea to add your logo and branding in a distinct way to make it clear without being too over the top.

4. Get the perfect picture

Finding a stock photo can be difficult, you will need to find a picture relevant to your post, then make sure to check the licencing to make sure if it is ok to use.

Know who your primary audience is and try to use images of that age group to make it more directly relatable to them. A safe choice is to use pictures of animals and children as these are the most commonly shared. A good site for free images is Pixabay.com.

It can be a good idea to buy the licence for a higher quality image, which will look more professional and helps you avoid using the same images as everyone else. A good site to licence images is Shutterstock.com. You could also produce your own images, which can be more time consuming but ultimately allows you to tailor make them for the message you want to convey and makes you stand out a lot more.

5. Know the platform

Some social media platforms embrace the use of images more than others and in different ways, it is important to know what works well and what doesn’t. Listen to the specifications given by the platform, if they give a specific size or shape that is preferred.

You may want to post the same or similar post across all your social media, it is best to adapt them a little to suit each platform accordingly.

Facebook – Keep the image simple and avoid small text, images allowed on Facebook are quite small file sizes, which makes images less crisp and difficult to read with smaller text.

LinkedIn – Is visual and having a clean and professional profile picture make you immediately more trustworthy, as well as having a profile banner that compliments your profile picture as they will often been seen together. LinkedIn is a good place for more in-depth images like info-graphics as it also favours content production.

 

Instagram – specifically made for sharing images, images with a plain white background are shared more often, also body parts i.e. hands and eyes get around 29% more engagement than full body pictures. Instagram allows you to use Hashtags which gives you a chance to categorise the content and make it easier for people to search for and find.

Twitter – is full of creative content so it can be difficult to stand out. It is best to use vibrant colours, and clean open images like landscapes. Twitter also uses hashtags, but it is best to only use two or three as to not bloat up your post.

Ultimately incorporating high quality images in your social media posts will drive up your engagement and increase visibility; it also helps you stand out from the crowd, and gives your brand some personality.

To find out how Website Design & Marketing can help you get more for your business, contact us online or call us on 01536 461 597.