But Kate, what is a stock photo? Stock photos are existing images, created and made available for use by licence (either free or paid for). These high-quality images taken by professional photographers can be used to spruce up your social media and website or to support your latest campaign. Stock photography websites like Shutterstock have thousands if not millions of images for you to trawl through, and it's easy to fall down a photo wormhole (you have been warned). BUT!.... with all the brilliant and sparkly photos it's easy to choose images that don't support your brand or message.
Here are our tips for choosing images that are on-brand and on-message, helping you to stand out online and connect with your customer.
Knowing your ideal client, who she is, what she does and what gets her pumped up will help you choose an image that will appeal to her.
See, I know you all love coffee like me
As with all your photos, including your brand colours will help your customers to recognise your posts on social media by colour alone and stop the scroll. Using these images on your website will give a consistent look and feel to your site and give the impression of professionalism and quality.
Turquoise (in various shades) is our brand colour - leading by example and all that
Your brand should have a clear aesthetic that is recognisable in all your stock images. Whether your brand style is relaxed or formal, your chosen images should be in line with this.
Always searching for the positive vibes
Your chosen image, as well as being on-brand, should support your story or message and draw people in to then read your content.
This image is in our brand colours and with props that support the message in this blog
Still not sure if your images are hitting the mark? Take part in our FREE Brand Imagery Challenge. We've put together 5 actionable strategies to help you bring your imagery in line with your brand. With an explanation of why it's important for your business and actions for you to follow, completing this challenge will help you stand out and make creating content easier.
We've created a small collection of stock images that you can download for FREE - take a look and consider the guidelines above when selecting an image to use.
Free stock images
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