If you’ve never wondered about the picture you upload and use in your image branding then perhaps now is a good time to start. Many business that have accounts set-up on social media sites pick and use a few pictures from its stock photos, publish them, and never think twice about it. This certainly doesn’t do your business any favors. Therefore, re-examine your approach if you wish to give your customers a unique and interesting look at your business and products, services you have to offer. Images are simple and easy to improve, here’s how:
Quality is in the Details: When put in a situation where you have to choose either quantity or quality, always go with quality. However, using a professional photo off of a public database isn’t always a good idea, because other brands may be using the same image. Therefore, if you plan on using images where people associate them with your company, but have a few competitors using that same image then you need a different strategy.
Using images from the Internet doesn’t give your brand its own image and voice. Consider hiring a photographer to take original photos and post them on your website. This significantly increases your image brand, making it unique and strictly associated to your company.
Visually Oriented Audience: It is absolutely necessary to include images on your website. The internet is leading the charge in marketing and communication and it’s become quite obvious just how significant imaging is for a strong online presence. Images account for 30% of content in Newspapers. That percentage is significantly higher, at least 50%, when it comes to the internet. Attention grabbing images will help cement your brand and have people remember and know you without you having to utter a single word.
Illegal Usage: If you are going to use an image be sure you have legal access to it. In fact, make sure you have legal access to all your images. Because if you’ve ever performed a quick Google image search and decided to use one of the picture for your image branding, then you are using them without the consent of the original publisher. Scandals and problems like this can get you into serious trouble and take a hard blow to the credibility of your website. To be on the safe side, most companies pay for the images they use, you should consider doing the same.
Likewise, when you pay for images you have the right to modify them all you want to meet the specifications of your brand and business. Another alternative is hiring a freelance photographer, as previously mentioned. Hire a photographer who you can discuss payment and what they can offer your business in terms of digital imaging, design, and multimedia. If you don’t want to pay you can use resources like Flickr.com where free and legal images exist for public and private use.
