10 Robust Ways to Stand Out Your Social Media Photos in 2021
7 minutes | Word Count: 1209Sharing the right images on social media can help you continuously build an audience, increase engagement, and even boost traffic to your website. However, many business owners don’t know that the social media photos they use just aren’t cutting it.
The good news is that the images that perform well on social media are typically easy to obtain, and it doesn’t take much effort to quickly improve your posts so that they stand out on your followers’ feeds.
There are numerous people and businesses active on social media now a days. So, it can be a little difficult to come up your social media photos with ways to cut through all the noise. On the other hand, sometimes the answers are right in front of our faces – and no you don’t necessarily need a viral hit to stand out.
In this article, we’ll discuss how you can stand out your social media photos and why you should invest the time to do so.
Improving Your Social Media Photos
No matter what you use your social media for, your photos should stand out so that you can increase engagement and bring more traffic to your website. Here’s how you can dramatically improve your brand’s profile.
Way #1. Begin Using Better Images
You don’t need to hire a professional photographer to take great social media images. In fact, social media is a place where businesses can be more personal than they can with other marketing strategies, so it’s best to stay away from stock photos.
Instead, make sure your photography strategy starts with using a high-quality camera. You don’t need to go out and purchase the newest Nikon, but you can learn ways to improve the way you take photos using your smartphone.
One mistake that many companies make on social media is using stock photos. These photos are cold and don’t perform well unless you make some changes to them. Luckily, there are ways to make them look less like stock photos that you pulled from a free website, including:
- Adding a filter over them
- Hiring a graphic designer to add elements to them
- Branding them with your logo and tagline
Way #2. Add Texts to Images
Simply posting an image on social media with no explanation can be confusing for your followers. Instead, you might want to add a caption along with text in the images. All social media channels only allow you a set number of characters that you can use before your copy gets truncated. Consider providing more information in your photos to help convert clients or customers.
Way #3. Keep Branding Consistent
Your branding should be the same across all of your marketing channels, from advertising in the form of commercials to posting organically on social media. Make sure that you use consistency to establish brand recognition and increase the connection you have with your audience.
Way #4. Consider Mobile Devices
People will likely be scrolling through social media on their mobile devices, so it’s important that your photos look good from their phones as well as on desktops. If the text on your photo is too small, then it won’t have the same effect that it does on a desktop.
When it comes to making sure your images are mobile-friendly, trying some of these ideas:
- Keep your images simple and clutter free
- Keep text short
- Check your image after uploading
Way #5. Use Contrasting Colors
Colorful images are useful because they catch the eye. This can include using creative backdrops for products, taking pictures in scenic locations, or choosing brand colors that pop. People love to mindlessly scroll through their feeds, but if you can catch their attention, they’ll be more likely to stop on your post.
Way #6. Write Better Captions
Your captions support your photos and allow you to add more detail and context to your post without putting it on the image itself. Get creative when writing your captions. Depending on your brand, you can leverage that persona, whether it’s by being witty, using facts and figures, or inspiring your customers.
Just remember, when using captions, make sure that you don’t write too much, or it will become truncated.
Way #7. Use Image Editing Software
You don’t have to be a pro to edit your photos so that they’ll perform well on social media. There are plenty of free apps you can use, or even editing options within social media platforms themselves. Modify all of your photos to give them a more professional look by using easy-to-read fonts, text effects, filters, and more.
Way #8. Work with Talented Influencers
Influencer marketing is a great way to help you grow your business because the influencers you work with have access to an audience that you don’t. Not to mention, they’re typically seen as thought leaders who can be trusted by their followers. Make sure that you only work with influencers in your niche for the best results, though.
Now that you know what influencer marketing is, you might be asking yourself how that helps you improve your photos. Well, influencers are great at making content on social media that stands out. You can share their content on your own social media and resonate with a new audience altogether.
Way #9. Use Video
Yes, this is an article about how to make your photos stand out on social media, but one thing you can do to add more value to your photos is to occasionally use different types of content. While both photos and videos perform well on social media, if you’re not doing both, you could be missing out on a valuable opportunity. Video marketing can help you increase engagement both on your website and social media pages.
Using videos is a great way to break up the use of photos on social media and keep your followers engaged. You can also provide them with more information in a short amount of time.
Way #10. Know Your Audience
Just like any effective marketing strategy, it’s important to know who you’re marketing to. For example, if you sell carbon fiber wallets, your audience is most likely going to be males willing to pay a premium for a higher quality material, which means your photos need to align with what the audience is hoping to see on your social media pages.
Once you begin posting things that your audience no longer cares about, you’ve lost them, which means that you’re posting for no reason other than to post. Luckily, with social media insights, you can learn a lot about who your audience is so that you can gauge their interests and market directly to them using high-quality content.
Make Your Social Media Photos a Priority
Anyone can take and create high-quality photos and images that perform well on social media; it’s just a matter of taking the time to learn what types of social media photos perform best on your pages. It might take a bit of trial and error, but if you post consistently for a few weeks, you’ll be able to see what types of social media photos get the most engagement.
This will give you a proper insight into the types of images to take next time and how you can improve them to make them most effective.