Everybody knows that an image is worth a thousand words and that’s equally true on social media – but even knowing this are you taking full advantage of your photo content to promote your brand?

Social media is all about increasing your brands visibility with your existing followers and attract potential followers and what better way to enhance this than with your own unique tweet/post imagery.

“Why can’t I just use stock imagery?” I hear you ask. Well, of course you can but remember that the people who create these images have shot them in such a way so that they appeal to a broad range of clients – and this is the problem. There’s nothing unique between your usage and a competitors. My suggestion instead, is to start building up a bank of your own images – images that are unique, in style and composition to you.

Here’s a few tips to help you promote your brand through your own unique imagery and increase it’s visibility / recall on any social media platform. Some of these tips require pre-planning in a photo editing application to work at their best.

1. logo or brand icon

Consider adding a logo or recognisable icon to your tweet/posts image. Determine the best size for your logo but make sure it’s not overpowering the actual image and add this in a consistent place on your images. A good example of this is @Puma which reinforces it’s brand with the use of its strapline and logo in the bottom right corner – it’s logo isn’t overpowering it’s imagery, but helps reinforce it. I also try to retain my branding in the form of my logo and my vibrant green in the top left corner of my photo content.

2. Consistent typefaces

Many bigger brands utilise their unique brand typefaces across all online and offline platforms to reinforce their brand identity. While most of us don’t have the luxury of a custom typeface what we can do is ensure the typeface we use in our images is consistent. Use a strong legible headline font and consider using a smaller version for secondary text. Try to avoid small intricate fonts as these don’t work well when used small and keep the variety of typeface styles and size to a minimum. If possible, use your offline typeface for added consistency.

3. Brand colours

Many companies have utilised their colours to great effect over the years to reinforce their brand. For instance IBM is associated with blue, BP with green and Cadbury with purple. All these companies have used their brand colours, to varying degrees, in their social media images. A prime example being Cadbury – which tries to integrate their purple into a majority of their images. Try taking 2 of your brand/business colours and utilise them in your photos – this could be achieved in the way your photos are shot, props in the photos, photographic filters or solid colour blocks themselves.

4. Photo style

You could decide to shoot all your images in a set style or from a set viewpoint you could even create a ‘filter’ style to use on all your photos – doing this, consistently aids brand recall.

It’s also worth considering creating 3 or 4 layout ‘templates’ in your photo editing application, that you can re-use. Templates make it easier for you to create new images quickly with your branding, text and colours all in place and they’re also great for brand recall as it doesn’t take long for people to recognise the photo style/layout as being yours.

Summary

Your typefaces, colours and layouts are all design elements within your photographic content that can play a big impact in making your business’s images stand out and potentially increase your brands recall among your followers on social media.

If you want help with any of your social media imagery or you need help planning your social media strategy don’t hesitate to get in touch with me at http://paulkirkdesign.co.uk or at PKirk_designer