The year is 2015. Social media is at its zenith as a digital marketing tool, but a canker is starting to spread. And that canker is the stock photo.
Anybody who's ever worked in sales or digital marketing jobs will well be aware that the bowels of the internet contain a plethora of stock images. Some of these images are fantastic: cool, fresh and visually arresting photos that catch eyes and win clicks. Some are okay...they serve a purpose and show a useful concept, even if they aren't the most original images you've ever seen. Others are downright awful. The problem is that many professionals seem to have a great deal of difficulty identifying the good from the bad and the ugly, and as a result are killing the credibility of their social updates.
Prepare to have your eyes hurt if you continue reading...
A picture speaks a thousand words. But they may not be the right ones.
You might think that any image is better than no image whatsoever. After all, evidence indicates that visual social media updates evoke increased responses and drive engagement. Research from Twitter proves that including photos in tweets averages a 35% boost in retweets within verified accounts and a 27% increase in non-verified accounts. Facebook tells us a similar story, with posts which include photos on Facebook winning 84% more clicks, 53% more likes and 104% more comments than posts lacking them. Impressive, right?
Perhaps. What this research doesn't indicate is how the quality and style of images used impacts on responses. Use a cheesy photo and your social update will lose all credibility. Any post clicks will be to cringe at the awful picture you've used, not to find out more. And you can be sure that nobody will want to share or retweet a toe-curling image to their own profile and therefore against their own brand. Yes, your picture tells a story, but is it telling a fun, quirky tale or a dated yarn belonging to an 80s soap opera?
A bad picture will choke a good post
This brings me to my next point: no matter how witty or engaging the copy of your social update is, a bad stock photo will automatically pour cold water all over it. In recent years, most social media users have cottoned on to the benefits of using images in their posts, resulting in an increase of pictorial updates. But as you've probably seen for yourself, this isn't always a good thing.
Although the culprits of bad social stock photos have the right idea, they aren't executing it properly. Let's take the real examples below. Each post is promoting an article, but would those stock pictures make you want to click the post? Or would you pass over as soon as you register the image?
Your brand may take a hit, too...
Ultimately, it's not just the clicks on the update that will be affected: it's your brand too. When done correctly, social media should put a voice to your brand and show off your identity - making images an integral part of how you bring your business to life socially. No brand wants to align itself with cheesiness and cliché, meaning that a mass cull on bad stock photos needs to take place across social media.
Is your brand reflected by a vacant model in a headset wearing an embarrassingly happy expression? What about a professional posing against a barren white background? Or a tired visual metaphor such as a close-up of a hand-shake? If the image doesn't reflect your brand identity, it doesn't belong on your social media update. Simple.
Just say no
Don't make your social media updates look like a scam/spam. You wouldn't want cheap, over-used images on your website, so don't use them on your social accounts. Say no the bad stock photo.
It's probably not worth hiring a photographer purely for social media images, but believe it or not original, high quality and cost-effective stock photography is out there. Have you tried Death To The Stock Photo? What about Gratisography? Or MorgueFile? IM Free? Seriously, go explore. There's a world of images out there that will not only support your social updates, but make them a whole lot more appealing.
You can use eye-catching, engaging images in your posts, and you can do it cheaply too. What's more, you'll make your social updates more successful in the process. Make today the day you join the bad stock photo resistance and liberate your eyes.