How do you plan to convey your brand and make an impression on potential clients? Maybe a bright, clean photo of people smiling will work for you. Do you have these photos already?
In most cases, new businesses and brands do not have custom footage of people experiencing their brand. In these cases what do you do?
Get clear on the type of photos that are relevant to your post topic.
Think about your customers, what you want them to experience after engaging with your product or service. What does it look like while engaging in your product or service. And lastly, where are they right now without your product or service. What images convey these states that your customers are in at each of these phases?
Browse sites and select images that fit your brand
Now where do you find images to use for your brand if you don’t have photos already. Well, you start by looking on a site that offers stock footage. Here are a few of my favorites.
UNSPLASH
This site has a lot of variety, offer a various collection of photos from some very talented creatives from around the world. The community is very active here and new content is uploaded frequently.
PEXELS
This site is has been my “go to” site if I can’t find what I want on unsplash. They offer some different looks, and as of recently they’ve added video footage too!
NAPPY
OK, so one of the biggest challenges I have seen in my 15+ years of Creative, Marketing, & Strategy has been finding quality stock footage of People of Color…specifically black people. The ones I have found either dated, or just too generic, but in comes Nappy. A new stock footage site that provides beautiful, high-res photos of black and brown people to startups, brands, agencies, and everyone else.
Download the Image(s) & Organize Them
Now that we have a direction for our brand and a source to gather images from, we need start downloading images that are relevant to our brand. The most important thing here is making sure the images we choose will resonate with our potential clients. I typically organize my photos by brand -> customer persona -> offer.
Save & Backup Your Collection
You have a few way you can store your photos. I suggest having your own external hardrive. Here’s the type that I’ve used in the past:
You can get one for about $60 here.
You can also upload your footage to Google Drive (http://drive.google.com)
I’m currently working on a platform for brands to collaborate with others, and have them upload content for them & their business. This platform can also be used to store content for specific projects. If you’re interested in something like this, join the waiting list here:
CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE WAITING LIST!
Final Thoughts
Communicating your brand through images is extremely important. Whether you’re using social media, a website, or even just documents. A good image will help your audience connect with your company more so than they would otherwise. The point of all this is to tell a story about the brand, and have the images visually support that story. It should be noted that some design, photo editing & retouching may be necessary, there are talented creatives out here that can help you out with that. Or, you can utilize platforms like Canva to create some unique graphics.
Share some of the things you create with your brand when you utilize any of the stock footage sites I’ve suggested. I’d love to see what you come up with!