Great photography for the web and social media

Great photography for the web and social media

by | Apr 10, 2017 | Featured

Great images are a key component of any digital marketing strategy but getting those images — that work for your website and for your social media sites — can be tough. Here are some tips for your photographer — or for you if you are both digital marketer and photographer, as happens often in small shops and for smaller jobs.

Remove the clutter from the frame. All too often, a great shot is ruined because of distractions and ugly junk in the frame. Drag pocketbooks, water bottles, coffee cups, and winter coats out of the frame. I’ve had otherwise great images ruined by a stack of coats on a table in front of the subjects or collection of coffee cups in the middle of the meeting room. Take a moment to remove these items before taking your shot.

Take both landscapes and horizontals. Most web and social media images work best as landscape, but take some portraits as well.

Consider scale. Close-ups on particular items can work wonderfully on social media banners. Mix it up with panoramas, close-ups, people, things, individuals, and groups.

Light it up. Don’t take photos of subjects in dark rooms in front of windows. Be sure that there is light on your subjects.

Get off center. Your subjects should not always be centered. Most social media images look best when subjects are slightly to the right.

Provide a sense of place. If the location is important — such as an event — be sure to capture that in the photo if you can. For example, if you are in DC, try to get the Capitol building in frame. If you are at a Conference, capture the name of the Conference center in the photo.

 

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Image: taking photos at the 2016 New York Walk to Fight Lymphedema and Lymphatic Diseases with videographer Steve Palmer.

Best social media image sizes — cheat sheet

Best social media image sizes — cheat sheet

by | Apr 10, 2017 | Featured

Every social media platform requires different sized photos and different sizes for different purposes. Here’s a convenient reference. Be aware that images will render differently on desktops and mobile phones. Be sure to check your final uploaded images on both desktop and mobile.

Facebook cover image: 851 x 315

Facebook profile image: 170 x 170

Twitter cover image: 1500 x 500

Twitter profile image: 400 x 400

 

Using Custom Audiences in Facebook and Tailored Audiences in Twitter

Using Custom Audiences in Facebook and Tailored Audiences in Twitter

by | Apr 7, 2017 | Featured

Facebook and Twitter both offer the ability to create custom audiences; Twitter calls them tailored audiences.

This option is useful if you would like to target certain people or exclude them from a social media campaign. Some examples:

  1. Upload your email list to Facebook and/or Twitter. Save it as a custom audience. You could then target a social media campaign to this audience, to reinforce an important message to an already loyal group.
  2. You could exclude people from a particular list from an ad campaign. For example, let’s say you already know who has taken advantage of a particular offer and is thus ineligible to take the same offer again. It makes sense to save yourself ad dollars in targeting these people. Just exclude them.
  3. You can target, or exclude, people who have visited your website. Let’s say you’d like people to sign up for your event. Lots of people are visiting your site but don’t actually sign up. You can track this and then target this people with a social media campaign.

It is important to note that if your email list is small — fewer than a few thousand — you will be able to use the list for targeting in Facebook and Twitter.