Whether your business chooses to focus on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram for its social media outreach, it’s more likely to make connections with photos rather than just texts or links. For many CE and appliance retailers, however, hiring a marketing team is not in the budget, so they are obligated to take matters into their own hands. Shooting photos and making the content copy is stressful and time-consuming enough without thinking about how to make the photos more clickable. With a few quick strategies, however, you can elevate your social media photography — even pictures of everyday cables and other accessories — for more responses. Here are five top tips.
Change the perspective.
An exciting way to photograph technology accessories is to get close up, or shoot close to the object. For example, if you have a USB cord with braiding or exciting colors, you can lay them out and get close to the braiding to show the texture. Another option is to show the cords in use. For keyboards or mice, shoot the photograph close to the keys or along the curve of the mouse. Are you shooting with a phone camera? Turn the phone upside down to get the lens even closer to the accessory; you can even shoot facing upward to create a different perspective.
Add some color.
Consumer tech companies have broken away from the same-old, same-old eggshell or black colors for accessories, and the addition of new colors — brown, maroon, blue, pink, and so on — brings a lot to the table in terms of making seemingly mundane products stand out on social media.If you choose to show the hardware on its own in a still life, non-real-life scenario, choose a plain background to let the brilliant color stand out and highlight the piece’s aesthetic. Need a quick and inexpensive backdrop? Visit a local craft store for colored or textured paper. You can also buy surfaces; a foam core board with contact paper is also a great alternative.
Find inspiration in employees.
You may not have a marketing team, but you likely have creative employees with ideas on how to highlight a piece of hardware. Social media is also about adding a human factor to your business. What better way than having employees make a video or write the caption for their favorite sold hardware?
Broaden the scenarios.
Some of the most effective marketing photos in social media show a piece or multiple pieces of hardware arranged on a desk or a backdrop. You could highlight various hardware pieces and show off how the different hardware pieces — say, a mouse, a Bluetooth keyboard, and a gaming monitor — go well together, which is an excellent way to upsell. For real-life scenarios, don’t just think of at-home-office or office cubicle settings, but also consider travel scenarios in, say, coffee shops or poolside Airbnb rentals. So many startups and self-employed entrepreneurs are using coffee shops and co-working spaces to run their new ventures, and this is a relatable way to appeal to those customers.
Remember the details.
As you begin to plan your photos, don’t forget the small stuff. You want to think of shadows and lighting, dirt specs, and, especially, the composition. If you are photographing a computer, tablet, phone, or TV, remember that the device’s display is an important aesthetic detail. Think of your target audience and what could appeal to them on those displays. It could be a screensaver of other products you sell, your storefront, or alluring copyright-free images from free photo services such as Unsplash, Pixabay, Shutterstock, and Pexels.
Even if social media is not in your marketing plan, you can apply these tips to any kind of marketing photography for print or even eCommerce. No matter the platform, improving your photo strategy will help get your products and stores noticed, with sales to follow.
