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Social Media isn’t all about the words – we all know that a great image can say a thousand words and also stop you scrolling! In a time when people are consuming so much content, a single image still has the ability to grab people’s attention.
The right image can help your brand be consistent and convey its values. Good quality images really are key as grainy pixelated photo’s definitely don’t portray the right image and is not liked by the algorithms! That said not every business has the budget or time to call on the services of a professional photographer all the time.
Having some great professional shots of you, your product or your business is really worth investing in – but for the purposes of social media posts using stock images can be a cost-effective option. Making sure you have the right to publish and use those photographs is also important, otherwise, you could land yourself in trouble! The good news is that there are many websites now offering free stock images that are royalty-free.
Here’s an overview of those we use most.
Unsplash – this site has been established for a long time but was acquired a while ago by IStock. So it’s offering now is a mix of both free and paid for images.
Kaboompics – this great site allows you to search by colour palette which if you want your Instagram feed to be on-brand makes life much easier.
Pexels – the great thing about Pexel’s is it has its own license which tells you what you can and cannot do with the images, all are royalty-free though.
Gratisography – Marketing itself as ‘the world’s quirkiest collection’ of free high-resolution pictures you can use all completely free of copyright.
MorgueFile – Don’t be put off by the name! You can search by recent photos, or those that are trending and as their sorted by hashtags you can look for different groupings of images.
Pixabay – A little bit more in its offering Pixabay shares copyright-free images, videos and music so you can really get creative.
PicJumbo – Launched in 2013 by the then 14-year-old Czech entrepreneur there’s a huge range of royalty-free images to search here.
Canva – You may recognise the name of this other well used social media tool as somewhere you create graphics but Canva does have a lot of images you can use, and if you pay for the Pro version this will mean you have access to even more!
Burst – is powered by Shopify the image library includes thousands of high-resolution, royalty-free images aimed at providing designers, developers, bloggers and companies with access to beautiful free stock photography.
So get creative, and find some interesting, quirky on-brand images to help you engage with your audience on social media.
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