Stock Photography Tips for Businesses

I started out my career wanting to be a photojournalist. The challenge of trying to tell a great with just an image was something I loved. Quickly, I realized I wanted to be involved in advertising and technology, however, the passion of telling stories through photography never really went away.

I began my career working alongside ad agencies, and found one of my biggest distastes was the stock photography highlighted on their websites. Not only is it an eye sore, it breaks trust with the client. Since May of 2017, I've been collecting an arsenal of photos to showcase the company culture at El Toro. With that said, here are my top 5 stock photography tips!

#1. Showcase the Company Culture In Your Stock Photography

When producing high quality images, make sure you’re highlighting the company culture, not just holding down the shutter. Include some of the things that make your company unique. Maybe you have a great office space, your company hosts fun events for the staff, or maybe your company prides itself on diversity. Showcase that! Highlighting what makes you extraordinary can produce trust and a sense of ease with your potential clients.

#2. Highlight Your Brand

Every photo you post needs to highlight your brand. For example: here at El Toro, we radiate innovation and a work hard-play hard mentality. This is consistently highlighted in all of our images. The same goes for you. Local mom and pop shops, need to make sure the local business feel is stressed in your images. Photography is one of the key ways customers will connect with your brand.

#3. Think About Images for Social Media & Advertising

These stock photography tips may be pretty straight forward, but sometimes a reminder of who your audience is can be important. Always remember, the photos produced will be seen by your clients. With this in mind, make sure your photos will look great posted on your social media accounts and other advertisements. You may eventually run a display advertising campaign: be sure those photos look good on a banner ad as well!

#4. Stay Clear From Staging

Just like stock photography is obvious, a staged photo is easy to spot as well. Sometimes you want your employees smiling and looking at the camera. Those photos are great to have! What you don’t want to do is produce a ‘candid’ photo of people laughing and having a good time, when it really wasn’t. When taking photos, think of yourself as a photojournalist who’s capturing the culture from afar. Look for real candid moments, not staged ones.

#5. Set the Bar High For Your Stock Photography

Outperforming the competition is always something to strive for in business. It’s important to reflect this in your photography. If you go down the path of taking high quality images, make sure you continue that. Your brand is now being reflected in an amazing light, don’t let that go!

Stock photography tips are being featured all across the web and LinkedIn. It's becoming crucial to have images that reflect not only your company, but the employees that work there. Take the time to produce great images for your sales materials, website, display ads and social media.

If you’d like to learn more about incorporating your images into display advertisements, we would love to connect with you!