#MarketingTipMonday No. 76

To veer from stock photos, many small businesses will take “casual” (i.e. staged) photos of people working around the office to use on their website or social media.

Smart!

But here’s the tip to make your picture day even more successful …

Don’t perfectly line up your staged content marketing pictures. Leave lots of extra background.

Here’s why:

Many photographers (even parents taking pictures of their family) have learned to take pictures where the subject has an appropriate amount of white space or background for printing 4×6 or 5×7 prints. But these pictures won’t be printed and likely won’t be needed in a common print size.

Your content marketing likely requires all kinds of uncommon photo dimensions: think Instagram’s 1:1 ratio or the common widescreen 16:9. One of my clients uses a 14:9 ratio for their blog featured image. Tricky!

By leaving extra background around your subject, save time and money: you won’t have to pay a designer to photoshop your pictures so they’ll fit and you’ll quickly be able to start using all your photos right after picture day.