How to Find Authentic Photos for Content Marketing

What is visual content marketing? As you promote your brand online, it’s important to recognize how visual our world has become.

Gifs, influencer photos, Youtube clips, TikToks …. the Internet is flooded with images. In fact, that’s what digital aficionados have come to expect. The heyday of expecting consumers to sift through 100-page manuals is over.

That’s where authentic images play a role. We’ve all heard the saying: a picture is worth a thousand words? It may be cliched, but it’s true.

Using authentic photos in your content marketing communicates who you are to your target audience. Marketing is about helping buyers visualize how their lives would be improved.

As a result, the goal of visual marketing is to help people place themselves in your photos. However, the wrong photo can send the wrong message, which influences buyers away from your products and impacts sales.

Making An Impression

Visual content marketing can include infographics, influencer photos, stock photos in blog posts, gifs, and more. If you can make the most out of a visual impression, always go that route.

It’s respectful of your audience’s time, their taste in digital media and may do your brand some good.

Finding the right photos is hard, though. This brings us to an important question: how can you find authentic photos for content marketing? But first let’s talk about why authentic photos are so important.

Why Authentic Photos for Content Marketing are Important

The word ‘relatable’ is thrown around a lot these days. As live streams and instant communication dominate more of our lives, consumers demand a look at reality.

Whether you want to know what your favorite celebrity really eats for breakfast or whether a brand supports sustainability, consumers are looking for truths they can identify with.

After decades of glamor and Photoshop, many of us are pushing back. We demand authenticity, real people doing real people things.

Building Trust Through Authenticity

In the business world, relatability has a close cousin: honesty. If consumers feel like they’re being lied to—for instance, finding out that heart-warming puppy adoption video your brand posted was all staged—they feel betrayed.

Betrayal corrodes trust, which you need for consumers to give your their money and believe you’ll take care of them in return. To buy, consumers need to believe you’re on their side.

If they know that they were lied to or misled, even unintentionally, they may never buy from your site again. Even if they forget the specifics, that nagging feeling of distrust will always remain.

There are other ways that you can connect to your audience through authentic content marketing, too. It’s also important that your photos reflect activities that your audience actually does.

So what makes an authentic photo?

• Technical execution
• Tell a human story
• Relatable

Technical execution

Choosing images that are of a high quality is a vital first step in creating and finding authentic photography. The main components of technical composition include:

• Exposure: The amount of light that enters the camera through the lens (ie: too dark or too light).
• Focus: The sharpness or blurriness of the subject you’re photographing.
• Composition: Where in the frame you place your subject.

Tell a human story

While technical execution is important, just because a photo nails technical components doesn’t necessarily mean it’s effective. For example, take a look at the two photos below:

The photo on the left is technically sound, but instinctually, you’re drawn to the photo on the right.

The photo on the right, however, is technically imperfect. His face is overexposed, the focus is a bit soft and the composition is a bit off. Emotionally though, it feels authentic, like looking over at a friend sitting in a coffee shop.

Be relevant

Above all, no matter how authentic your photos may be, they must be relevant and relatable to your audience. Put yourself in your audience’s world. Where do they live? What is around them? What products are familiar to them? What is the weather like there?

Playing a modified game of whodunit is the best way to learn the nuances of your customers’ media consumption habits so that you can fit right in.

Using real-world photos in marketing is the best way for brands to relate to their audiences. One way to find these types of images is to licensed user-generated content from real-world photographers.

If you can’t afford licensing, take photos of employees and activities around your office. I guarantee showing your surroundings will come off far more authentic to your audience than any stock photo.

How to Add Authentic Photos to Your Content Marketing

You can start with an easy introduction: use photos in your blog posts. This will help add a visual clickbait element and allow users to be drawn in by your blog page’s overall look.

Then, put an authentic photo at the top of the post after they click on it. This is standard practice and will make your posts look more finished.

After you’ve accomplished this, it’s time to take a hard look at your brand. Consider Buzzfeed, for instance. Their articles are often chock full of on-point gifs that add a light, humorous tone.

If your posts are more serious and informative, limit the number of gifs and TikTok-style images. Focus on utilizing images to illustrate a point and provide visual relief in large chunks of text.

You can also use authentic photos in a rotating carousel on the home page of your site. This can define your brand and answer many of your customer’s questions within the first five seconds of visiting your site.

Who is the audience, what is the product, what is the value, who does this product help me become? Images can implicitly answer all of these questions and more.

Once you know how you want to use these photos, though, how can you find them?

Where and How to Find Authentic Photos

To find photos online, search terms are everything. Use generic terms, and be willing to go a little abstract. For instance, if you’re talking about hacking practices, type in ‘technology.’

This may bring up some images that show cool, aspirational technology with a coder standing in front of it. This can help break your brand out of a boring stock photo box, too.

If you’re wondering how to credit photos, pay attention to where you’re finding them. There are both free and paid options. But you’ll need to make sure the photos you use are rights-cleared, which means you won’t get sued for using images for your own profit.

Make sure photos are licensed, whether they’re free or paid for. Good resources include Pexels, Pixabay, Twenty20, and so forth.

However, you might feel like you can’t afford to pay for licensing. If this is the case, consider brushing off your own photography skills. With all the technology available today, you’re sure to come up with something usable.

This will help your brand come across as even more authentic, especially if you’re able to talk about how these photos come from your own employees and your own office.

Examples of Great Visual Content Marketing

Now if you are reading this article and thinking: wait the photos on this website do not feel very authentic?

So here’s the truth. I used to work really hard trying to find great photos. Here’s an example:

But then I started my own business and while I continue to schedule time to keep up on my writing, some of these smaller tasks, like finding really great authentic photos, have fallen by the wayside.

So let’s look at some great example of authentic photos from other brands.

One example of great visual content marketing from a consumer company is activewear brand, Popflex Active. As a fitness-focused company, their photos exude emotion: empowerment, health, and good vibes

They also focuses on highlighting diverse body types. This helps make their brand more relatable and also hints at a commitment to inclusion.

My favorite example of awesome visual content marketing is DivvyHQ.

So I reached out to their co-founder, Brody Dorland and asked him how he does it. Here’s how he described his approach:

He’s a busy guy too. But he doesn’t settle for anything less than authentic photos, even using a stock photo site. I guess I should take a cue from Brody!

Leveraging Authentic Photos for Content Marketing

Visual content marketing is a huge playground, and finding authentic photos for content marketing is a great step in the right direction.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, no worries! Our team can pick photos for you. So if you are ready to get more traffic to your site with authentic, personalized content published consistently, check out our Content Builder Service.

Set up a quick consultation, and I’ll send you a free PDF version of my books. Get started today–and generate more traffic and leads for your business.