How to Get the Social Media Images You Need in a Photoshoot

In a content driven world, it’s all about the number of UNIQUE images you have to work with. Often, it can be a struggle to get the images you need. That’s why I’ve pulled together a few ways to help YOU, the business owner, get the images you need from a Photoshoot to produce the best content.

When it come to social media, or marketing in general, what’s most cost effective isn’t always the most ideal. That’s why it’s wise to have a few different photoshoots when getting started. Most business owners can fail here, at step one (starting from strategy), because they work backwards. They begin creating content, using photos from a previous photoshoot. Often, these photos were used for their website, before they had an established marketing strategy or firm direction for content. Sometimes you can pull from the website shoot – that’s not to say the images wouldn’t apply – but here is what it might look like to approach a photoshoot with more intention in order to get the social media images you need.

Start From Your Strategy

Strategy often gets confused with the content plan or the execution of the strategy. Your marketing strategy should be the foundation and outline for your overall goals, objectives, marketing channels, KPI’s or key performance metrics, etc. From there, you can lay out exactly where and how you are going to show up. You can begin identifying the types of content you want to test and start sharing with the world. As you begin creating the content plan, you will be able to determine which aspects of your services or products you want to share and quickly arrive at the type of content you need. It can be easy to skip this step because, as a business owner, you sometimes feel like you know everything about your product, when in actuality, it can be beneficial to stop and ask for outside perspective in order to better understand what it is that others really want to know about it.

Be Specific

Creative reign matters! It’s important to clarify how you specifically want the images to come together. As a creative and commercial photographer myself, I know this for a fact. Each person will see and envision an image differently, so it’s important to provide specific information, but also allow your photographer space to capture and create images that reflect your vision. In this case, specific means providing direction (types of images you need to best connect your audience with your products/services).

Lets say you want to share a how-to use GIF – you will want to outline that you need a minimum of 3-10 images that show how to press the button, scoop the product, try it on, show how the back looks, etc. These types of details help to ensure you get the type of images you need to make the GIF. Being specific gives you creative reign and gives your photographer the creative freedom they need to help you envision what your images might look like and capture images that achieve your goal.

Get Down to The Details

Thinking about props, backdrops, do’s and don’ts is no one’s favorite part. You’re busy, you need to market and you want to get down to making money. But this is another key piece in the photoshoot chain to ensure your content is on point, represents your brand well and helps truly bring your vision to life. So, getting down to the details is an important step in communicating your photoshoot vision and achieving the images you need to create the best content for your brand.

Consider your branding – Do you have lots of color and want to keep it that way? You probably need to highlight 2-3 specific background colors you desire to have in the shoot. You don’t have to manage the specifics of what shot needs what background, but letting a photographer know you need specific colors for your social media will make a world of difference.

Let’s talk what you don’t like – This should be easy, but after 8 years I can tell you it’s one thing that’s usually left blank on a questionnaire for the photoshoot. I won’t get into the why, but I can tell you that you need to identify props, flowers, colors or specific things that DO NOT fit your brand.

Let’s highlight an example – You have an earthy, sustainable vitamin, like the brand, Ritual. You know in your mind that it’s healthy, made from all natural ingredients, and has no synthetic casings. What you may fail to mention is that you want it to be relevant to the everyday millennial lifestyle, not directly related to plants, dirt, farming, etc. So, your photographer could run off with the vision of the pill sprouting from the earth, and while that might work for a few photos, you have no models, no lifestyle, in-home elements and thus, images you may feel don’t truly align with your marketing strategy and goals.

To get the images you need from your next photoshoot, make sure to start from your strategy, be specific, and get down to the details!

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