Written by: Ashli Brooks, Sydney Frank, Kimberly Hunt
Description
According to Fotor, over 95 million images are uploaded a day. It is for viewers easy to miss things, and is becoming increasingly difficult for brands and influencers to stand out on social media. Our desire in creating this long form content is to inspire and help communication professionals build unique and consistent visuals for both their personal social media platforms as well as companies and brands. We have broken down 5 ways to create scroll stopping visuals all from your phone.
In a world where it’s easy to scroll endlessly for hours you may have wondered what it takes for viewers to stop and appreciate the content YOU create. Social Media is home to vast amounts of pictures, charts, written material, and so much more. Here we have broken it down for you to
see what content is making up the visual world. Photos and original graphics make up the majority of what is out there. Using our guide can steer you in the right direction for your content creation.
If this all looks a little daunting, don’t fret, as a team, we have broken things down to give you a better understanding in these five areas!
1. Know your brand’s style
2. Prepare your visuals
3. Maximize your camera’s abilities
4. Edit like a champ
5. Putting thought into publishing
YOUR STYLE
First and foremost, it is critical to get a feel for the style of your brand, company, etc. Picking a style can seem a little overwhelming at first, but here are three quick tips on how to get started!
Analyze your content and what look/feeling you are going for
Are you running a fashion page? Do you post workout tips? For each type of content comes different feelings and looks. One way to help you get started with what you are going for comes from https://coschedule.com/blog/social-media-branding-guidelines/ Start with the rule of 3. Think of 3 words to describe your content. What feelings do you get from those words? What colors and images remind you of them? This will help you get started.
Choose sets of colors that you want to use, and stick with them
Color scheme is critical in maintaining a clean and scroll-stopping aesthetic. It is important to know your niche audience and choose colors that are going to catch their eye and keep them on
your page. Have you ever stopped scrolling suddenly just because of a certain color and you assumed it was from one of your favorite brands? With time, your brand/profile will be associated with those specific colors.
Pick several presets that coordinate to keep everything in line.
Presets can be created on Adobe or purchased from third party sellers. It is important to research profiles similar to yours to get a feel for their page and the presets they are using. Their niche audience might be similar to yours and you want to know so you can attract those people to your style.
PLAN YOUR VISUALS
When it comes to your visuals, you do not want to be random and spontaneous.
Visuals take careful planning and preparation if you want to have scroll-stopping content.
Similar to brand style and aesthetics, the location pattern in which you take your photos should be similar and coinciding.
Ask yourself: Is the style I am going for more nature focused, or modern? Do I want more visuals inside, or outside? What kind of lighting do I want? Bright and happy, or dim and mysterious. The possibilities are endless, but here is how you can narrow down!
First, decide your location (remember to keep it to your style and aesthetic!) Once a location is decided lighting comes next. You will need to decide if the natural lighting is sufficient, and if so, what time of day it works best. If not, you will need to do planning as to what kind of lights and shadow props you will need. After that, you will need to plan out your shots and poses. No one wants to get to a place and waste their time deciding how to pose or what outfit to wear.
A friend of my recently wanted to up her game on social media to gain a following and start up her business. Amidst all the planning and picture-taking she worried if the pictures would look good on her instagram. It may not be common knowledge yet, but there are apps for planning
your instagram! Some of the most popular are Later, Planoly and Inpreview. We love this instagram planning solution from Later, you can create an account here!
Planning your visuals can give you more peace of mind, direction and reduce stress when it comes to making your content.
PHONE SETTINGS & APPLICATIONS
Purchasing a quality DSLR camera can cost thousands of dollars! These cameras can be overwhelming to learn and require a lot of time and practice to learn how to manipulate the settings so you can take a high-quality image. I’ll let you in on a secret, you don’t need an expensive camera. You have a powerful, easy to use tool right in your pocket, your phone.
Over the past 10 years there has been a dramatic increase in quality and function of mobile phone cameras. We’re going to break down how to use your phone to compose a beautiful image.
Camera App General Settings
(This section will be I-phone specific but there are general rules that apply to both apple and android products.)
Before you open the camera app on your I-phone let’s head to the general settings. Open up the camera settings and you will find a lot of powerful tools. One of the easiest hacks to better photo composition from your I-phone is to turn on your grid lock, you can access this tool from
the camera app settings. This will help guide you to remember the rule of thirds as you are shooting. Following the rule of thirds is a way to distinguish yourself from amateur photographers on social media.
In the general settings you should also make sure that the Auto HDR is enabled. This complies the best parts of three separate exposures into one photo.
Camera App Composition
Now that we are in the camera app and see our grid on display, we are ready to start taking pictures. If you tap the screen you will see a yellow square appear around the area you tapped, this is your focus square. There is nothing worse than realizing you have a soft-focus photo! Use this square to help shift focus, add depth of field and highlight details in your image. If you press and hold on a specific spot it will lock the focus as you continue to move around to get the perfect angle.
Next to the yellow square a little sun will appear. If you press on the sun and move your finger up and down, you will see the lighting of the image shift. This sun controls your ISO, or how much light you are allowing the camera to receive. The importance of good lighting cannot be overstated. Remember it is easier to save an underexposed photo in the editing process than an overexposed photo.
Make sure to play around with the different camera settings at the bottom of your app. Use the photo, portrait, square and pano settings to see what works best for the shots you’re trying to get.
3rd Party Apps & Equipment
While the I-phone camera app is powerful, there are also applications you can download that will give you greater control over your phone’s camera. This article outlines the top 10 composition apps amongst photographers. My personal favorite app is Adobe lightroom. Adobe is used by most industry professionals and while a normal desktop application subscription costs over $20 a month they give users free access to their mobile app. These applications enable you to control shutter speed, iso, focus and lens type.
In addition to applications, purchasing mobile phone camera equipment is budget friendly and so transformative. You can purchase lens adapters, tripods, LED lights and so much more.
EDITING: LESS IS MORE
You have a beautifully composed shot and you could just post it to your feed and it would perform well. Our goal is to stop the scroll, so we need to add a little extra flare to captivate our audience and compete with the never-ending content on social media. Editing is essential to create a polished and professional look to your work.
It’s important to note that social media viewers crave authenticity. Social media is all about connection. Your followers want to feel like they’re getting to know the real you. Not some over filtered, airbrushed version of you. So when you edit your images remember less is more!
Editing Applications
There are just as many editing applications as composition apps. Social media platforms even have a way to edit within the application.
Instagram is a great editing tool if you only need to touch up the lighting of a photo. For a more comprehensive photo editor this article lists the top 35 applications you can download. Again the standard industry editing program and our recommendation are the Adobe programs. Adobe Lightroom is a free app for mobile users, it’s extremely powerful and has hundreds of tutorials and resources you can use to learn how to use this program.
Presets
Presets are the secret ingredient that speed up your editing process and create a cohesive look on your feed. You can make your own or buy your favorite photographer or influencer’s presets and apply them to every photo you are going to post. If you decide to purchase presets, know that they range in price, so do your research and look for promotional offers to get the best quality for the best price. You can save your presets to whatever editing app you choose to use and apply them individually or in bulk. Presets are a great way to save time and create a more professional final product.
Editing Breakdown
You have the editing resources so how do you use them? Well let’s talk about the basic rules of editing. These are a few of the basic editing rules and questions you should ask yourself as you make adjustments to your image:
● Crop your image: Is the image straight and rule of thirds applied? Crop your image to highlight specific aspects of your image and remove any unnecessary distractions.
● Exposure/Brightness: Is your image too bright, dark? What emotion or story are you trying to convey? How does your lighting help you convey that message?
● Clarity: Is your image sharp or blurred? Is there depth of field? When you look over your image what is your eye drawn to? Is that where you want the focus to be?
● Color: Is your image properly white-balanced? What colors or tones do you want to be represented? Do these colors represent your brand well? Is your color story evident?
When you’re editing remember less is more! Just because you can use an editing tool doesn’t mean you should.
It can be overwhelming to try editing on your own at first, don’t worry we are here for you!
Publish
As earlier stated, preparation is powerful in content creation, and being prepared in publishing is no exception!
There are many useful resources at our fingertips just sitting in your phone app store right now. A useful app called “Planoly” has proven to be widely popular in the social media world. Planoly is a free app that allows users to do a wide range of planning for their Instagram pages. The app gives you the opportunity to upload up to thirty images at a time, and provides a flexible grid which allows users to see what photos they like in specific orders. Being able to mix and match, rearrange, and swap photos around before publishing ensures that your content will fit together perfectly.
After all the bells and whistles have been shined and everything seems to be in place it’s vastly important to consider a few things before publishing your final product.
While visuals catch our eye, written aspects of media can either make or break your post. Captions are a must with any blog post, instagram photo, story, or pin! Finding the right words for your content is crucial for storytelling and audience understanding.
Consider these things in creating your captions, headings, or hashtags:
1. Do my words convey the message I want to share?
2. Will these words and sentences feel like “me”?
3. Am I sharing words that will appeal to my audience?
Answering these few questions can put you on track for publishing the best content out there. People gravitate to content that FEELS truly authentic, think about the words you post.
While picking hashtags for your visuals think about what is realistically being searched or looked after. Try to stand clear or hashtags that are lengthy in words and characters, instead be simple and straight to the point.
At the end of the day, you are a creator, putting your heart and soul into your content, so make it count. Double-check, triple-check, and even quadruple-check your finished product to make sure you are ready to wow your crowd.
Summary
WOW! Hopefully you got all of that! But if you forgot any of it don’t worry, let’s recap; Creating scroll-stopping content doesn’t have to be rocket science, as you learned it’s a lot easier than you might have thought.
Take some time to analyze exactly what your brand is and where you want it to go. Remember, you’ve got to know your brand!
Next, you’ve got to come prepared. Preparing your visual content puts the rest of your work on a path to smooth sailing, so plan, prepare, and get ready.
Make sure to get the most bang for your buck and really get to know your tools. Maximizing your camera’s abilities can open so many doors for your content.
Probably the most important step of all has to do with editing. Editing can make or break your content, so take the time to let your creativity blossom and create something great.
And finally, always put time and consideration when it comes to publishing your content. The final product speaks volumes, so always think about it first.
If you keep these five tips in mind throughout your visual creation process you will be well on your way to success.
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