Beautiful aesthetic imagery that can make you stand out

Key quotes:

• "Stock photos are an affordable, accessible option when it comes to adding imagery to your brand, but not all are created equal, so I wanted to share my favourite places to find the perfect photos for you."
• "Top tip: Unsplash allows you to create and save collections of photos to use later, which can be really helpful in curating the images that align with your brand’s colour palette and style guide, ensuring that you’re never lost for an on-brand image when you need one for Instagram, a Facebook Ad, or another creative project! Price: Free Pexels claim to have “the best free stock photos & videos shared by talented creators” and while I can’t confirm nor deny that they’re the best, I definitely recommend them."
• "Price: Free If you can afford to spend a bit of money towards photos for your brand, you’re likely to get images that aren’t used as frequently by other businesses, helping you to stand out from the pack and set you apart from other brands."

Key quotes:

• "I’ve come to realize that, with a line of excellent photographers possessing often aesthetically similar work right behind me, my work has to be something other than slightly better if I want it to stand out."
• "The main problem that I see with so much good work is that it’s not different enough from what’s already out there."
• "If you’re wondering if your work is different enough to stand out, imagine ten photographers showing their work."
• "Visually AppealingYour work may be different, but if nobody likes it, then you’re pretty much SOL."
• "Technical skill is not necessary to succeed as a photographer, however… the more you know about your craft, the more control you have over the final product and the more likely you’ll be to create work that people actually want to look at."
• "I’ve seen far too much work that just falls short due to the fact that it doesn’t make its point well, is technically flawed, is compositionally vague and/or overall doesn’t visually connect with the viewer."

Key quotes:

• "For example, Nike Running often make their trainers and running equipment the focal point of their content: Whereas other brands, such as WeWork, put more focus on their community and culture: At Buffer, our Instagram marketing strategy is to post consistently quality content that aims to build Buffer’s brand while also connecting on an individual basis with our community members."
• "Curating content from your followers can help you to build a vibrant and engaged community and user generated content can also incentivize your audience to share their own creative ways of interacting with your products, services or company."
• "A large percentage of this growth was down to user generated content and in this post, Brian shares our exact strategy: A study from Georgia Tech looked at 1.1 million random Instagram pictures and discovered these two really interesting bits of information."

Key quotes:

• "Whether you hire a professional photographer, Photoshop your own images or use stock from sites like Unsplash, your images represent who you are, how you work and who you’re trying to target — so make sure you get it right."
• "A beauty brand, however, will curate a more aspirational theme, displaying the flawless skin, glowy highlight and vibrant colours their products can deliver."
• "Whilst on the product pages, you would use standard images of the candles, throughout the rest of the site you need to be creating the luxury lifestyle that your potential customers can achieve through buying your candles."
• "Pinterest is a great space for finding website inspiration, and imagery inspo too, to help you figure out just how creative and colourful your site can be."
• "So it’s time to evaluate your images as a collective — asking yourself ‘do these images go well together?’ ‘Do they have similar textures and colours?’ ‘Do the subjects all relate to my business, my aesthetic and my brand voice?’."