Selecting Photos for Blog Posts

Selecting photos for blog posts can be tricky enough as it is. There is an art to selecting a photo that aligns with and complements the content of a post, and also works well for social media promotion. The design and development industries can throw in a few challenges when picking out photos. But at Elevator Up, we have figured out a few standards for our blog post photos that we thought would help fellow bloggers in our industry.

Shout out to our friend Chris Fredricks for helping us think through our blog image standards!

What doesn’t work?

Our developers often write technical posts about coding hacks and how-to’s. Their images are usually samples, screenshots, or videos of code. Similarly, our designers share their work through design templates, wireframes, or softwares they are trying out. We like these kinds of posts because it’s a chance to showcase our team’s skills and expertise. These kinds of images can certainly be included within the post, but not for social media promotion. Samples of code don’t always draw in a lot of traffic when promoted over social media, which is the main outlet where we share our blog posts.

Stock photos also don’t work for us because they can come across as inauthentic. Does she even work here? We want to be able to say ‘yes!’ We’ve got a great team and we want people to know who they are.

How to Choose an Image for your Blog and Social Media

Does it help tell the story?

Along with the headline, the goal of your photo is to get a viewer to think “I want to know more,” and then they click to see more. The photo should have relevance to the content of your post, and like the headline give the viewer a taste of what they get when they make that click.

Is it real / authentic?

The easiest way to get a real and authentic photo: use a photo of the team actually doing something. We don’t use stock photos, or anything that looks like one because we prefer the authenticity of real life. If the post is about you doing something — Show that. Work with a fellow team member to take an authentic photo.

People like photos of people doing things

Fun usability fact, people are more likely to click on a button, if there’s a photo of someone looking in it’s general direction. While that exact style may be a bit forced, we like to look at people’s faces, people getting shit done, and people having fun. Also, it helps people get to know us as a company.

Does it fit with the overall look and feel?

We do have an overall look and feel to our social media posting, and the best way to see that is to look at our Instagram. Will your photo fit in with the photos that are already there? Consistency is important, because it leads to trust, and the photos we post are a part of the overall message that we are sending out into the world.

You will see some designs sprinkled through our Instagram and that’s because we design things! Yes, we prefer real people doing things to digital images or graphics, but our designers do great work and we want to show that off too.

I wanted to share a couple of examples too, of how I’ve helped team members pick blog posts.

Example 1: Joel wrote a post about a presentation he gave to a client. I asked Joel if he or any team members had a photo of him giving the presentation. He said he did, but that he was saving the photo for another blog post. So, in line with the “People like photos of people doing things” guideline, we decided to stage a shot of Joel working on the presentation.

Example 2: One of our developers wrote a post on creating guidelines to our development. His photos were screenshots of code, so we went through our image archives and found a great shot of two of our developers sitting on a couch looking at code together. This shot is going to be perfect because it’s two of our developers looking like they’re talking through development practices.

Pro tip! Stocking up on actual photos of your team around the office can come through in a pinch. Does someone on your team have a side passion for photography? Let them practice their skill and help the company at the same time!

So there you have it! A guide to selecting great images for your blog and social media posts that aren’t always code samples or screenshots or web browsers.

Tori, Studio Manager

Originally published at blog.elevatorup.com.