People like looking at pretty things. It’s no secret. We love to look at images of food, babies, DIY, crafts and motivational stuff, all while murmuring, oohhh and ahhhh. But images on social media are more than just eye candy.
They are an eye-catching tool that captures the reader’s attention and pulls them IN. In the super-busy-noisy world of social media, images make users pause, look, and want to learn more. The reality is plain text updates can get lost in the shuffle on sites like Facebook and Google+. Images catch the reader’s eye and raise the chance of engagement by as much as 44% (Source: ROI Research) Photos and images on Facebook generate 53% more Likes than the average post. (Source: HubSpot)
The big question is always \”where\” can authors, bloggers, and freelancers get great quality images for their blogs and social media without having to pay a royalty and give attribution. The good news is that there are plenty of vibrant image sources, many of them are free, that can help business professionals create shareable images on social media that get noticed.
Vibrant Image Sources for Free/No Royalty Images
MorgueFile: Disturbing name, yet a great source for royalty free images. These are very amateur type photos, but many provide the perfect backdrop for text-based images that tell the story of your blog post or project. These pictures can be very ametuer-ish, but they are also great for creating text-based images like this one.
WikiMedia.org: WikiMedia is an online repository of free-use images, sound, and other media files. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Canva: Canva is the newest member of the family of fun image editing sites. An amazing design site that is similar to the free and ultra-fun Picmonkey, Canva offers users a wide range of effects and graphics and the ability to buy images for a nominal fee without leaving Canva’s site. Canva is a great way to create images that show a specific branding style for your business, organization or project. Here are a few examples of great Canva-created images that are well branded for social media.
Pixabay
Pixabay is a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images and videos. All contents are released under Creative Commons CC0, which makes them safe to use without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist – even for commercial purposes. All images and videos on Pixabay are released under the Creative Commons CC0. Thus, they may be used freely for almost any purpose – even commercially and in printed format. Attribution is appreciated, but not required.
Authors.biz also has a great article with 5 Excellent Sources For Copyright Free Images & Stock Photography
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and “they” are correct! The bottom line; your business should be utilizing the power of images and images with text whenever possible on social media.
Write on!
