HeX’s freelance web developer, Ben Lumley also works as a photographer as his day job. Specialising in sports photography, Ben knows how important a photograph with a story is and has written a blog about how a good photograph can boost your business’ brand through storytelling.
Tell your story
You can have the best business idea in the world but it’s nothing if you can’t tell your story. When you see something going viral it’s less about sheer dumb luck and more often than not, a great story is being told somewhere along the line.
Images
Images are a huge part of storytelling in the modern age of the consumer internet. Check out any social media platform and it’ll be dominated by visuals not text. We moved away from traditional text blogging a generation ago as a society and now we snap, add filters on Instagram posts, share Facebook memories and post GIFs on Twitter. It’s all visual. Why? Because that’s what we want.
We want to be able to scroll quickly through the content firehose and see what’s happening. As consumers, we can then choose to stop the scroll and dig into some story telling if something catches our eye.
How do you stop the scroll?
By sharing more than pixels.
It’s easy to find a stock image or take a snap on your phone and think that’ll do. And for some instances that’s fine. A quick phone image to post onto your Instagram is fine for a quick update that’s all part of the overall storytelling of your brand.
But are you thinking about powerful images that tell your story? Are you thinking about how those images will flow through your social media profiles? Are you thinking about how to use those images on your website to draw a customer through the user journey and ultimately to interact with your Call to Actions? Or are you just getting a nice generic stock image that’ll do the job?
There’s a reason that this image is iconic:
It’s not anything to do with camera settings, nothing to do with a huge photoshoot and it’s nothing to do with editing that’s gone into it. It’s because it tells a powerful story. It’s speaks to you about hope, persistence, resilience and of passion.
Spend time
What if you spend time on your brand and on your storytelling, working to create images that speak to your customers like the famous Raising the Flag on Iwo Jimo?
Now, I’m not saying only images like that will work with your storytelling but I am saying images on the web around your brand are more than just pixels. They’re more than just an afterthought. They’re a critical part of the storytelling around your brand.
Take the time. Work with a photographer. Think carefully about what your images are saying and how they’re telling your story. If you do that you’ll succeed.
