Stock photography has come a long way in the last few years. Don't get us wrong, there is still a lot of it out there that will do your brand more damage than good, but on the whole it's relatively easy to find appropriate, brand-enhancing images for your collateral and online content.

When you need stock photography

You won't always have a collection of professional photos of you and your business. Stock photos are perfect for blog posts, social media content, eBooks and newsletters.

Where to find good (free) stock photography

Unsplash

Unsplash was one of the first sites to disrupt traditional stock photo offerings (like Shutterstock and iStock). Its images are amongst the most authentic, creative, and contemporary.

Pexels

Pexels is another good all rounder that helps you avoid resorting to daggy stock photography. It also has an excellent collection of stock video, and an assortment of curated collections to browse.

Pixabay

You'll definitely find some treasures in Pixabay's photo library if you search for long enough. Where Pixabay really shines though, is for illustrations and vector files. Check it out for resources to use for DIY marketing collateral.

Negative Space

Negative Space is best for corporate and architecture shots. It also has a vast collection of typography images (think street signs, and retro and neon signage) and architecture.

Honourable mention to our favourite paid subscriptions

At Social Broker, we have tried and tested many stock photography sites (there are a good thirty or so that we've not even mentioned here). Sometimes the free offerings – as much as we all appreciate them – just don't have what we need, or perhaps we want to avoid using the usual suspects. Our favourite paid subscriptions are with these sites (in order from most loved to less so):

Twenty20

Twenty20 is our pick out of the dozens of stock photography libraries we've tried. Browse their artfully curated collections for inspiration or to create your own cohesive library of images. Subscribe through Envato for around $300/year.

Adobe Stock

Adobe Stock is handy if you're looking for something very specific, due to their robust search and filtering functions. You'll find many 'visual pun' / metaphoric images, which is a style we feel has had its day.

Shutterstock

Shutterstock has the most rigorous search capability, including being able to specify whether an image includes people and even to filter by ethnicity (helpful for ensuring representation). Plus, it's the biggest stock photo library, so it would be remiss of us to leave it off our list.

How to choose the right photo

Avoid choosing images that look overly staged, cheesy, or scream 'I'm a stock photo!' It's one of those 'you'll know it when you see it' scenarios.

If you're using images that include people, consider whether they look like real people in 2020. Bad stock photography can look dated (usually because it was shot many years ago). Good stock photography, on the other hand, will often feature 'real' unposed people in believable settings and natural lighting.

You also need to ensure the photos you choose reflect your target audience – which we're guessing aren't all as white, straight, conventionally attractive and with an early 2000s sense of style as some of the bad stock photography out there is!

To maintain a cohesive visual identity – across everywhere you publish content – you might want to consider sourcing photos in bulk. This way, you can see how they'll all work side-by-side. So rather than searching for, and choosing just one photo, download 50 at a time to create your own library of images.

Need a hand?

We offer an image curation service. What this means is that we'll spend hours scouring premium photo libraries to find the right images that showcase your brand's values and connect with your audience. Find out more here.

1 in 3 Australians use Instagram, with 9.5M monthly users Australia-wide. It’s the social media platform that gets the most engagement and fortunately it is relatively easy to quickly build a decent-sized audience (in contrast to its sister-platform, Facebook).

There’s immense opportunity for mortgage and finance brokers to build a niche brand on Instagram. However, how can you realistically be expected to create high-quality content alongside mastering the core functions of your role? After all,  you’re in the business of finance broking, not social media marketing.

In response to unmet demand, we’ve developed Social Broker, which provides fully-customised Instagram content to enhance your brand, attract followers, and keep you top-of-mind.

However, if you’d rather go down the DIY route, read on for some practical suggestions of what to consider when crafting content for social media.

Persona

Tone is absolutely everything. It’s about striking the balance between authoritative and engaging. It’s an opportunity for you to showcase your expertise, brand values and your personality. Your audience needs assurance both that you’re competent, and that they’ll enjoy working with you. This is why generic, head office-generated content often doesn’t get the cut-through and often won't be relatable or compelling - simply because it doesn't showcase you.

We suggest defining your persona before creating your content. Write down the attributes you want your brand to personify. Is your brand ambitious, chic, intellectual / conservative, strong, stable / approachable, helpful, direct / confident, witty, playful. Your brand persona should align with the experience that customers can expect to receive from you.

Targeting

While Instagram can help you cast your net wider (than traditional word-of-mouth referrals), try avoid taking a scattergun approach. This means identifying who your target audience is. Are you seeking to connect with a certain demography, profession or buying-behaviour? Be clear on who your ideal customer profile, and then design every piece of content with them in mind.

Messaging

Your Instagram account presents an opportunity to showcase your values, highlight your expertise, educate people, stay top-of-mind and give insight into your personality – so they know what it might be like working with you.

And, to keep you Instagram feed engaging for the long-term, think about what other finance-related topics you could cover. For instance, real estate, interior design, small business/entrepreneurship, financial empowerment for women, growth mindset thinking, financial literacy. The topics you cover will depend on your target audience, and your own expertise and interests. By covering a range of topics you’ll make your account appealing to more people, and improve visibility (via hashtags).

Including a call-to-action in marketing material is something that is drilled into us at every turn. Yet, we need to remember Instagram is a social media channel – so we've got to be social, not 'salesy'. Be very purposeful with your CTAs. Not every post needs to include one, and it doesn’t always have to be a ‘Call me today on 0406 BROKER’. Consider asking questions to build engagement, or provide links to useful tools or articles.