When was the last time you liked (and even bought) something because it looked great on Instagram? Probably last week or month. But when was the last time you purchased or at least stopped browsing to do a double-take at a product that uses stock image? Probably never. There’s a reason that happens.
In this day and age, people have a shorter attention span, especially when browsing online. They can easily switch to another app or website and browse through several posts in just a few clicks or swipes. When you run a social media marketing campaign for your brand, you must use visually stunning photos. Sure, stock images are free. But they can only do so much for your brand. High-quality, engaging photos can catch the attention of often preoccupied or distracted users and persuade them.
It’s good if you can work with a professional photographer or a digital marketing agency with an in-house creative team that can produce great visuals. But what if you’re a startup business owner or newbie marketer? Good thing, many easy-to-use apps are available to give you a hand. Here are some of them:
VSCO
When you take a picture of an item or scene, it doesn’t always look interesting. But with the right filters and a few adjustments, the photo can be impactful, attracting thousands of users to your page and website. This is where apps like VSCO come in. VSCO offers around 10 free preset filters that make phone-shot photos look as though they were snapped on film. Upgrade from the free version, and you can have access to over 200 preset filters and more advanced photo-editing tools and features.
Snapseed
Snapseed is a free, fully functional image editing app that can help make your photos magnificent. With this app, you can work on both JPG and RAW files and use tons of presets for filtering your photos. There are also 29 tools and features that let you do serious photo editing tasks. You can remove elements or even people from an image. You can adjust lighting and brightness, as well as the geometry of buildings.
Adobe Lightroom
Adobe is a brand known for its photo and video-editing capabilities, and Lightroom is no exception. Capture raw images using your smartphone. Then, pull up your Adobe Lightroom app, and you can elevate raw photos to professional quality by adjusting their exposure, shadows, hue, and more.
A Design Kit
Use this app to customize content on your Instagram feed by layering fonts, stickers, and designs over your photos. A Design Kit boasts more than 60 different fonts, over 200 collage layout templates, and hundreds of design options. With this app, you can play around with various design elements to create a consistent look for your Insta photos and effectively catch the attention of anyone who gets to see them.
In a sea of photos on Instagram and other social media platforms, make your brand stand out. Maximize these apps to enhance your own images and make people stop in their tracks to check out your profile, read your captions, see more of your photos, and click the shop button or a link to your website.
