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Tips for Taking Engaging Social Media Photos

Etsy's Social Media team shares their best practices for taking social media photos that drive engagement.

Avatar image for Etsy Staff by Etsy Staff
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When sellers ask us (the Etsy Social Media team) how they can improve their social media feeds, one key thing we always tell them is to focus on their photography. We know that product photography is one of the top deciding factors that buyers look for when making a purchase on Etsy, and the same goes for marketing your business on social channels.

We’ve compiled a checklist of quick and simple things you can start doing now to improve your photos for social media without purchasing a bunch of fancy equipment or spending hours in photo editing software.

Focus on lighting

When taking your photos, think about shooting in natural light. This doesn’t mean you have to start shooting all of your content outside, but think about posing your items on a surface near a window. If you’re looking for brighter photos that showcase your products, you can also consider investing in a light box, or you can make your own.

Forget about the grid

Curating your social feed should be fun, one way to help alleviate some of the stress of creating content for your social channels - in this case, Instagram, is to forget about the grid. What’s the grid you may be asking yourself? The grid, also known as your Instagram profile, is all the content you’ve captured and shared on your Instagram page. The vast majority of your followers will never see your content through the grid, they will only see it through their timelines. So stop stressing about making sure you have a fun pattern or colour aesthetic.

Choosing the camera

As our mobile technology increases, something that phone manufacturers are starting to focus more and more on is the camera. This is great for you, because most mobile cameras are as powerful as some digital cameras, so no need to go out and spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars on equipment. You probably have the perfect tool in the palm of your hand.

Edit your photos

Photo too dark? Want to make those colours pop a bit more? Never fear, in addition to the advances in mobile cameras, there are also several photo apps that you can download to create the perfect looking photo for your social account. Free apps like Snapseed and Lightroom Mobile allow you to adjust the colour and brightness of your images to make sure they pop in your followers timelines. Also if you’re struggling with finding the right tools or techniques to make your photos sing, you can always look into buying Lightroom Presets (psssst there are a lot of Etsy sellers who sell these). Presets are quick actions that you can do within Lightroom to instantly brighten, adjust, and improve the look and feel of your photos.

Taking photos for social doesn’t have to be daunting, it should be fun. We hope these tips help make some your social marketing a bit easier.

Follow Etsy Success on Instagram and Facebook for more advice and inspiration on running an Etsy shop.

Avatar image for Etsy Staff Words by Etsy Staff

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