Choosing Imagery For Your Blog
For blogs, imagery is a tool that helps or hinders your blog. To ensure your blog benefits your readers make sure your images are appealing to them. Here are some tips to help you get started:
Think Unique
People have gotten used to seeing stock images again and again. If you can take photos or design graphics, then that can be used to your advantage to make your brand stand out from the crowd. Your graphics will be noticed and have a stronger impact on your visitors.
Think Appealing
Knowledge of who your audience is and what they would like to see should determine your choice of imagery. An example of this would be that a chef would prefer cooking images, not space images. A negative result from bad imagery could be less attention from your desired audience, while the positive having the opposite effect.
Think Emotional
Remember the Hefty trash bag commercials? When the generic bag broke and the trash scattered all over the sidewalk, you felt their frustration. The broken bag created distrust for generic brands leading to negative emotions; while, the Hefty bag not breaking branded it as trustworthy, creating positive emotions. These emotions were made to serve Hefty's narrative in showing their product with positive reinforcement and a negative view of generic brands. While positive emotions help with pushing a narrative, negative emotions also help by pushing people away from certain aspects such as conflicting views/ideas.
The meaning of an image is decided by you and can be used to promote either a positive or negative emotion. The emotion(s) generated this way is dependant on the image you use and the text that related to it. The important part of the imagery can be color, content, and other items. Each of these can influence emotions one way or another, so some testing might be needed to find out what is the best type of imagery for your blog.
Get Creative
Stock imagery at first glance can be appealing, however, one issue is that stock imagery is not unique to you. A way to fix this is to edit the image or graphic slightly to better fit your narrative. Cropping the image to only the part you need helps to move the focal point of the image, and customizes it what you need. While cropping is one possible change, others can include color overlay addition, hue & saturation changes, and so much more. When you have finally decided on a style for your imagery, apply it to all of them. Doing so will maintain consistency and only strengthen your narrative.
Expand Visually
"Imagery" does not only define photos, but it also stands for anything used to showcase an idea visually. This definition includes charts, tables, large statistic numbers, and so much more. Choosing a specific type may seem daunting at first, but matching the text to the appropriate imagery will make this choice easier.
Final Thoughts
These are a few things to consider when choosing imagery for your blog. While they are all equally important, maintaining consistency is key to keeping your narrative the same. With your future blog posts try these tips and you may just end up with more attention than before.
