Workshop: Bringing your content to life with images. Charity content marketing conference, 28 April 2016
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The document discusses the importance of using images in digital communications to enhance engagement and effectively convey messages, particularly for organizations in the charity sector. It outlines common barriers to producing images, such as lack of time and resources, and provides tips for sourcing and utilizing visuals creatively across various platforms. Additionally, the document emphasizes the significance of aligning image use with brand tone and audience engagement strategies.
Workshop: Bringing your content to life with images. Charity content marketing conference, 28 April 2016
- 1. Bringing your content to life with images 28 April 2016 Madeleine Sugden
- 2. Agenda • Introduction • Why images matter • Barriers to producing or sourcing images • Examples – web / social media • Solving the problem • Questions
- 3. Why images? • Skim reading – we look for headings, links, images or words that show that something is worth reading. • Need to appeal to short attention spans. • Apply writing for the web to ensure that words are presented in the best way to aid skim reading. --- • Images give additional information that the words cannot. • Images can provide a hook, especially on social media where competition is greater. • Different types of images are needed across an org’s digital comms – web, social, email, blogs, fundraising copy.
- 4. Images for web content
- 7. Images on social media Twitter 2016Twitter 2014
- 8. What’s your style? • What’s your ‘tone of voice’ for images? • Do you have a different style on your website / social media / sub-brands? • Disposable nature of social means you can be less formal
- 9. What is right for your brand?
- 10. Barriers to producing images • What are the barriers to producing or using images in your organisation? • What have you done to overcome these problems? • How important are images in your comms? Introduce yourself to the person next to you and talk for 5 minutes about your experience.
- 11. Common barriers to producing images • No time to work on this • We don’t have any budget • We don’t have any kit to take pictures • Sensitivities around our subject / beneficiaries • We have images but they are poor quality • We have images but they are on someone else’s PC • Images are just not a priority
- 12. Hard to illustrate causes / subjects – web content • Does the design of your content pages include a space for images? • Images can bring a page to life – they are shorthand for understanding what the page is about and reinforce key messages. • So many charity content pages have no images.
- 13. Difficult to illustrate causes
- 14. Difficult to illustrate causes
- 15. Difficult to illustrate causes • Anonymised people • Close ups • Images of a quote • Graphics • Cartoons / illustrations • Photos of objects • Avoid literal images if they reinforce stereotypes or are triggers (see Time to Change’s Get the Picture campaign) • Avoid anodyne stock images
- 16. Social media - photos • Social media is where there is the greatest opportunity to use images. • Pictures quickly bring a story to life. • A cute / beautiful / funny picture can reward followers. • Images can educate / shock / entertain. • Easy to quickly take a picture and share it – share the detail of your work. • New accessibility features in Twitter and Facebook. • What does your social media policy say about images?
- 17. Social media - photos
- 18. Social media – photos • Be creative • Show what you do – location / equipment • Think about your assets • Use photos to be open, authentic and engaging with your audience. • Work out what works.
- 19. Data - social media
- 20. Graphics – social media
- 21. Graphics • Infographics • Maps • Photos of numbers • Creative ways to show data such as pie charts made out of food. • Thank you cards / letters / drawings. • Photos of text. Think about accessibility Reference your sources and include a link
- 22. Make Lunch • Use social media to promote their work – especially during the school holidays when their kitchens are open
- 23. What makes a good picture?
- 24. A good picture • Is clear and easy to understand. • Tells a story or shows something happening. • Is uncluttered and in focus. • Isn’t dark or gloomy. • Can be cropped in closely. • Can be moving / shocking / funny. • Can be creative.
- 25. Sourcing images • Taken or produced by the team. • Taken by beneficiaries. • Taken by supporters. • Image libraries. • Produce guidelines and model release forms. • Create pictures for particular purposes and channels. • Use photo editing software. • Use a photo database to manage your pictures.
- 26. Top tips • Identify what content you want to bring to life. • Source images and think about what is right for your org / channel. • Be creative • Use images in the right way – check sizes and dpi. • Include images in your housestyle / content strategy / social media strategy.
- 27. Useful links Image sources: • 7 places to find free photos – White Fuse Media • Wikimedia Commons • Photo Foundation Research • 37 visual content marketing statistics – some useful studies More on this workshop: • How to illustrate difficult causes and subjects • Creative ways to illustrate data and graphics on social media • Simple graphics can bring your data to life – Charity Comms post about Make Lunch
- 30. Visit the CharityComms website to view slides from past events, see what events we have coming up and to check out what else we do: www.charitycomms.org.uk
- 31. Conference 28 April 2016 London #CharityContent Charity content marketing Sponsored by