Do you use visuals in your social media marketing? Are you wondering which tools/resources to use so you can use images to take your social media strategy to another level?
Do you believe that images play a major role in getting things viral on social media? Be it Facebook ads, Twitter campaigns, Google+ shares, Pinterest or Instagram contests. Everywhere you need images that are just outstanding, that are just so eye catching that your audience get curious to know what you are up to. Isn’t it?
With the art of pictures, you can tell a story to your audiences about your brand, products and more. “A picture is worth a thousand words” as people can process images faster than lengthy articles. One of the most troublesome points for many marketers who use images is the uncertainty of whether the image can be used or not. Thus keeping that in mind I have compiled a list of free resources from where you can download images, and easily share to your social networks.
1. GettyImages
This is a huge resource! Oh yes, you agree. GettyImages creates and distributes the world’s best and one of the largest imagery collections, making them available in the most accessible. From contemporary creative imagery to news, sports, entertainment and archival imagery, their products are found each day in the full range of traditional and digital media worldwide.
Very recently in March 2014 they launched a free embed tool for people to use and share select photos from the GettyImages library. They have made 40 Million available for use of their total 150 Millions pictures they house currently.
2. Pixabay
Pixabay is a directory of free public domain photographs. You can find and share outstanding free images from photographers that are from all over the world. Pixabay features over 150,000 free quality photos. The site interface is extremely easy to use and understand. It has great navigation, sorting, and searching functions as well thus making it easy to browse.
3. Google Image Search
How can we forget the search engine Giant? Google Image search enables you to search images that are free for reuse. Simply go to images.google.com -> enter the keyword of your choice and under Search tools, click ‘Usage Rights’. Yeah, you might not get the most creative output always here, but you should not miss this too.
4. 500px (Creative Commons)
Following Flickrs lead, 500px rolled out its creative commons service in 2012. This platform has an amazing catalogue of photos and a brilliant search engine which I feel is the best part as it lets you choose pictures you want as per the creative commons license. It even has set up a section where, it explains the various licenses to you and you can browse those categories accordingly to choose the pictures.
5. Flickr (Creative Commons)
Flickr is an image and video hosting website once you log on everyone gets 1000GB worth space free to store your photos. Several billion images have been uploaded to Flickr since its launch. A large percentage of these images have been released under the Creative Commons Attribution license. This means that the images can be used on your website as long as you give the original photographer credit. Under it’s explore section, it has sub-categories which you can browse easily and find the picture for your needs!
6. DeviantArt (Creative Commons)
DeviantArt is an online community which showcases user-generated art work. With over 30+ Million registered users, it is perfect platforms for artist to exhibit and discuss their work. There is a section of the site dedicated to Creative Common images where you can navigate and select pictures and the site even encourages you to use Google to search for finding images with the query string: ”This work is licensed under a Creative Commons” site:deviantart.com.
7. Unsplash
Unsplash is built on Tumblr, which has a minimal site it’s a one page site all you have to do is scroll down. This site is pretty similar to Death to the Stock Photo, only difference is every 10 days they email you 10 pictures of high-resolution. You need to subscribe to them and they will email you the pictures every 10 days or you can visit their website every 10 days and see the 10 high-resolution pictures with the source and the option to download.
8. Gratisography
Like Unsplash, Gratisography is my best resource for free High-Resolution images you can use easily for personal and commercial projects. An average file size from this site is 8MB to 10MB. You can imagine the dimensions and the quality here. no hustles, no hidden costs. Absolutely free.
9. Picjumbo
Picjumbo is created by the artist Viktor Hanacek, who uploads new photos daily to this platform and they all can be downloaded and used for your commercial works. This website with its layout and functionality makes it very easy to find pictures you need according to the genre as they all are mentioned under the section categories, you can simply just click, browse and download the pictures you need.
10. Death to the Stock Photo
Death to the Stock Photo is a project by two photographers, the reason they created this tool was they often found stock photos to be dull and lifeless. So they set up this site which requires you to feed in your email ID and they will send you high-resolution lifestyle photography that is delivered to your inbox, and you can do whatever you want with those images.
Your turn
This by no means is an exhaustive list; do you use any other site for finding images for social media? Or are any of above your favourite? Do share your insights with us below.