Cover Photo Archives - Switch - Digital & Brand

10 Brands that have mastered the art of the Cover Photo

Teri — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 12:24:29 +0000

In our recent post on Tips for creating your Facebook Cover Photo, we went through the Top 10 dos and don’ts to keep in mind when designing a killer cover photo. Sometimes, however, a list of instructions can hinder your creativity rather than help it along.
Sometimes, all you need is a little inspiration to get those juices flowing while keeping the best practices in mind.
Here are 10 well-known brands who consistently produce excellent cover photos, whether it’s to promote their brand, a new product or a one-off event.
Take note: They tick all the best practice boxes without compromising on beautiful design, and that’s a winning combination.

10. Pepsi

Why hello, hashtag. Pepsi use their signature funky, urban designs to direct all attention to their star hashtag of the World Cup season. With Pepsi-sponsored football players using the tag all over the internet, it was important for Pepsi to advertise the hashtag and encourage people to look it up. Plus, they integrated the profile picture into the overall design, which always looks clever.
Why is this at the bottom of our list? Well, they didn’t include the clickable hashtag in their description (or any description at all, for that matter), meaning that they’ve lost a golden opportunity for driving traffic.

9. The New York Times

Sure, you would expect a leading newspaper to have striking footage and photography to use on social media. But the New York Times takes it a step further. Here they’ve given visitors a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on during an average day of work, instantly boosting credibility and interest. And all of this without using a single word of text.

8. GoPro

A simple sales message, delivered powerfully. It’s understood instantly: If you buy a GoPro, you can capture this sort of image.

7. Porsche

It’s similar in concept to what GoPro did with their cover photo, but Porsche went a step further. Rather than posting a random pretty picture of a car, they showcased their latest advancement in the field without using a single word: Electric motor engines.
(and yes, they did provide a link in the description.)

6. UrbanDaddy

If you’re a fan of superb copy skills, you would want to look into UrbanDaddy. Their cover photo is exceptional at reinforcing their brand, but with subtlety. The image doesn’t loudly promote their product (which is content and offers on their online magazine). Rather, it’s all about the person who reads UrbanDaddy and the lifestyle they represent.

5. Fiverr

If you stick to the guidelines and keep things simple and looking great, you can use your cover photo to promote anything. Just like Fiverr did. They’re promoting their current competition and getting the entire message across without using too many words in the design. The competition looks simple and entices you to find out more – and they haven’t even told you what the prize is yet.

4. LinkedIn

You hear ‘LinkedIn’ and you think business professionals and overall seriousness. The last thing you’d expect to see on their cover photo is a toddler playing with a toy laptop – but that’s exactly why it’s brilliant. They’re showing us that they appreciate the users behind the millions of business profiles, the users that go home to their kids after a day at the office. They’re giving a stuffy network a human face, all with just one image.

3. Amazon

Simple and direct – Amazon are showcasing their latest product. No need for pricing or product details, that will follow. All they’re doing is building awareness and fostering curiosity without having to pay for advertising.
Plus – spot the hashtag.

2. Sony

It’s current, it’s evocative and it’s visually striking. All Sony have done is show how their product is relevant right now. They posted this one during the World Cup, so football was the first thing on everyone’s mind. By (literally) placing their product in that scenario, it leads people to think that the next logical step would be to upgrade their current TV to the one in the picture. Or at least, that’s what I thought.

1. Facebook

At our number 1 spot – who else?
There’s nothing obvious about the message behind the photo. That’s for you to interpret. But the chances are that, with an image like that behind the blue Facebook logo, you’re thinking that Facebook had something to do with bringing all those happy people together, regardless of age or ethnicity.
Bingo.

Now over to you – how do you make Cover Photos work for your marketing?

The post 10 Brands that have mastered the art of the Cover Photo appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

10 Tips for creating Cover Photos that work

Teri — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 11:50:46 +0000

So you’ve decided to take a look into inbound marketing for your company. That’s great – if you’re a regular reader of our blog, you’re well aware that we’re all for the greatness that is inbound marketing.
In one of our recent posts, we spoke about 5 brands who really get content marketing and the concept of talking ‘around’ your brand instead of ‘about’ it. This would need to happen both offline, on your website and, very importantly, on your social media pages.
Most of the larger digital marketing blogs would tell you to pick your network carefully depending on the nature of your business – if you’re a B2B, go for LinkedIn. If you have a product catalogue, use more visual networks like Pinterest. Here in Malta however, you simply cannot ignore Facebook.
Yes, I know. Facebook isn’t exactly your top priority in your business strategy, being a vortex of procrastination and all that, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t spend at least some time making your Facebook page work for you and stand out among the rest.
There are many theories to explain why people visit brands’ social pages – offers and promotions, competitions, customer care or just to keep updated with quality content – but whatever the nature of the page, it’s an undeniable fact that people will always drift towards the pages with beautiful design and breathtaking imagery.
I’ll give you one guess as to what it is people look at first when landing on your page – it’s your cover photo. It’s the most noticeable thing about your page, and that’s exactly why you want to make sure that you’re following the best practices for creating and optimizing your Facebook cover photo. It’s not all about finding a pretty picture – whether you’re using Facebook to generate leads, close your next sale or create customer community, your cover photo is a crucial part of making that happen.
Plus – Keep in mind that your cover photo doesn’t just live on your Page. Whenever someone likes your page, your cover photo will pop up on the walls of every Facebook user who follows that new fan of yours, like this post to the right..
To help make sure that your cover photo is the best it could be, check out these 10 best practices below:

1. Check the Facebook Guidelines

Let the eye-rolling commence. Yes, this is absolutely the first thing you need to check about when creating not just your cover photo, but every item of content on your page. Before you ask – no, Facebook doesn’t actually say what will happen if you violate the Facebook guidelines, but it’s probably not a good idea to risk having your page taken down over your cover photo, right?

2. Make sure it’s the right size

851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall. You’ll want to get that right from the start when designing a photo, because why would you want to spend time getting a new image designed only to have it look funny once you upload it? You can view our full template for Facebook image sizes right here. (We’ve included a full image size guide in this post – scroll down to see it now.)

3. Keep mobile in mind

The Facebook mobile app doesn’t re-size your cover photo to fit everything in. Rather, it only displays the middle-to-right portion of your cover photo. If you’re targeting mobile users on Facebook, you might want to keep this in mind when including text or certain images in your desktop cover photo.
Keep the important information center- or right-aligned, or you could have large parts of it cut out to look something like this:

4. Lay out your content carefully

Be aware that your profile picture covers a section of your cover photo in the bottom left corner when the user lands on your page.
The part of the cover image that lies behind the profile picture won’t be visible until the user clicks on it, so be sure to keep that area clear of any text or information.

5. Keep it visual

This time last year, Facebook had finally done away with the 20% rule on text in cover photos. This means that you have more freedom when designing the layout for your cover photo, but you should still be careful when including text in your designs.
Keep your copy concise and focus on the visual element of the design. That’s what the cover photo was designed for and will make your page much more engaging, even at first glance.

6. If you’re using text, make it count

When Facebook revoked the 20% text rule, they also allowed people to use calls-to-action in their cover photos. CTAs, key text and striking visuals – if you want your cover photo to help you convert, that’s all you need.

7. Speaking of text… got a hashtag?

If you’re promoting an event or product through your cover photo, be sure to include the relevant hashtag, where applicable. You can include it in the design of the actual image for recall purposes, but more importantly, remember to include it in the description to make your photo more discoverable.

8. Don’t forget the description

The calls to action on your cover photo won’t be clickable buttons, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t still direct people to your landing page. Be sure to include clickable links in your cover photo description so that anyone clicking on your cover photo will be able to take the next natural step to wherever it is you want to take them!

9. Change your cover photo regularly

Make your cover photo work for you by changing it whenever you have something new to talk about. Highlight current campaigns, seasonal trends or special events by creating cover photos about them to build awareness or drive more traffic via the link in the description.

10. Own your content

You know by now that Facebook have removed most of the restrictions for page cover photos. In fact, they’ve dropped them all, except for one:

All cover photos are public, which means anyone visiting your Page will be able to see it. Cover photos must follow the Pages Terms and can’t be deceptive, misleading or infringe on anyone else’s copyright.

Simply put: be truthful, own your content and don’t make people change their cover photos to match yours. Fair enough, right?
One last thing – keep other, non-Facebook regulations in mind when promoting something on your cover photo, especially if gifts and prizes are involved. The Maltese Lotteries and Gaming Authority (LGA) has specific regulations for any form of lottery or luck-of-the-draw competitions – even those held on Facebook or other networks – so keep that in mind before you start pumping your precious marketing budget into your next competition.
As promised earlier, here’s a handy guide to all image sizes you’ll need to consider when running a Facebook page. We’ll be sharing one of these for all the major social networks over the coming weeks, so keep an eye out!

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