Then it’s my turn

Everyone here knows that I have an incredible ability to babble for hours, head off on unlikely tangents, and in general tire people to within inches of hitting me. Add a subject that I’m interested in enough to present and you’ve added the final pinch of tragedy to the recipe for boredom.
I’ve lately taken an interest in photography and thought I’d pick that as a subject. I say lately because I’ve wielded a camera for a couple of years now but didn’t take any pictures of anything interesting. I just snapped the world around me to make up for my appalling memory.
Then I met some awesome people who pointed out that there was a hell of a lot I was missing and it took me down a rabbithole. Herein lies the problem. If I start ranting about this with my colleagues I’d wind up trying to cram everything I’ve learned into the session. And cleaning up after someone’s tried to chew their own arm off is a bother.
So I used photography as a framework to tell them about my personal journey, using photos as a system for pictorial milestones.

It started with me filling a hard drive with photos of pretty sunrises and lakes and such like. That led me to believing that buying a better camera would help me take better pictures so I started accumulating expensive lenses. This was a rather circular path to nowhere.

Then, thanks to a darling cousin of mine, I was led to a course on black and white film photography. I wasn’t prepared for how dramatically it could change my perspective. What started off as my trying to comprehend the benefit of film over digital, a totally pointless quest, led me to realise that I should be attempting to tell a story via a picture.

So I took up film photography as a discipline really, a means that would simultaneously slow me down and increase my involvement with the craft. The more I learned about how to use the camera, the less I needed to worry about it and the more I could focus, in both senses, on the world around me.

And that’s where I am now, hoping to learn enough about photography to completely forget about it. Because then, I suspect, I’ll be able to start looking for a story that’s worth telling.
— Editor’s note: Ed won’t admit to any of this, but what he calls a tragic recipe for boredom had every one of us bumbling fidgeters glued to the screen. Debates and discussions carried on well into the evening, until we finally agreed that this was not a discussion to restrict to 2 hours. Next thing we know, we’ve set weekly calendar events for photography sessions at the office. Those of us who know nothing about cameras will soon learn a little more about how to capture stories from those who’ve learnt a thing or two through experience. As a complete noob myself, I can’t wait to dig in. We’ll keep you posted! ~ teri

The post Last Friday Night: Making Pictures, Telling Stories appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

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!

The post 10 Tips for creating Cover Photos that work appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

It’s all about the eye-candy, baby, and it’s kind of a big deal in social media.

The unprecedented growth rate of image-focused social networks like Pinterest and Instagram confirmed that visual content was a force to be reckoned with in online marketing, and that images are the way to go if you want to make an impact.
Social network giants like Facebook and Twitter recently jumped on the bandwagon to roll out larger images on news feeds in an attempt to boost click-through rates and engagement, and it seems to be working a treat.

The result? Images – everywhere

Don’t even think about ignoring the images altogether. You see, you’re asking for follows and likes, engagement from the community and maybe even real revenue through your posts, so it’s vital that you dedicate time to tweaking the way your profile looks to the viewer. When someone lands on your page, you have a total of 3 seconds to convince them to stay, and a good profile picture, cover photo and image-heavy material on your wall will do most of the convincing for you.
Just take a look at this image posted on Facebook by Bud Light Premium. There’s no need for a long caption – the image speaks for itself. One photo of a pack of beer on a warm autumn day generated more than 1,000 shares, 20,000 likes and over 500 comments. That image alone must have reached hundreds of thousands of viewers. Think about what it would have cost them to reach that many viewers with paid advertising, and compare it to what they probably spent designing the image for Facebook. We were never any good at math, but there seems to be a clear winner in this case.

So images are definitely the way to go, but we already know what you’re thinking. The problem with uploading your photos to different social media sites is that the sizes and dimensions are never the same, which could lead to warping or cropping that’s less than ideal for your overall look.
We’ll be uploading a detailed infographic guide to image sizing in the near future, but in the meantime, we’ve got some good news for you: not every image on social networks needs to be designed to fit. Most of the images are automatically re-sized to look good, so that’s just one less thing you need to worry about. These include:

• Facebook Timeline image uploads,
• Facebook album photos
• Facebook mobile uploads
• Twitter photo tweets
• LinkedIn photo links
• Google+ news feed photo posts
• Pinterest pins and album covers

Profile pictures and cover photos provide no such luxury, however. Still, there’s no need to pull your hair out or, shock-horror, give up on cover photos altogether. Watch this space for that infographic we mentioned earlier – it’s still in the works, but you’ll want to bookmark it once it’s out.
Sources: ragan.com | bufferapp.com

The post Get the picture: Why you need images in social media appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.