When someone asks me what I do for a living I say that I am a marketing professional, a co-director in my own company which predominately looks after clients in the marine industry. Sounds pretty exciting, but what does this actually entail, in fact what is marketing in 2017?
For Box PR and our clients, a great deal comes under the marketing umbrella (although we would rather say “in the box”) and sometimes we are called on to find pictures and keeping up to date with our clients’ social media. We are not photographers, nor do we pretend to be. In fact, we work with some wonderful photographers who help to promote our clients, their products and also Box PR. However, in today’s fast-moving world, and especially in the online world of social media, vlogs and You Tube, we are often required to take pictures for our clients’ and our own social media, especially at shows or when you see products out and about – we never want to miss an opportunity.
So how can we best do this as we want to make sure the images look professional? Well fortunately for the Warsash Small Business Networking Group, one of our members is Laura Scottorn Photography, who kindly offered to run a session covering simple product and portrait photography on your phone.
Laura’s session would prove to be a valuable tool for all those looking to upload spontaneous imagery onto their social media when a ‘photographer’ is not to hand.
During the 2 hours session a great deal was covered on how to best use your phone to take the finest pictures possible. There were a range of images being taken by the group, Angela brought in some of her Tropic Skincare range to photograph, Teresa was taking pictures of The Little Bay getting an eye for her interior design work, whilst Louise and I focused on taking pictures of Gin and Tonic along with notepads and people shots, not sure what that says about us!
Here is what Box PR took away from the session.
- With a few tips, it is possible to take good pictures on your phone for use on social media and blog posts.
- Think about the lighting, positioning the person / product in the most appropriate place for the best possible natural light available.
- Social media compresses image, what may look good on the screen may not be so sharp online, so always check your images once they are have been uploaded.
- Think about the composition, what is going on around the main focus of your image.
Thank you to Laura for running a practical session, she has kindly shared some top tips with us. As the boat show season is now upon us we will be looking to put these into practice over the coming months.
If you wish to find out more, you can contact Laura via her website here – http://www.laurascottorn.com/
Download Laura’s Top Tips here.
Lou