Stock imagery: its benefits, risk and place.
First and foremost, stock images and videos are important, and they play a necessary role in marketing. Our team use them, and so do our clients.
But, we don’t use stock images to tell a brand’s story, we use them to enhance the story we’re telling.
Stock photography and videography are great to use in places that don’t necessarily need photos of your team. This may be in blogs or for website banners, or in places where you cannot source the images yourself.
Whilst stock imagery and videos can be beneficial, they’re also available to the public, meaning that you run the risk of using the same images as your competitors.
Plus, it’s pretty easy to tell a stock photo from a photo of your actual team in your office.
Can you do it yourself?
It’s not a matter of whether can you do it, it’s more a question of whether should you do it yourself.
Depending on what the images are being used for, the answer is different.
Team headshots, office photography, brand videos, product photos, etc. should be left to the professionals. While a DIY photoshoot is still more authentic than stock photos, there is a big difference between what your phone can do and what a trained specialist can achieve.
With the combination of their high-quality equipment, experience, and knowledge of lighting, angles, backgrounds and more, a professional photographer/videographer can achieve results you simply can’t get yourself.
On the other hand, for news, events, and case studies, photos you and your team take yourselves can put a personal touch to your message. This can provide your readers and audiences with a sense of what you were experiencing at the time.
