Most of our members are business owners or bloggers who are posting on social media multiple times a day. And multiple times a day usually means needing multiple images. Oftentimes, your visuals are the first thing a potential client or customer sees, so we believe that you should always be putting your best photo forward.
Using styled stock photos can make it so much easier to have images ready to go on a daily basis. But whether you are posting images “as is” or creating social media graphics, there are a couple of things to keep in mind:
Understand Terms of Use
Whether you are using free stock photos or paid stock photos, you should understand the terms of use of the images. Terms of use will vary by photographer/copyright owner, so if you're sourcing images from different places you really need to be careful that you are using images according to the license terms. Sometimes you are able to edit the image by adding filters, overlays, or other design elements and sometimes you can't. No matter what stock images you are using, please PLEASE read and understand the full terms of use to make sure you're using the images legally!
Credit Appropriately
The terms of use of the stock photos you are using are likely going to detail how / if / when any credit is required, but know that it is important to credit appropriately. Sometimes you have to credit the photographer and other times you don’t. For example, with any of the paid stock photos available through the Styled Stock Society membership, no credit is needed! It's also worth noting – please make sure you are crediting the right photographer – we've seen our photos credited to other people on Instagram a bunch of times (we're always thankful when someone points this out to us) and we've also been credited for images that aren't actually ours as well.
Using Styled Stock Photos to Create Social Media Graphics
An easy way to customize styled stock photos so that they stand out on social media is to create branded graphics. By adding branded elements (colors, fonts, patterns, etc.) to the images, they are more likely to stand out and be a more memorable representation of your brand.
To make our members' lives easier, we have 1,000+ social media graphic templates in the Styled Stock Society library. The templates were professionally designed just for Styled Stock Society members and can be easily edited in Canva! You can swap out the colors, switch out the fonts, change the text, and update the background images to customize the templates for your brand.
Here's a peek at just some of the templates inside the library:
All of these templates (and more!) are included in your Styled Stock Society membership and the Canva templates are so easy to use and are the perfect way to keep your social media graphics looking professional on a DIY budget!
If you're still not sure how to use styled stock photos to create social media graphics for your business, here are some specific ideas:
- Use graphics to share new blog posts on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter
- Use graphics to create “pin-worthy” blog post images (perfect for sharing on Pinterest)
- Use graphics to announce sales or special promotions
- Use graphics to promote free resources like downloads, workbooks, cheat sheets or other freebies to help grow your email list
- Use graphics to share inspirational quotes or testimonials from your happy customers/clients
- Use graphics for the cover/header images on Facebook and Twitter to draw attention to specific calls to action
