Photographing your packaging for social media

Social media is a really important part of any marketing strategy and has changed the way we think about media. Product photography is also essential to any eCommerce marketing strategy and driving sales. So, how should you incorporate your product photography and packaging imagery into your social media strategy? Should you employ the same tactics as you do for your website when publishing product photography on your social media? When and where should you feature your packaging? This article will detail everything you need to know about your product photography and your social media strategy.

You don’t always need to include everything in your imagery

First of all, it’s important to know that sometimes, it can be good to give a little teaser of your product and your packaging rather than revealing the whole thing on your social media. It’s not always necessary to include your entire product when thinking about your social media feed. If you’re launching a new product, slowly revealing the details can be beneficial to increasing the hype around the product. Also, showing details can highlight to your potential customers the details in your product and your packaging.

Think about potential unboxing experience

Revealing little bits of your product at a time can also be beneficial if you’re planning on creating an unboxing experience. An unboxing experience can increase your customer satisfcation and give way to free PR and advertising on social media and people share their experiences. With this in mind, you might not want to give everything away on your own channels and ruin the surprise. If you wish to give this all away (you know to show off just how great it is) utilise video or stop photography to enhance your content. It’s important to create interesting and exciting content for your consumers, and thinking outside the box of static images can be a great way to do this.

Don’t forget basic photography skills

Whilst encompassing a range of media in your content is beneficial, sometimes it can be easy to forget basic photography skills when gathering and creating content for social media. The beauty (and downfall arguably) or social media is that it’s in real time, you can take a picture and post it to your followers within minutes, but with this comes a lot of content, and a lot of bad content. Social media is one of the best and easiest ways to showcase your great products to an engage audience, so remembering basic photography skills can really pay off when you want to display your best products and packaging. For example, making sure your images aren’t too over exposed or out of focus can really make an impact.

Don’t always use the same angle

As we’ve mentioned, content on social media is vast, people are posting multiple times a day, if your content is boring it will certainly get lost in the crowd. And, if you’re just posting similar photos all the time, not only will you lose the attention of your customers but it also won’t showcase your great packaging and products to your audience.

Don’t be afraid of editing programs

Obviously, when you’re creating high quality product photography for your website, this content will be edited. Sometimes, there is an idea that social media content should be more ‘authentic’ but this does not mean you should ignore editing programmes. Tweaking your images slightly to make them more appealing to your audience can drastically increase your conversions and sales and improve the appeal of your products and packaging. We’re not talking really difficult, complicated photoshop jobs though - there are hundreds of apps out there you can use to edit your photos very easily. For example, you can add text and branding with Canva, and use presets on Lightroom to adjust the exposure etc to exactly how you want with a click of the button (once you’ve created the preset obviously). If you want to use Photoshop etc. do not be afraid, the power of adding a drop shadow shouldn’t be ignored for social media to become ‘authentic’!

Plan your content

This piece of advice should be taken with a pinch of salt. Whilst some of the most amazing Instagram feeds come with the most meticulous planning (we’re thinking Lidl here) - check this. It’s not always necessary to plan your content down to the T. You may never know when you want to promote something or show off your new packaging. However, it is advisable to have some sort of plan so you know you’re not always showing exactly the same content over and over again.

Our best piece of advice would always be to seek advice if the world of social media overwhelms you. Just like you would go about getting a 3PL involved in your packaging and fulfilment, investing in social media and marketing advice can really help you market your products and drive sales. If you’ve got some great packaging designed (maybe by us?!) you want to be showing this off and highlighting all the great products you’ve got available to your customers through the best possible channels (which is often social media).