By: Christina Dahlberg

Recruitment marketing on social media really comes down to one thing: telling a good story about your company’s culture.

Enhance recruitment marketing with photography

Many companies struggle to make themselves look appealing on social media. I would suggest there is a simple solution for this problem – the use of good photography. Snapping photos of company retreats, employee recognition team activities and other noteworthy events shows the vibrancy of your company. Great pictures are a way to share moments that exemplify your company culture with an audience that would otherwise be in the dark.

However, posting pictures at random is not enough to improve your recruitment marketing. It requires well-done and carefully selected photography. Great photos make big statements on a brand’s social media pages, and in fact, receive more engagement on most platforms than any other type of post. It only takes a second for a viewer to understand the message a photo is conveying (much faster than text or videos) and when that image evokes an emotional response, the individual is more likely to share it.

Yes, photography is an art. But that does not mean you need to be a professional photographer to take a good photo, especially when something as handy as a smartphone can take high-quality pictures. To tell a better story about your company, I offer the following simple tips you can use to help your organization stand out visually from all the noise out there!

1. Share great moments

Communicate that your workplace is a great environment by sharing moments that prove it. You cannot fake authenticity – savvy social media users will see right through staged shots. A good picture that reveals the heart of your organization speaks louder than a thousand words claiming that your company is an amazing place to work.

2. Do not share images that are sideways

No one wants to stretch their neck to see what is happening in a picture. Keep it simple, and rotate the image before you upload. You can use practically any photo editing software to do so, or even the default Windows, Mac, Android and iOS image viewers.

3. Do not share photos that are stretched out

Have you seen an image online where the subjects look distorted? More than likely, this was because the image was stretched to accommodate a larger area than it could handle. If you have to stretch an image to get it to fit properly on a web page, find another image.

4. Do not share low resolution photos

Your subject deserves clarity. Poor photos hide the subject by being too small, too blurry or too pixelated. Make sure your photos are in focus and taken at a high resolution. Some social media sites upload low resolution images by default, but give you the option to upload higher quality images. Be sure to click the high resolution checkbox when it is available.

5. Do not capture too much background

Focus on a subject to make an image more powerful. If the subject(s) are tiny in comparison to the background, your image will have a diminished impact because the viewer will not know what to focus on. Remember to fill the frame with your subject when you take the photo, or at least crop away the extra background before you post.

Whether used in slideshows, web albums or dozens of other mediums, photography has an important impact on your recruitment marketing. Be the photographer at your organization who makes a difference!

About the expert

Christina Dahlberg

Former Senior Graphic Designer, Cielo