Why you need a visual library

One of the most time-consuming parts of creating social media content is sourcing images.

Writing captions can be done quite quickly once you’ve got a great strategy and content plan in place.

But sourcing or creating awesome visuals can take up hours and hours of time as you search the depths of multiple sources to find that perfect image for your post and then tweak it to make it perfect for your feed.

Setting up a user-friendly visual library will streamline content creation, support visual design, and increase brand recognition. When you have the right image at the ready, you can put more energy into making a thoughtful, curated feed.

What is a visual library?

Basically, an image library is a place where you house and organise all of your visuals that you can use for your social content. Whereas you might have them all in multiple places (Pinterest, Instagram, on your Drive… sound familiar?!), by saving them in one central location, you can more easily manage them.

What should your visual library contain?

An image library should contain custom photography and videography that suits your needs, with stock images sprinkled in between to fill the gaps. Images will include your website images, but may also contain images that fulfil print needs, training guides, social media, or other collateral. The number of assets and the nature of the content is largely business-dependent and shouldn’t be confused with a Digital Asset Management system, or DAM. That part comes later. 

WHAT DO I NEED TO GET STARTED?

Start by working out where you are going to house your library. We recommend Dropbox or Google Drive, as they’re super user friendly and easy to share with your colleagues and clients.

We also recommend downloading DigiTile (a free extension that you can add to your Chrome) as it allows you to easily tag your Dropbox and Google Drive documents, allowing you to easily find what you’re looking for. When choosing your tags, be generous! Try to think of terms that you might need for your content down the track.

WHAT VISUAL SOURCES CAN I USE?

Begin with the free ones. No, we don’t mean Google images — those might be copyrighted, and usually don’t provide consistent styling or resolution. Our first stop is always Unsplash, a generous resource for royalty-free assets that won’t strike your audience as cliché. They’re free (for now) but encourage users to credit the photographer when possible. Other free sites we turn to include Pexels, Pixabay, burst.shopify, Nappy, Women of Color in Tech, and The Gender Spectrum Collective. 

Once you have checked out the free resources, check out some of the paid ones like Getty Images or (our favourite) Stocksy. Quality over quantity is the key here and investing in a package or membership pay off!

SEARCH TIP: Searching within the photo series is valuable because you may find multiple assets that help you maintain a consistent visual feel. Additionally, if you like a particular photo, look who it’s credited to. If I like a particular style, model, etc., I’ll often dive into the full collection of images submitted by that photographer. 

Don’t forget: Stock photography is a useful and often necessary tool: however, the goal is not to rely on it entirely. The most successful and visually impactful image libraries are those that contain custom images. Nothing communicates your culture, ideas, and brand better than images of your real space, people, and products. While the tips shared today are helpful in curating some of that stock content, the idea is to have these for filler and backup, with more emphasis on your custom assets. 

HOW TO SET UP YOUR VISUAL LIBRARY

How you set up your visual library is entirely up to you. This is how we have set up our visual library:

00_BRAND ASSETS

Logo

Fonts

Watermarks

01_CORE SERVICES

02_BRAND PILLARS

03_EVENTS

04_LOCATIONS

05_SOCIAL MEDIA

Brand Awareness

Promotions

SUMMARY

It takes time to manage a visual library and keep it organised. Keeping everything in neat order and with the correct tags will significantly reduce your content creation time. If you’re still finding content creation time consuming and you’re ready to hand it over, we’re here to help! Contact us today to book in for your free 30minute no-obligation Zoom conversation!