Social Media Photo Guidelines Utah Public Radio
CONTENTS
Intoduction 2 Professionalism 3 The Human Element 6 Engagement 8 Takeaways 11
Written for Utah Public Radio staff & interns. Authored by Jessica Nani
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To communicate effectively with followers, our images must have something worth communicating about.
INTRODUCTION
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ocial Media is the closest thing to free marketing a non-profit like UPR can get. It provides a foundation for quick communication with listeners that range in demographic and location. As a radio station, our platform is primarily audio-based. However, modern audiences are visual creatures. If one of our goals as a station is to bring content to a younger audience that will sustain us for decades to come, we have to cater to the whims of said audience. How do we do that? Create compelling visuals through social media that drive viewers to click on web stories and ultimately up our listenership. Utah Public Radio has 3 guiding principles for all visual posts: • Professionalism • Humanity • Engagement Using these three focus points, reporters can guide their photography as well as their social media interactions.
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Your credibility is only as good as the quality of your product.
PROFESSIONALISM
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ike any reporting, our social media and photography must be credible. Any post we make should be factual, well-written, and of the utmost quality. Quality in particular is important for any photos featured in these posts or anywhere the public will see it. If you as a reporter take poor pictures to accompany your stories, your story will lose credibility solely because it has a crappy picture at the top of it. The foundation of any good picture is direction. Knowing what you want your picture to convey before you even pull out the camera is akin to knowing what questions you want to ask long before you walk into an interview. Lucky for us reporters, we already have an outline for what our story will be, and thus, by default, we know what our accompanying pictures need to say. A good question to ask yourself is, “what is the primary focus of my story, and what sort of picture will reflect that focus?� Successful composition relies on one primary goal: finding a way to direct your viewers to the subject of the photo while capturing a story or emotion.
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There are a few technical ways of doing this:
Lighting: Technology has brought us some crazy photo-editing technology. That The Rule of Thirds: being said, if you take a badly lit phoThe rule of thirds is a “rule of thumb� to no amount of editing can save it. or guideline which applies to the It is essential that your original, raw process of composing visual images picture is well lit. such as designs, films, paintings, and photographs. The guideline proposes The Light Source: If the light source that an image should be imagined as is behind you, the photographer, your divided into nine equal parts by two subject will be well-lit, without funky equally spaced horizontal lines and shadows or washout (see fig. 2). two equally spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections (see fig. 1). Proponents of the technique claim that aligning a subject with these points creates more tension, energy and interest in the composition than simply centering the subject.
(Figure 2)
(Figure 1)
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(Figure 3)
In figure 3 you can clearly see, well, not much. Having the light source behind the subject takes away any detail that was there and casts everything in shadow. For social media especially, it is important that you see the subject you’re trying to tell the story about. Cloudy days also provide excellent soft lighting. If you are on site during a cloudy day, consider taking your pictures outside for optimum lighting.
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The faces behind the stories, the reporters, and everyone in between.
THE HUMAN ELEMENT
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tah Public Radio has a unique position when it comes to how we present our news. Because we aren’t in a position to lean heavily on breaking news stories, we have ample opportunity to focus more on feature-styled content. Features are typically human-interest based. Human subjects can be difficult to photograph, but oh so worth it. With careful planning, even candid shots can and will come easily to the novice photographer. Like your story outlines, keeping the “w’s” in mind will help you capture who the individual you are interviewing is. Here’s an example:
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(Figure 4)
Dorothea Lange’s famous Depression Era photo “Migrant Mother” has been the face of reports about The Great Depression for decades. Lange was a professional photographer, but even still, she saw a story and decided to capture it.
face to the people who’s stories we are in charge of telling.
If we take the “w’s” of this picture, they look like this:
Niv Rozenberg, a photographer and influencer said, “My first photography teacher used to say that the eye is just another muscle in your body that needs training. Unfortunately, most people don’t use their eyes first, but rather hold up their phones and immediately snap. Instead of taking over 100 shots to settle on the best one, take a moment to look. Use your eyes to frame the picture. Taking a few minutes to really observe what’s in front of you may open new ways of looking at it, and the perfect composition will likely present itself on the first or second try.”
Another element to this preplanning and observation of the humanity you’re reporting on is actually looking at your subject.
Who: Florence Owens, age 32, and 2 children. Where: Nipomo, California at a failed pea picking camp. What: Migrating mother of 7 kids Why: The Great Depression When: March 1936 These simple facts can’t necessarily be fully conveyed through the image; however, when the image is placed next to news recounting these facts it gives the story even more emotional depth. We can see the struggle and exhaustion on her face, taking us beyond the wall of imagination into reality. “Migrant Mother” is, to this day, the face of the U.S. Great Depression. This is why pictures accompanying reporting are essential. They give a 7
The end goal is more listenership, better community outreach, and ultimately a more successful UPR.
ENGAGMENT
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e are nothing without the people that listen to us. Their response to our stories and posts are what fuel the station. While you post stories and pictures on your social media as well as UPR’s, keep in mind what your audience is looking for. UPR’s demographic is generally well-educated, older people as well as college-aged students. The general theme of both groups? Education. It is very difficult to appeal fully to both demographics, but by finding the commonalities, bridging the gap gets a bit easier. Some quick tips: Facebook: Our older listeners make up our Facebook followers. They want more serious, news based content, as well as information about events and, consequently, pictures of themselves at our events the following day. Facebook is a place for more professional, informational posts and pictures. Seldom will you just be posting pictures on Facebook, but you still want your graphics to be compelling 8
enough to garner link clicks. Think “what will make my audience pause in their mindless scrolling?”
your images. People are snobby on Instagram. It’s our platform where both demographics collide, and we have to cater to both. In both your personal Instagram and for posts for UPR, you want to make sure you’re reflecting our brand and set color schemes.
Twitter: While a lot of people use Twitter to get fast news, it is by far the least image-centered social media platform we use as a station. Images are just a nice addition to your tweet. Most people respond to graphic images, or very simple, striking pictures.
Figure 5 shows a prime example of this color scheming for a cohesive brand. The pictures are all varied both in location, complexity, and subject. However, they all have a white, blue, and cream tone in every single image. There is an occasional pop of color, but for the most part it stays true to the set color palate.
Your image should act as a sort of caption to the text of your tweet. It sounds backwards, but it works. The primary demographic on Twitter are our younger users and the smattering of young-middle aged listeners we have. Our young users typically use Twitter as their only news source. We want to make sure our content is appealing enough to them to click on. Humor is always a decent go to for this.
What this does is create more artistic professionalism. The brand is not only recognizable by a logo, but by how it’s photos consistently present themselves.
The example we have here is from a Instagram: clothing store. They have professional Instagram is the most casual of the photographers, branding people, and social media platforms. However, it models. It’s a lot easier for them to is entirely image based. This is where create this cohesive world than it is human interest pictures are king, as for us, simply based on our lack of a well as having a cohesive brand for all consistent product. 9
(Figure 5)
Do your best to capture images with earthy tones and simple backdrops. We do a lot of nature, outdoor based stories and our social media brand should reflect that, especially on Instagram. More explicitly, these color tones:
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Yes, take pretty pictures of people, but also do a few other things.
TAKEAWAYS
O
ur station’s mission statement is as follows,
“The
mission of Utah Public Radio is to enrich the lives of listeners throughout the State of Utah with quality programming designed to inspire the mind, engage the imagination and perpetuate the habit of lifelong learning.”
This is what should guide all of your social media posts, photo-based or not. If you are ever struggling for guidance or direction with your posts, always refer back to this. And then back to our three principles: • Be Professional • Be Human • Be Engaging The rest is up to you.
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