Quality Matters in Social Media Content

[/caption] And, of course, that’s true. If a bear comes out of hibernation to ride a chairlift at your ski resort, run out with whatever image capture device you have because that’s too good to miss. But what about the other 99.9% of the time when what your capturing happens every day, or isn’t itself remarkable enough to make the news? That’s when you start to see that the quality of online video and photography posted to twitter, facebook and flicker does matter. Want proof? We found some: The online dating service OkCupid manages a lot of user data including images. To test the relationship of image quality with perception of the image, they presented 552,000 user images in pairs and asked members “who would you rather go on a date with?” The full results can be seen here and show that a few simple photography techniques make for better photos. Sometimes those are just random luck, sometimes the product of skill and purpose. Here are some takeaways that are also good rules of thumb for social media content creation.

Interchangeable lens cameras make better photos

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Photo by Alpine Meadows on Flickr, taken with a Canon Digital Rebel DSLR"][/caption] This is obvious, but don’t think that you can just go out and buy a Panasonic Micro 43s Camera and call it good. SLR cameras require more thought, and more thought often results in a better photo. For travel and destination marketers, it could pay off to acquire and learn to use a decent digital SLR Camera.

Magic Hour trumps Flash

There’s no better way to present a travel or resort experience than to show photos and video of smiling happy people having fun. And there’s no better way to make photos of smiling happy people look bad than to take photos with an on-camera flash or during the middle of the day with harsh light and stark shadows. If you must use a flash, get an off camera sync and hold the flash out with one hand from the camera. Better yet, get photos just before and after sunrise or sunset, the magic hours, or under clouds. This is when light is diffuse and comes at the subject from all angles eliminating harsh shadows and making everyone look their best.

Short Focus

Short Depth of field is more important for portraiture than anything else. Generally with sweeping landscape shots you want the longest depth of field you can get. This represents another case for getting and knowing how to use a good camera. Being able to prioritize small f-stops (short depth of field) or large ones (long depth of field) can help take the kind of photos that can really make a difference when presenting your destination online.

Why Quality matters

When it comes to capturing the meaningful moments in life with friends, it’s the shared experiences that make them valuable to us on Facebook or Twitter despite the flaws inherent in camera phones and point and shoot photography. Memory fills in the gaps left by lack of skill and technological shortcomings of simple cameras. When you’re using imagery to sell a destination, or resort experience, you don’t have that connection with the audience. Brands need to present the whole picture without relying on shared memories, feelings, and personal connections. Spending the time to take better photos to use on social media marketing profiles makes a huge difference in communicating. -Mike]]>