In this series, communications and social media expert Leanne Shingles shares practical tips and advice to help you build confidence on social media, and create targeted, engaging content to reach voters.

• In this post: Tips for photos
• Next post: Tips for video

You have less than half a second to grab the attention of people scrolling social media with your content. That sounds daunting doesn’t it?

In this blog I outline tips to make give your visual content an edge, which in turn will increase the likelihood of a voter checking out your post.

If your photos are dull or it’s not clear what’s going on in the pic, or if your videos start slowly, most users will scroll on by and not engage.

What can you do to fix that?

1. Clean your lens

Before you take a photo, make sure the lens is clean. Wipe with a clean, dry soft cloth.

2. Don’t just stand there, do something

When having your photo taken don’t just stand there, do something. You could hold a sign or placard, you could pat a dog, you could put one hand on your hip or make a safe hand gesture such as a thumbs up (Don’t signal OK by touching your thumb with your forefinger as this is now identified as communication between Qanon adherents!)

3. Group photos

When a group photo is being taken, make sure people aren’t standing shoulder to shoulder in a straight line – this is the most boring group photo pose ever executed and it looks a bit weird.

Encourage the group to bunch up (preferably around you as the focus of the pic) so it looks more natural. This will make the photo more engaging.

4. Critically assess and edit your photos

When you take a photo yourself, or someone sends you a photo from an event, save it to your mobile phone and critically assess it.

Is it too dark, too light or too fuzzy? What’s happening in the background of the photo? Is it clear, without any context, what this photo is about?

Once you’ve made that assessment, use the tools within the photo app on your phone to tidy it up. On iPhones the photo app has a magic wand icon that will auto adjust your photo for the best lighting and focus. Once you’ve done that you can crop the photo to focus on the main feature.

If there are people in the photo, crop in tightly so the photo is about people’s lovely smiling faces. No one needs to see your legs – focus on faces.

Crop out distracting backgrounds as well. No one needs to see the carpet or the ceiling or the fire extinguisher!

If you want to get even fancier, with design apps like Canva and Photoshop you can easily remove the entire background of an image. Late model mobile phone cameras also have settings that blur the background in your photo, such as Portrait mode on iPhone.