#BeSocial: Picture Perfect

By Planit Canada Marketing Coordinator, Katrina Legault. Please note that this photo was taken in October of 2019, before social distancing measures were set into place.

You have the perfect idea, to go with the perfect blog, with the perfect social media post – but you don’t have the perfect picture to go with it. I feel your picture pain point, only because I know this struggle all too well myself.

When it comes to marketing communications and creating quality content for your audience, visual assets are extremely important. They capture our attention, they define your brand and they’re often the reason someone will decide to click through or move along.

It’s easy to take a picture. We have the technology in our hands, pretty much all day long, and it’s easy to just snap a picture of anything, anywhere. But what makes a good picture great is the relationship and the story behind it: it’s about your awesome, super qualified team who worked on the project, the recipients who may be long time customers, or a special project with a special story. These are the things that make a picture of a finished kitchen project great!

Not knowing where to find quality content is completely normal. The thing is, it won’t exactly fall into your lap; you have to work for it! You’ve worked damn hard for every other segment of your business, so this should come as no surprise to you.

In this second installment of our #BeSocial series, I’m sharing some of our best tips to get the most out of as much visual content as you can. I’m also featuring a few awesome examples of businesses in our industry who are doing a fabulous job of capturing the experience of manufacturing picture-perfect cabinetry – so you can test it out yourself!

Take pictures. Take lots of pictures.

You just finished a custom project? Take pictures of it. Invite the designer, or the installer, or the dog to be in it, too! You just signed a contract with a new client? Ask them to be in a picture with you. You just discovered some awesome software that will take your business to the next level in a Big Green Booth at WMS?! Take pictures with us; Peter Mate is a pro at it now, we trained him well!

I always suggest taking lots of pictures to have a lot of options, and if you don’t use them, well at least you didn’t miss out on the opportunity. It’s better to have too many options than none at all.

Capturing the Experience: Bloomsbury Fine Cabinetry

Aside from sharing the most Insta-worthy and carefully curated photos of their projects, Bloomsburry Design excels at demonstrating what it’s like to have a project built with them from A to Z, including sharing behind the scenes and final project photos.

They share a variety of projects, different styles, and the reality of what it really looks like behind the scenes when you tackle a project with their team. There’s something for everyone, and it truly demonstrates a beautiful range of options to suit all tastes and styles.

Look for user generated content: Cuisines Action

When all is said and done, and your clients have a beautiful custom kitchen installed that they will enjoy for years to come, they might be more than happy to snap a picture for you and send it your way! There’s no shame in asking, and the worst they will say is no. If you go ahead and use it, make sure you have proof that you got permission (just in case) and don’t forget to give credit where credit is due.

It’s always a good idea to look at it from your customer’s perspective, and there’s nothing more rewarding than seeing a happy client publish the space that you helped them create. Cuisines Action is on the ball when it comes to engaging with their online community, and making the most of the beautiful user generated content that their work has brought to light.

Cuisines Action uses the Reshare app in order to give the owner of the photograph the proper credit. Additionally, it’s always good practice to reach out to the owner of the picture, and request permission before posting it.

This style of content is really great for showing how your projects are being put to use in a real setting. You have real customers who are happy with the work that you have done. Make the most of it!

Encourage your community to TAG you, and then return the favor.

Tagging creates a domino effect. If you tag your clients, your staff, and/or your partners, you’re doubling your chances of exposing your brand, and your work.

If a client tags you, this gives you an easy way to now share a photo of the work you’ve done, taken by a happy customer. This is pretty much social media gold, and requires very little work to re-share.

If you tag your team members and they re-share your post, there might be people within their audience who would be interested in the work that you do and give you a follow. Or it could be an opportunity to recruit some awesome employees! You really never know.

And if you tag your software partner in one of your beautiful renders, they might be inclined to share it on their end, exposing you to their own online community! Bonus points if you use the hashtag #BeAwesome, just sayin’.

When you tag the right people, it gives you an added opportunity to spark an online conversation. Put it to the test and let us know how it works out!

Make use of the content that you already have: Executive Woodworking Ltd

If you have existing 3D renders of your designs, why not share those with your audience? You probably have so much existing content on your hands already that you just haven’t considered as a marketing opportunity.

We’ve seen a lot of success in posting renders next to the finish product; it gives your client very clear expectations of what the customer relationship is like with your brand, plus it gets their hamster wheel turning, thinking about what they might want for their next project. An integrated custom wine rack to display all of their favorites? Alexa, pour the wine!

You likely have some renders from projects that you’re really proud of that you should without a doubt be showing off on social media! #TeamNoWastedContent

Executive Woodworking Ltd is a perfect example of how demonstrating your renders is really great social media practice. It gives existing and potential clients an overview of what your company is capable of, the quality of your work, and what they can expect while working with you.

You can see some of Executive Woodworking Ltd’s incredible renders on their Facebook page.

It’s so simple for you to take screenshots of your renders and share them directly to your social media platforms and tag away. Such an easy way to share quality content!

Share the pictures to the right person.

Now, you have the pictures. Don’t forget to send them to the person who can actually do something with them!

Set up a way for everyone within your organisation to be able to easily share photos with each other. Whether you set up a Dropbox, a Google Drive or simply a shared album on your iPhones, make sure you’re not taking all of these pictures to then find yourself with wasted content because someone on the other end didn’t have access to what they needed. If you have someone in charge of this on your team, great! And if you don’t, make sure that your designers, your shop floor managers and maybe even your installers know where to send the pictures to when they come through!

There’s a silver lining to this somewhat frustrating suggestion. When you make a point of sharing all of the pictures to one place or to one person, I can almost guarantee that they will save you some day when you’re scrambling to fill a blank but you just don’t have a picture for it. This picture gold mine will come in handy, trust me.

If you’ve made it all the way here, I hope that you feel more empowered to create some picture perfect content! And if you do, don’t forget to tag us. I’m always watching, and I promise to repost you!