Photos and creatives have always play a vital role in any social media campaign or even in offline marketing campaign. Creatives are what makes your audience stop and look at your post.
If content is the center-piece of your campaign then a good visual is that dressing item which makes your campaign attractive and attention worthy. The power of a good photo for social media marketing is greatly underestimated.
During the early days of social media marketing and even in print ads, we use to see creatives and visuals that were unique in nature also perfectly capturing the essence of the campaign. But, off-late, more and more businesses are starting to use stock photos, photos of people in suits shaking hands with each other, fake smiling for consumer satisfaction and seating fancy cafes.
Although such photos look great, they have become monotonous on social media and the fact that many brands are paying more than they should for such photos with not enough returns is not a good sign.
While some brands are sincerely and ethically buying pictures and graphics for their campaigns, others just take the very first image they find on Google. This is not only wrong and unethical but also can lend the brand in legal troubles for ‘stealing’ someone else’s image.
To make sure you don’t ever have to download images from Google or pay unnecessarily for stock photos, I have come up this list of top 10 sites where you can find stunning and beautiful stock photos and vectors for your upcoming campaigns.
1) Burst
If you are a business that caters to a very specific niche, you know how difficult it is to find photos for niche. The solution to your lack of proper niche-related photos is Burst, a platform started by Shopify to help such businesses find the right photos for their niche.
The aim of this site to is provide businesses and entrepreneurs with proper and relatable stock photos for their product launches, social media campaigns or even their website.
2) Drawkit
Often, sites that provide free photo and vector services are plagued with ads, redirecting issues and even malware in some cases, but Drawkit is not that website. Drawkit is an easy to navigate, minimal website that offers a great collection free and paid vectors.
Drawkit has a wide variety of vectors to offer that can cover almost all of your campaign needs. Each vector is properly categorized and the site offers easy search options with an alphabetical list of categories to select from. To add to this, the site offers minimum ad experience, enhancing your overall site experience.
3) Absurd
Vectors and stock photos are part of every campaign but in order to make your product launch, campaign or even website stand out, you need to look over the regular vectors. This is where Absurd comes in. Absurd offers a large collection of hand drawn human and other human like characters.
Absurd offers both, free download and paid membership. While the paid membership comes with many perks, the free downloads have more than enough options to cover your needs. However for free downloads, you need to attribute and credit the artist.
Get your absurd illustration today.
4) Reshot
Reshot is a free to use and easy to navigate stock photos library with a massive collection of stock photos exclusive to their website. The collection here is updated weekly, keeping in mind the needs of free lancers, small scale business owners and startups.
Tired of tacky stock photos? Try Reshot.
5) Creative Market
Creative Market is a market place that can find the right icons for your upcoming or ongoing project. The online market place has over 16,000 icons to choose from.
Creative Market has a set unique and interesting icons contributed by various users that are up for use. Apart from icons, the online place also offers users various other options to select from. These options include fonts, graphics, photos and even themes for websites as well.
6) Freepik
Working on the freemium model, Freepik has more than a million different images to browse through and choose from. Freepik is the first choice more many designers and creative people to find the perfect creative for their next campaign. Apart from stock images, Freepik also offers tons and tons of vectors to make your campaign look more attractive.
7) Unsplash
The ultimate destination for free stock photos, Unsplash has become the favourite stock photos site for millions of users. Unsplash offers a variety of different real photos across different themes. What sets this site apart from the rest of the sites in this list is the community and its contributors. The sheer number of contributors to the site is growing every day.
And to top it all off, all the photos are free on this site. There are no signing-up charges or hidden charges to use, browse through, and download stock images from the site.
8) FoodiesFeed
If you are a Food-based content creator or if your next campaign demands stock photos of food items, FoodiesFeed is the place you should head for. A stock photo library that offers only food-related photos is a great way to spice up your campaigns and social feed.
Browse through FoodiesFeed tasty collection.
9) Pexels
Only one of two stock photo websites on this list to offer videos along with stock photos and illustrations, Pexels has a wide selection for you to browse through. Like most of the sites on this list, Pexels also works on the freemium model. Apart from the stock videos, Pexels also edges other sites on this list with its vast library of stock photos that will match the exact description of your desires.
10) Pixabay
Sometimes, photos just aren’t enough; you need something else as well to spice up your campaigns. This is where Pixabay comes in! Home to more than 2 million stock photos and illustrations, Pixabay also offers a lot of stock videos that you can use for your campaigns. Pixabay also offers film footages for commercial use at a licensing fee, allowing you to get more creative with your campaigns.
All the sites mentioned in the blog above offer both free photos and membership perks. However, some photos may require you to give attribute and credit the owner. Crediting the owner is a nice way to thank them for their work which you will be using in your campaign.
