Tips for Energizing Your Holiday Creative
The holidays are right around the corner and in today’s mobilized economy businesses have to be quick, nimble, and creative to grow. One way is to spice up ad campaigns. Our mobile phones have a high-quality camera plus a selection of free and easy-to-use apps that can help transform your images and videos in a matter of minutes.
Here are four simple tips to build thumb-stopping creative for this holiday season.
1. ‘Tis the Season for Simplicity
The holidays are busy for businesses and for your customers. It’s important to keep this in mind when developing your holiday creative. So keep your ads simple and straightforward – both in the visual and the copy. Instead of trying to tell a long story, focus on one message and bring it to life through a photo, series of photos, or video on a Facebook/Instagram Carousel ad. To test it, show the ad to a friend and get their feedback. The goal is for them to immediately grasp your key takeaway. If you’re running video, make sure that your core message is also understandable with the sound off. Tell the story through visuals alone or by adding text overlays.
2. Create Connections with Video
Stand out from the crowd and add some sparkle to your ads with video. There are a lot of mobile apps out there that are easy to use and can help you with editing or adding cool effects. Try VidLab, which helps easily create stop motion video by stitching together images taken with your camera. Another great mobile app is Boomerang, which allows you to create short, visual looping gifs. And, with Facebook Slideshow, turn photos into a video. Simply select a handful of images, upload them to Facebook as a slideshow, add text, change the speed of transition, and you have yourself a short, fun video showing off your business.
3. Get Crafty with Festive Backgrounds
Find some festive fabrics, papers, or materials that you have around your office or home to use as backgrounds for your photo shoots. These simple and affordable design elements can give an otherwise ordinary post a holiday-themed focus.
4. Up Your Photo Game
Nothing ruins a video or photograph like a shaky camera. An inexpensive tripod, like the one pictured below, is a quick way to take better photos and video of your products, business, or employees. It will help keep your camera steady when filming photos or videos with motion, as well as present new shooting options and techniques like Stop Motion or shooting with low light. Attach your tripod to a lamp, table or anywhere that will allow you to take great shots from various perspectives. Also, think about investing in a simple spotlight for your phone or some cheap clamp lights. These will not only make shooting indoors on a dark winter evening easier, but they’ll also bring your photos and videos to a new level all year round.
Holiday campaigns should be fun, so get creative. Try new concepts, test different apps, and combine multiple apps to create interesting effects. See what other brands are doing and build off that inspiration. If you take a few photos or videos that you like, test them all – you never know what’s going to work the best. Adding a little creative to your ad campaigns can bring your business some extra cheer this holiday season.
Keara Tanella is the SMB Lead at the Facebook Creative Shop.
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