Social media product photos that boost sales & exposure

In the early days of Instagram, the app was a simple playground for artistic photography – a scenic landscape here, an arty travel shot there (and maybe a Rise filter to pull the whole thing together) – ah, how things have changed in the 13 years since its launch!

Nowadays, Instagram is awash with brands using the platform to boost their reach and sell products – and with good reason. With 59.4% of the world’s population on social media, using Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to spread your brand is definitely a great way to get your products seen.

When it comes to taking the perfect product picture for your business socials, studies have shown that the way you choose to capture your stock matters – a lot. Getting the right shot influences everything from customer engagement to intent to buy.

So, let’s make sure you’re doing everything you can to maximise product exposure, get your brand in focus, and take advantage of the golden hour of social media!

Which product photos best influence sales?

The composition of product photos can affect the subconscious emotional response of the audience. Your business pics have the power to tap into psychological human responses – and you can use this to work in your favour.

Do you want to increase your audience’s desire to buy your product? Take a photo of it being held in someone’s hands. This has been shown to increase intent to buy by up to a whopping 78%.

Or perhaps you want to ramp up engagement? Well, it turns out that selfies with a product receive up to 49% more likes than product pics alone – a great way to boost audience interaction with your brand.

Why do different product photos influence sales?

It all comes down to the emotional response that different photos trigger – without us even realising. In particular, the angle of a photo plays a key role in how an audience will subconsciously respond to it.

So, what is it about an image of hands holding a product that makes customers so much keener to buy it? Well, hands holding a product helps the viewer imagine owning it, triggering an intent to buy. So, photos of hands holding products is definitely a good tactic to use.

Then, when it comes to selfies of someone wearing or holding your product, engagement increases. How come? It turns out that seeing faces creates a human response which makes us feel more social (and more likely to engage). Selfies are a great way to boost interaction with your brand; however, they don’t increase intent to buy.

Therefore, a mix of both photo types can be used in a social media strategy to help drive both engagement and intent to buy. Pretty neat, right?

Oh, and in case you were wondering - photos that simply show a product on its own don’t invoke either of these emotional responses. An immediate left swipe, if you will.

Boost your product sales and exposure

The best way to take advantage of our subconscious emotional responses is to come up with a social media strategy that will allow your business to use both photo compositions mentioned in this article.

The more sources these photos come from, the better. You can use models and professional shoots, but it also helps to encourage customers to send selfies with your product that you can use on social media. You may have to incentivise customers for this – consider offering discounts or giveaways.