When it comes to social media, you end up needing a lot of visual graphics to go with your posts—which comes down to needing a lot of photos to make your social media presence dynamic. 

However, a large number of business owners still end up using images from google search, which can get your business into hot water. 

Here’s an overview of how you can save your business potentially thousands of dollars by avoiding copyright infringement. 

Why is it illegal? 

Photographers and content creators spend a large chunk of time learning their skills so that they can use a small amount of time to create something incredible. 

When you pluck an image off a google search to use, you’re not paying for the years they’ve spent learning how to craft that perfect visual content that goes so well with your social media posts. 

You wouldn’t go to the bookstore, nab a book off the shelf and claim that you wrote it. So why are we so comfortable taking images and doing the same? 

You might be thinking: ‘this doesn’t apply to me because my social media doesn’t make me money!’—in which case, let’s chat about that misconception—but you would be wrong about it not applying to using copyright images on social media. 

In Canada, the fine for each non-commercial infringement is up to $20,000 per image. 

So how do you create consistent content without breaking the bank on $10-$50 images on shutterstock? 

Royalty free image websites! 

Sidenote before we get started, while most of these sites are royalty free, there are some images that will need to be attributed to the copyright owner. These requirements are usually marked on the websites so make sure you keep your eye out for some special restrictions. 

Here are my 5 favourite sites to use: 

Pixabay

Pixabay is often the first one I turn to, not because it’s so much better than the rest but it was the first one I was introduced to and I’ve never had any issues with it. 

Pixabay offers a large collection of free stock photos, vectors and art illustrations which is what I’m looking for most of the time. I have found business images and food images very easily on Pixabay.

Pexels 

Pexels is my second go to when looking for images. It  provides high quality and completely free stock images. All the photos are nicely tagged, easy to search and user friendly which makes what you are looking for easy!

Unsplash 

Unsplash is a very common site used by content creators and bloggers. It offers a large collection of free high-resolution photos and has become one of the best sources for stock images. All photos are released for free under the Unsplash license.

Stocksnap.io 

Stocksnap.io is a new to me website and I haven’t used it often but it has beautiful new images and new ones are added on a weekly basis so if I can’t find what I’m looking for on the others I will head to stocksnap.io.

Styledstock.co

This site has a lot of reasonably priced styled feminine stock images for use in blog posts and other graphics, but they also have a section of free images you can use. 

Time is money, right? 

You might think that it’s a lot of work to source free images for your social media posts when you aren’t sure how this time is creating revenue for your business. 

In today’s world, successful brands are ‘telling a story’ online. They’re using social media to reach new demographics or further reaches of their current target audience.

Images are  the perfect way to tell your story quickly, giving your audience a sneak peek of what working with your brand is all about. 

Not sure how your social media time investment is bringing in revenue to your business? Book a free 30-minute consultation to review how you could improve your social media posts to reach your ideal audience.