My Number 1 Tool I use In My Business: Social Squares Stock Photography
This post may contain affiliate links that will reward me monetarily or otherwise when you use them to make qualifying purchases. No additional fee will be added to you. Your support is greatly appreciated!
Need photos for your website or social media? Want something that has a little more curation to it than just pictures of flowers? Enter Social Squares! A platform founded by Shay Cochrane that provides curated stock photo images for the female entrepreneur that you can use anywhere!
I can’t explain it any other way than it’s just the vibe or aesthetic. Are you looking for that photo that just takes your breath away as you may find on Pinterest?
Ya, these are those kinds of photos.
And you don’t have to search far and wide for them as you might on a free stock photo site.
When building a website you may not use a ton of photos, but when you do need them where do you turn to? Do you have your own brand photos taken or are you getting them from somewhere? Be cautious though because just pulling images off Pinterest can get you into some copyrighted, legal issues down the line if you aren't using the correct stock photo platform! If you are looking for some free options you can try always try Unsplash but I choose Social Squares when I’m looking for some great images.
Social Squares is a female-founded, styled stock photo membership for the female entrepreneur. Now you don't HAVE to be a female when you sign up, but that is who their membership is geared towards. Let me take you to the backend of Social Squares and let you read about some of the benefits!
Beautifully Curated Collection Of Stock Photo Images
As I keep saying these photos are just in a league of their own. All of them are gorgeous, but you also have your more genetic-type photos with something like a post-it note saying a catchy slogan, ‘you got this’. You have your options to choose between holiday photos, lifestyle, flat lay, or computer and tech screens.
As I spoke before branding is a big part of not just your website but your business. When you first sign up for their membership you can take the time to tell their algorithm what color family your brand colors are in. When they publish new photos they try to curate them to exactly what you would be looking for because it matches your brand aesthetics.
I believe that Shay takes some of these photos herself and she brings in other photographers to provide the images. I love this because everyone has a different eye for things and the way they capture images.
Social Squares is your one-stop-shop for all your image needs-Shay Cochrane, Founder, and CEO of Social Squares.
I Can Edit Them And Make Them My Own
When you download the photos you can do what you want with them. Want to publish that photo straight to Instagram, do it! *Disclaimer* I do love to give them some sort of credit when I do this so people know where I get these images from!
Because you are paying for this membership you are paying to have use of the photos and do what you would like with them (except re-sell them, I think that’s a deal-breaker).
All of the photos that I use for my website or blog posts are from their collection. The image you see connected with this post is obviously Social Squares! I love taking the photos and editing them in Canva to make them more of my own. I may put the images in front of a plain square to give it more depth or make the image blurred a bit so text can go over the top. You can put your own filters on it to make the images more cohesive to your brand.
My only suggestion for them is to create more horizontal images! Most of the images are in size dimension for Instagram and Pinterest which can be great, but sometimes I need a banner image and it can be hard to take that from a square photo. The good thing is that there are some photos that are more frames so you can flip the photo on its side and have the content live in the middle with the image boarding it. I have been noticing that they are starting to slowly play with adding more horizontal images, which is very exciting!
Ease Of The Platform
Have you ever gone to an image site, seen some really cool photos, and thought, “Did I download this already?” One of my favorite features of their platform is that you can see when you have already downloaded images! This helps you from wasting memory on your computer and having the same photo on your hard drive multiple times or the same photo on your content too many times! I’m guilty though of not being able to find the original download and redownloading it. . . lol
Another feature is you can heart your images and make a mini collection if you are just scrolling through the image gallery. Maybe you like an image and you forget what it looks like or the colors and so you have to research for it all over again, instead you can just heart it.
The platform itself is really nice and organized to where you can filter through colors and what you want your images to be. You can filter it to look for something in the pink family but only lifestyle and nature photos.
Not only is the gallery easy to use but from your dashboard, you can see all the teachings they have provided, videos to get you set up for success with Social Squares, and IG caption templates provided monthly. You also get a little note from Shay herself talking to you about the month and maybe fun new features or some encouragement for the moment.
New Photos Monthly If Not More
With the membership, you get access to all the images they have ever uploaded! That’s over 5,000 stock photos ranging from lifestyle, nature, and any kind of other photography. They are usually updating their gallery monthly if not more frequent than that, so they always are giving you new options.
The great part is, is that you will never be bored with the gallery. The bad news is there are so many photos that sometimes you get lost in the scrolling!
The multiple options of different angles is a cool feature too. They may have one subject that they are photographing but multiple angles or views. I also like their sporadic use of human models to show an actual person instead of just props all the time.
Teachings They Provide
As I stated earlier when you go into your dashboard you can see all the previous teachings they have provided. Every month Social Squares will do a live Zoom call with their teachings. At the beginning of the month they announce who is coming on and the subject matter then later that month they host their live teaching.
These teachings are on everything and anything related to business. By going to the teachings on zoom or watching the recordings, being part of this membership meant that I was learning something which to me, makes it worth my payment once a month. The guest speakers are always someone who is another person in the small business industry that you look up to or can’t wait to hear from.
As some examples of some of the past teachings and who the guests were:
3 Strategies for Earning More While Working Less- Shay Cochrane and Graham Cochrane
Goal Setting For Your Business- Nancy Ray and Shay Cochrane
How To Create A Cohesive Brand- Rachel Green and Shay Cochrane
Community
Finally, the biggest reason that I love this membership is the community. Every year I go through my subscriptions and see if they are still worth my money and this one 100% is every time. Not only am I getting great photos, and knowledge, but I’m meeting amazing female entrepreneurs! Back in December, they hosted a ‘Holiday Party’ on zoom for the members and it was so much fun to be part of something. When working for yourself you miss out on those little things that corporate workers are used to.
Another thing they have is a Facebook group where you can pop in and ask questions, pick other members' brains, or ask around for someone in another industry. There are times when people simply just ask for opinions on their work too. Again if you are working for yourself, you don’t get to have ‘work friends’ so communities like this are great because they give you the sense of having co-workers.
After being with the Social Squares family for over a year now I can say that I’m a life-er. I will always love their photography, company values, and the opportunities they have provided me with. Early this year Social Squares reached out to everyone that is a member and announced their ambassador program! I decided to sign up, so your girl is now an ambassador for Social Squares!!
I’m so excited to be sharing this membership with everyone and letting you behind the curtain for a sneak peek. I hope to see you over on the Facebook page soon!
If I haven’t convinced you yet that you NEED Social Squares in your life, then leave me a comment or message me and let’s chat more!
If you are looking for help in building out your website, let’s have a free 30-minute consultation.
