One of the things I’ve been playing around with lately is looking at different ways to market myself using my existing imagery. At WPPI, I happened to find a great way to do this with Animoto, a company that lets you create both marketing and slideshow videos for your business. You can customize them to your liking, using your own images and text, and then share on social media and elsewhere on the web.

The videos that Animoto produces are not only easy to produce but engaging. The platform comes with a wide array of customizable templates and designs to choose from, and will ultimately help your brand stand out online.

Getting Started with Animoto

I decided that for the next month, I really wanted to push my food and drink photography. To do this, I started with the idea that I’d create a 20-second image slideshow of some of my favorite food photographs from the past year.

I selected some photographs from my Lightroom library and uploaded them via Animoto’s Lightroom plugin. This automatically created a new project in Animoto for me, which I could then edit and tweak on the Animoto website.

Alternatively, you can manually upload your photos when creating a new project.

From there, I decided to go with eight photographs and place them strategically in the project. I also added one text block over the fourth photograph,  a logo block and a text block on black.

Customization Options

Animoto comes with a ton of customization options. You can change the font and font size of your text blocks individually, and change the placement of it. You can also create voiceovers and include videos.

However, one of the best customizations I found was around the music of your slideshow. Out of the box you get access to hundreds of songs from Triple Scoop Music, and they’re all categorized based on what types of videos they’d work best in. Some are instrumental, while others have singing. The possibilities here are really endless.

What’s cool, though, is that Animoto automatically analyzes the photos you’ve chosen and selects a portion of the song that works best for them.

Using Animoto Videos in Your Marketing

Animoto’s videos are perfect for things like social media and website advertising. One of the best ways you can use Animoto is to develop videos you can share on Facebook to specific audiences, or with Facebook ads.

Following the production of your video, you’ll have the option to share your video on a plethora of different social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The key here is to share your videos with an audience that you think will bring you more business. So, if you’re setting up a Facebook ad, you’ll want to target the ad to users in your area, and probably of a certain age range (college students don’t usually run restaurants!). Check out how to further enhance your Facebook strategy.

Other Options

Animoto isn’t the only one making headway in this space. Adobe Spark and ProShow Web are two other great resources for making marketing slideshows like this.

Adobe Spark works similarly, allowing you to work with video and photos. You don’t have quite as much control as Animoto, but it’s still a great option nonetheless. ProShow Web is very similar to Animoto, allowing for effects, timing and theme customization.

Conclusion

Using Animoto is a great option for photographers and videographers who want a quick and easy way to reach people with your work. It can help bring in clients you wouldn’t otherwise reach and is an engaging option to enhance your social media footprint.

 

For more on Photography Marketing, see our weekly column.