<h1>Seeing the bigger picture: the importance of photography for publicity and brand ID</h1>
As the old adage goes, a picture says a thousand words and as press releases are usually around 500 words, that means pictures do a lot of the talking.

Recently, one of our clients had their press release rejected by a publication simply because they were unable to provide a high resolution image to accompany the story.

We live in a visual age (just look at the phenomenal $25billion success of the <a href="https://www.snapchat.com/">Snapchat</a> app), and the importance of attaching visual content to written copy cannot be understated.

A good press release can get you a sizeable amount of column inches; a good photograph can get you a full page.

A recent study found that only 5% of readers will read a newspaper front-to-back. A picture can grab the reader’s attention, draw them in to an article, and provide a visual reference that helps them remember the content for longer.

As journalism increasingly becomes an online industry, pictures will continue to grow in prominence. While we still see press releases printed in magazines and newspapers without accompanying photographs, it is almost unheard of online.

According to research compiled by <a href="http://www.mdgadvertising.com/">MDG Advertising </a>:
<ul>
 	<li>Articles with relevant images average 94% more total views than articles without images.</li>
 	<li>A press release with photos gets nearly 15% more online views than a text-only press release.</li>
 	<li>60% of consumers who use online search say they prefer to contact a business whose listing includes an image.</li>
 	<li>Nearly 70% of e-commerce website shoppers say the product image is very important when making their purchase decision. (See infographic below)</li>
</ul>
Want to make sure your press release is noticed? Follow these top tips:
<ul>
 	<li><strong>Size - </strong>Make sure photographs are more than 1 or 2 MB and at least 2000 pixels wide. That's why our <a href="https://www.leagraham.com/essroom/">Press Room</a> offers the option to download all our images in a variety of hi-res formats.</li>
 	<li><strong>Content – </strong>Make sure the content of your photograph relates to your press release and shows the subject in a positive light - and don't forget to caption!</li>
 	<li><strong>Quality –</strong> Make sure everything is clearly visible in the photo and within the frame; blurred, noisy or dark photography will likely be filed in a newspaper’s deleted box. No red eyes, closed eyes or distracting backgrounds</li>
 	<li><strong>Invest in good images –</strong> If staged, framed and lit well, photographs taken on a mobile phone can be fine for uploading online, but they are rarely good enough for quality printed publications. A one-off investment in professional photography – including key personnel – will repay a thousand-fold.</li>
</ul>
<a title="It’s All About the Images [infographic by MDG Advertising]" href="http://www.mdgadvertising.com/blog/its-all-about-the-images-infographic/" target="_blank"><img title="It’s All About the Images [infographic by MDG Advertising]" src="http://www.mdgadvertising.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/its-all-about-images-infographic_1000.png" alt="It’s All About the Images [infographic by MDG Advertising]" border="0" />
Infographic</a> by <a href="http://www.mdgadvertising.com/" target="_blank">MDG Advertising</a>