Just a quick one today (still working on the email alert move, but seems to still be working for now), but an intriguing one.

Here’s the thing. There are these free stock photos sites – Unsplash being the main example I’m thinking of – where marketers, bloggers, etc. can download free-to-use photos to use however you wish. It may not be the New York Times, but each use gets a decent amount of visibility.

So, over the years, what brands have started to do is:

• Create an Unsplash account
• Upload subtly-branded images
• Tag/optimize their images to show up in search

And then sit back and watch as their brand starts to show up in small but meaningful corners across the web.

Some Examples
Does that make sense? No? Well, let me give you some examples.

If you search for “point of sale” these would be some of your top results:

Look closely and you’ll see that almost all of those photos subtly feature the Square logo.

Or if we search for “electric bike”, all of the top results feature Harley Davidson’s latest model:

Unsplash users get a beautiful photo to use in their story or video and the brand gets some light, but nonetheless useful, visibility.

But if we search for “ski resort”:

One identifiable photo (but not very high quality) and the others with okay quality but a generic frame.

Quality + Subtle Branding
If your resort takes photography seriously, I’d suggest you give this one a little thought.

• Search for a few resort-related keywords
• Decide if you have better photos than the results
• Weigh whether you’d okay with making these free for anyone to use

Maybe there’s nothing there, but, then again, maybe there is. Resorts have amazing visuals and if there’s one thing Unsplash is lacking at times it’s quality for their millions of users who are looking for a nice visual to put in front of their followers, readers, or fans.

Again, hold onto your best photos, don’t give up rights to the stuff to anything you shouldn’t. But you already have a library you share with the media, the stuff that goes on Trip Advisor, the stuff that include your logo and signage that is just a duplicate of 1,000 other photos in your library. There might be more value to snag from these images. Images that, when folks are looking for something to illustrate “ski resort”, would be used to show your ski resort.

Food for thought.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.