Source: shutterstock.com
The use of stock photos is a fantastic tool. It can make your website more appealing, your social media posts more enjoyable, and your blog articles more interesting. But how do you use stock photos effectively?
*That’s a rhetorical question, by the way!*
When it comes to photos, the camera on your phone just won’t cut it. You need professional quality photos to help you attract customers and build your brand. One of the best places to get these photos is Shutterstock.
Shutterstock, the stock photo library that offers millions of professionally shot, high-res images, vector graphics, and footage, is one of the most popular content marketing tools around. This makes it such an excellent resource for content marketers.
Shutterstock users create great images for blog posts, email marketing campaigns, social media posts, and more. This review blog will cover what Shutterstock is, how it’s used, and my thoughts on this tool.
What’s Shutterstock About?
Shutterstock is a stock photography, video, and music provider operating a stock media website that offers subscription plans to businesses and individuals to gain access to its image, video, audio, and music collections.
Shutterstock is the world’s leading stock image provider, with over 110 million photos, vectors, and video clips, plus award-winning photo and video editing tools to make your images “pop.”
As the world’s largest and most trusted stock photo agency, Shutterstock has built a community of millions. With that community comes various opportunities, including commissions, contests, targeted advertising, and more.
Shutterstock is a great resource for good photos – you can get stock pictures for free, or you can pay for a subscription. Use it to create great photos of your products or services and make sure that they are visually appealing and unique.
You can also use it to show images of your products online, at trade shows or conventions, social media likes, etc.
How Is It Used?
Source: shutterstock.com
It’s quite easy to use Shutterstock. It’s a large website with tons of content, but it’s still easy to find the content you want, sign in and out of your account, and contact the support team.
In the above screenshot, you can see the headers for images, music, footage, templates, editorial, 3D models, etc. If you want to search for footage, click on the “Footage” header, and a selection of links will drop down.
Let’s say you want to find some “Curated Collections” – click on it; then you’ll be taken to that page. You’ll see a range of curated collections of footage.
Source: shutterstock.com
If you see some content you like, you have a range of options. When you hover your cursor over the footage, two icons appear in the bottom-right of the footage.
You can click on the shopping cart icon to add the content to your shopping basket, or you can click the rectangles icon to view similar content. You can also click on the white heart in the top-right of the image to save it to your collection.
Source: shutterstock.com
Alternatively, you can search for the content you want by typing in the search bar at the top of the page. Then you’ll be taken to the search results.
When you hover your cursor over the image, three icons appear in the bottom-right of the image. The rectangles icon for similar images, the silhouette icon for the artist that the image belongs to, and the magnifying glass with the cross in the middle icon.
Source: shutterstock.com
On the left side of the screen, you can filter the results to see what you want. You can sort the images by relevance, orientations, vectors, colors, and more.
If you’re logged in, you can click on the silhouette icon in the top right corner, and a window will pop up. The next screenshot will show you what it will look like.
Source: shutterstock.com
In this window, you can see information about your collections, account, and downloads. If you want to view your account, click either the “Account details” button or click on the silhouette icon next to your account name.
To log out of your account, just click “Log out,” and you’re done!
Who Is Shutterstock Aimed At?
Although Shutterstock is for anyone who would find this tool useful, the following occupations would benefit the most from Shutterstock:
- Photographers
- News agencies
- Brands
- Freelancers
- Bloggers
- Marketing professionals
You don’t have to be in any of these professions to use Shutterstock – all you need is an interest in finding quality photos, images, and music for online use.
Pricing And Payment
Source: shutterstock.com
Shutterstock offers a 7-day free trial, but it’s only available with the 10 images monthly plan for single users.
Shutterstock has different price plans for images, footage, music, and editorial. However, I will list the price plans available for downloading images. It’s still known for photos, after all.
There are two categories for the payment plans: Single users and multiple users.
For single users, the following plans are available:
- 10 images for €29 a month (a 7-day free trial is available)
- 50 images for €99 a month
- 350 images for €129 a month
- 750 images for €159 a month
For multiple users, the following plans are available:
- Teams – 2 users (€329 for 750 images a month); 3-10 users (€409 for 750 images a month); for 11+ users, contact the support team
- Enterprise – request a demo on the site
Shutterstock has a variety of price plans that cater to everybody, from news agencies to bloggers.
These prices are a bit steep, but if you’re a single user who doesn’t need a lot of photos, the monthly plans save you money in the long run. It seems overwhelming, but help is available if you’re not sure which plan to go with.
Pros And Cons
Pros:
- High-quality photos, videos, music, etc.
- There’s a wide selection of content
- Easy to navigate the site
- A vast selection of payment plans suited for each user
- Help is readily available
Cons:
- The price plans are a bit expensive
- The number of photos per price plan may not be enough
- The quality of photos available on the free trial may not be what you’re looking for – this may push you to sign up for a price plan
Overall Verdict
Shutterstock is one of the largest stock photo agencies with millions of pictures, videos, templates, audio files, and 3D models to choose from.
Shutterstock photographs include images of people (headshots), lifestyle, fashion/apparel, scenic, and much more. It provides you with every possible visual inspiration.
The overall verdict is: Shutterstock scores 88%
With Shutterstock, there’s no need to hire a photographer and do all the editing. Stock photos are professional-looking and convenient. They also don’t take up a lot of storage space on your computer.
Shutterstock has come a long way and has solved a massive problem people encounter online. The problem was that a lot of stock photos are of sub-standard quality.
Solving this pain point was the big idea behind Shutterstock, which has grown to become a $1.5 billion company in only 13 years.
Stock photos are never going away. In fact, they only seem to be getting more popular. As a result, there are plenty of sites to browse from and plenty of images to choose from.
Check out these alternatives if Shutterstock isn’t for you:
If this review has piqued your interest, start using Shutterstock here.
