It can be hard to get high quality photos of everything that you do, and if you’re like most people you don’t have a professional grade camera on every job site to take crystal clear photos of your results. I always have my cell phone on me though, and I am always snapping pictures of things I’m working on, its quick and easy to get into the habit of doing, and generating new content at least every couple of weeks shows that you are actively trying to better your brand to potential customers. Sometimes my phone is the only thing around to capture the things I’m doing. An issue that me and I’m sure others run into with these photos is they start to get pixelated when blown up for use on websites or Facebook pages. When it’s a photo I really want to share with people I wanna make sure it looks as good as possible.  

Sticker Mule’s Upscale service is the simple and easy to use application for this and it is free to use. I can send them the picture that I am planning on using and they can actually enhance it and make it bigger and show more detail. Normally when you are stretching an image on your website larger you are stretching the size of every individual pixel in that photo meaning they become easier to see and give you that pixelated look, but with Upscale they actually can take a photo and add 4x as many pixels making all your images look like they are professional quality. This is perfect for when you’re trying get a photo the right size for your Facebook banner or your website header, or even for pictures included in a blog. But this isn’t just for business use you can also use it for old personal photos too or whatever photos you’re looking to enlarge. 

Running a business there’s so many times when you need the background of a photo removed as well so you can just have the subject with a transparent background to place on things like signs, business cards, and even stickers or apparel. Now removing the background of an image is something that you can learn to do in photoshop with a good several hours of learning which is what I did years ago, but now you can simply have StickerMule do it for you for free with their Trace feature. It’s really never been easier to create and maintain a strong and professional looking online presence. 

While having a digital presence is important in marketing yourself online, there’s still a lot you can do to market yourself “the old fashion way” and I think it’s just as important. I talked a bit earlier about how your business is not just your work but a brand that you should market, how to make this separation is by marketing yourself like a brand would. One of the simplest and easiest ways to start doing this is to have stickers made for your business. You can give them to all of your customers upon completion of a job, or to your employees and it's all advertising to you. It’s kind of like leaving a business card but with the potential to be seen by more than just the person you are giving it too. Having stickers made in bulk is really not that expensive if you shop around online and most places will lower the cost as you order more stickers. You can even take it one step further and have shirts made for you and your crew so they are always advertising your brand when they are on the job site and sometimes even when they are not. Just make sure that you brief them that when they are wearing that shirt everything they do and say will reflect on the company, even when off the clock, so to stay profession while the shirt is on. 

Of course this is easier said than done, and not all painters are skilled in graphic design enough to make their own logos and freelancing out to people can give you mixed results. If contracted out, sometimes a logo will come to you in only one size. And this could have been because you requested just a tiny logo for your website that was designed specifically for that purpose. Down the road however now you may decide you like it so much that you want to make them into a t-shirt or sticker but when you go to blow it up to the size you need it now it’ll be pixelated beyond belief since no matter how big you make it the pixel count stays the same just like photos. With Sticker Mule’s Redraw service they can turn any image into a vector image, which essentially means a completely new copy of the image that you can make any size and pixel count without sacrificing the quality of it at all. This means you can use the logo, graphic, or whatever it is you need redrawn for an infinite amount of uses in all different sizes and mediums.

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Making your business into a professional brand has really never been easier with all of the services out there to help you do what you used to have to hire others to do or learn yourself. If you are reading this post and have a business that doesn’t have a website or a Facebook page I insist that you go do that immediately. Facebook offers a free and simple way to market yourself that can be done in a matter of hours. Just make sure that all of your logos and photos are high quality and properly sized because even though you aren’t in the business of website making or online marketing everything with your businesses name on it reflects on your level professionalism and commitment.