Marketing has become more visual than ever thanks to social media. Native Facebook videos have overtaken photos to become the most effective way to reach Facebook fans, with a promotion rate of 27 percent for videos compared to 17 percent for photos, according to Socialbakers research. Socialbakers also found that Instagram’s visually oriented platform has overtaken Twitter’s engagement rate, delivering 50 times the organic engagement of Twitter.

Visual marketing is the best way to reach social media audiences. Here are some tips for enhancing your photos and videos, so the visual impact of your marketing campaigns stands out from the competition.

Essential Equipment

To stay competitive in the technologically savvy environment, you need to have 4K capability for shooting photos and videos. Fortunately, cutting-edge smartphones such as the HTC One M9 can shoot 4K photo and video footage. If you’re looking for a digital camera instead of a smartphone,TechRadar provides a rundown of ten of 2016’s top digital camera models, which range from under $350 for the TomTom Bandit to $3,200 for Sony’s pro-quality A7R II. If you’re looking for dedicated camcorders, Epfilmsoffers reviews of the top professional and consumer 4K camcorders.

Along with a camera, you need a few other essential pieces of equipment. A tripod enables you to take steadier shots. Wireless remote triggers let you eliminate cables and coordinate main and fill flashes as well as do stop-motion photography. Flash meters let you establish flash exposure accurately. B&H reviews some other items you should include in your camera bag, such as filters, memory cards, battery grips and batteries.

Shooting Techniques

Still-life photography is a good way to learn some of the basics that are common to photo and video shooting. Envato recommends practicing at home with a table near a window along with a simple backdrop using a couple of lamps. Most people start with shooting fruit or flowers, but you can choose other eye-catching objects. Avoid reflective surfaces such as glass and metal at first, so you don’t have to worry about complicated lighting.

Get used to working with your tripod, and experiment with shooting from different camera angles. Vary your backdrops and surfaces to see how different colors and textures affect your shot. Practice using the rule of thirds to learn basic composition. After you have some basics down, dig deeper by learning more about camera angles, lighting setups, alternative light sources and adjusting the settings on your camera.

Still photography also gives you a good foundation for expanding into video. To get into video, learn basic filmmaking shots, such as over-the-shoulder shots, tilt shots, panning shots and zoom shots.LAvideoFilmmaker.com provides an excellent introduction to these and other filmmaking techniques. You should also learn about film lighting techniques such as side lighting, back lighting and controlling hard and soft light.

Editing Software

Last but not least, you should familiarize yourself with how to edit your footage using photo editing programs, such as Adobe Photoshop, and video editing programs, such as Adobe Premiere Pro. You might want to learn the basics using freeware before investing in more expensive programs. Try out free photo editors, such as GIMP, and free video editors, such as Windows Movie Maker.