QR codes are increasingly utilised by marketers. Adding QR tools to physical marketing tools such as flyers, posters, and even business cards is a great way to encourage engagement with prospective customers and leads. It is also a valuable way of providing them with access to valuable additional information. 

But marketers are also utilising QR codes in the event space. QR technology has developed incredibly quickly, and as it continues to evolve, it can be hard to know how best to use it in the events arena. So, what are the newest QR trends in the event space? And how successful are these trends? Here’s everything you need to know: 

Interactive Experiences 

QR codes can be used to provide event attendees with access to interactive experiences, such as the virtual gamification of an exhibit or display. QR codes encourage event attendees to interact with hands-on content in a way that they may not have felt comfortable doing so in the past. Attendees only need to use the camera on their smartphones to engage with new content quickly and easily. Marketers should be using this content to excite their customers about their brands, creating positive, feel-good experiences. They will then associate those positive feelings with the brand that brought them the experience. Virtual reality and immersive gamification are hot trends in the events space, and QR codes can be used to tap into this. 

Engaging with Video Content

One of the most common ways that QR codes are being used in the event arena is to encourage attendees to engage with video content. QR codes can be included in displays that link to an expanding video: This video should enhance the physical display and further promote your product, whilst having an entertainment value. 

But as well as utilising QR code technology to share more information about your brand with your customers, you can also use QR codes in a reciprocal way, generating content, and engaging with your customer base directly. EventsAlbum is an online album which enables your guests to use a QR code to easily share all their photos from your event. This is a great way to make your event attendees feel valued and engaged with your business. What’s more, viewing their photos and images will give you a unique perspective on your event. You can then use this content for social media and other marketing tools, utilising user-generated content captured via QR code to advertise your brand to a wider audience. 

At a basic level, QR codes are fantastic design additions to physical marketing tools. If you consider taking their use a step further, QR codes could enable you to organise a completely paper-free event. Event registration, check-in, information and unique brand experiences can all be orchestrated via QR code. The global QR code market is forecast to grow to $1268.1 million by 2026: a significant increase from its value of $916.7 million in 2020. Far from being a gimmick, QR codes are here to stay, and they have the potential to completely revolutionise the modern events space. 

A picture is worth a thousand words, with photos immediately sharing the tone, style and success of an event, in a way that no other medium could. Whether you’re planning a personal event such as a wedding or christening, or a business event such as a conference or performance, ensuring that it is fully photographed will be essential to forming positive long-term memories in your attendees. Photography documents your event journey, affords immortality and captures details that you might otherwise not even notice. Here are just some of the reasons why event photography is so important: 

Photography Makes Memories 

There’s a reason that a woman will never be photographed more than she is on her wedding day: this is because taking photos is one of the very best ways to memorialise special and unforgettable moments. Photography acts as a portal to the past, ensuring that treasured details that might otherwise be forgotten will live on forever. Photos can be shared, saved, and kept. If you are making memories at an event, and want to ensure that your guests won’t forget it, then the best way to do this is with photography. 

Photography is a Great Marketing Tool 

Photography increases engagement and instantly tells your target audience what your event, or your business, is about. You’re more likely to order a pizza from a company that includes a photo of a pizza on their flyer.  You're also more likely to attend an event where you have seen photos of other event attendees having a great time. From a pure marketing perspective, ensuring that you have photographs of every aspect of your event will be integral to selling the event. 

Photography Encourages Event Attendance 

If you are hosting an event that runs on a regular basis, then photography will be integral to growing and encouraging event attendance. Humans are naturally visual creatures and will seek out imagery, particularly when assessing the value of an event. The more photographs you have of your event, the more likely it is that people will attend. This is supported by statistics: images promoted on Facebook get 352% more engagement than links promoted without images. And web content containing images attracts 94% more views than account content without associated imagery. This clearly demonstrates that the more images you can gather from your events, the better. 

To gather as many photos as possible from an event without the expense of using professional photographers on a regular basis, why not consider using EventsAlbum? EventsAlbum is an online album where your guests can easily share all their photos from your event. You simply set up the event, create a QR code which you share with your event attendees, and then they scan this to share their photos with you, enabling you to see your event not only from a brand-new perspective but from a wide range of different perspectives. EventsAlbum is a great way to add value to your event for attendees and to gather as many photos as possible from the event at the same time.

Photo sharing apps and platforms can be a great way to promote your business, showcase your professional photography, and curate a shareable portfolio. Whether you’re hoping to find the right place to showcase your photographs or are looking for a platform to share your images with existing clients, here is a breakdown of the best apps for sharing photos as a professional photographer: 

• Flickr

Flickr is one of the world’s most popular photo sharing apps with 112 million registered users. It is also the photo sharing app favoured by professional and amateur photographers alike. One of the main benefits of using Flickr is that it is extremely user-friendly. Whether you’re looking to post and share your photos or sell and store them, you will find it very straightforward to do this on Flickr. Although Flickr is a free app, when you spend $60 per year on Flickr Pro, there is no limit to the number of images you can save and store in your account. 

1. Imgur

Imgur is a content hosting app, but unlike Flickr, it doesn’t focus just on photography. Users can share GIFs, memes and videos as well as traditional photographic images. One of the most appealing aspects of using Imgur is its popularity. In 2019, Imgur was receiving approximately 274 million visits per month, making it one of America’s most popular websites. Imgur tends to appeal to a much younger audience than other photo sharing apps. 

• Unsplash 

Unsplash is an app focused solely on beautiful photography, and as well as allowing photographers to share their images it provides free-to-use, high-definition photos for editorial use, commercial use and personal use. Whilst the idea of giving away your images may not be appealing to some professional photographers, if you’re new to the sector then using Unsplash is a great way to promote yourself and grow your reputation in the industry.

• Behance 

Behance is owned by Adobe, and the primary aim of this app is to create a platform where both professionals and amateurs can share and discover creative work. Whilst this creative work can take many forms, photography is one of the most popular on the platform. Behance is considered a superior portfolio website for both photographers and artists. 

• YouPic

Finally, YouPic is a photography portal that works in a very similar way to Flickr, but without any of the restrictions. With YouPic you can personalise your cover picture and profile picture, allowing you to give your account an identity that aligns with your professional brand. Whilst this is a relatively new app, it is one that is growing rapidly in popularity. 

Conclusion 

Making use of photo sharing apps is a great way to promote your business and reach a wider audience for your photography skills and services. The more tools you have in your armoury to promote your professional photography, the more successful your business is likely to be. As well as displaying your photographs via photo sharing apps, offering other services, such as the QR code image sharing offered by EventsAlbum, will only enhance the value of your brand and the number of services that you can offer to your client base. 

When you’re promoting your brand at an exhibition, trade show, or any other event, it is important not only that you attract visitors, but also that you engage with them once they’re at your stand. If you don’t have the tools to engage your visitors, then they won’t spend very long at your stand or spend long thinking about your brand. This would be a wasted opportunity. But how can you engage visitors at your event stand? Here are our three top tips: 

Provide an Interactive Element 

Visitors cannot engage with your event stand unless you provide them with something to engage with. For this reason, every good event stand should have some kind of interactive element. For some brands, the right interactive element will be easy to identify: a ball throwing competition if you’re promoting a ball game, for example, or a digital quiz to promote your online brand. For some products, you may have to think a little more outside the box to identify the right interactive element for you. Popular options include digital games, augmented reality, digital quizzes, surveys and social media interaction. There is a whole industry dedicated to providing interactive technology for exhibits and events and, if your budget allows, these can be a great way to boost your visitor engagement. 

Gather Imagery 

They say a picture speaks a thousand words, which is certainly true when promoting your event stand, particularly on social media. Encouraging your visitors to take photos of your stand and your products is a great engagement technique. But you could elevate this engagement by using EventsAlbum to gather those photos taken by your guests and then use their images for your own promotion. EventsAlbum is an online album where your guests can easily share all their photos from your event by scanning a prominently displayed QR code. Not only is this a great and affordable form of visitor engagement, but it also helps you to generate an abundance of images of your event stand from a wide range of different perspectives. To further enhance this engagement on a tight budget, and encourage your visitors to use your EventsAlbum QR code, why not have a competition for the best photo taken at the event, with the winner receiving a small prize? 

Demonstrations and Giveaways 

Finally, everyone loves a freebie, and event visitors will historically make a beeline for stands where exhibitors are giving away products. These can be as small as sweets and stationery or as large as USB sticks and water bottles, depending on your brand and your budget. Once you have a captive audience attracted by your freebies, why not use this as an opportunity to demonstrate your product? Product demonstrations are also popular and will help you gain the interest of passersby, engage with visitors, and increase footfall to your stand. These two techniques often work well in conjunction with each other, though if your budget is small you could opt to use either demonstrations or giveaways, rather than a combination of both. 

Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behaviour for a given situation. It is also a phenomenon seen, and term used, when individuals on social media engage with or buy from businesses because they see evidence (in the form of photographs, posts and videos) that someone else is engaging with that business. For this reason, social media engagement is an increasingly valuable and powerful tool for businesses.

Here’s how you can use photographs to take social proof to the next level for your business: 

The Benefits of Customers Sharing and Tagging Images 

Social media is an easy and affordable way to help your business be seen by a wider audience, which is why it is such a popular tool with businesses of all sizes. 

Some of the benefits of your customers tagging you in their images and posts include: 

• It guarantees that you will see the imagery. Businesses are alerted when someone tags them on social media, and this is a great way to ensure that you are aware of conversations taking place about your brand, as well as enabling you to be a part of them. 
• Tags increase customer engagement. If you establish your own tag such as #eventsalbum, and other people are following that tag then not only will they see your business content, but they will also see how other customers are engaging with you. Thanks to the concept of social proof, this is likely to grow their own engagement and encourage them to utilise your services themselves. 
• When you are tagged in a photo or video, you can retag this to your own account, effectively giving you free and engaging social media content. You can also use those images within your own social media and marketing campaigns, creating a wealth of valuable, user-generated content that is more likely to be trusted by your customers than the content you have created independently. Research has found that the majority of social media users looking for product information prefer posts from other consumers (51%) than from review sites, newspapers and magazines, or the brand itself. 

Using EventsAlbum 

However, whilst there are many benefits of being tagged in customer images, this also comes with limitations. The small size and low resolution of images saved to social media means that it would be difficult for you to use these images in your own social media or marketing campaigns. And approaching your customers for a higher-resolution version of the image can be both time-consuming and awkward. 

The solution to this problem is to use a service such as EventsAlbum. If you are able to send out a QR code to your clients so they can submit their images, rather than ask them to email them to you directly, then this will serve two purposes: making it less of an awkward exchange with customers you don’t know as well as giving you access to the original higher resolution photos at full size. This means that you are able to use those images on your site or social media. This could be mutually beneficial for B2B companies as it means both can take advantage of promotion and social proof where an image is used. However, all businesses could benefit from this system, streamlining the process of gaining high-resolution images from their customers, and making their customer engagement more professional and easier to access. 

The average smartphone user holds around 2,100 photos on their phone. As well as photos of everyday items such as dinner, or a cat spotted on the way to work, it means that every smartphone also holds images of unique and special moments. After all, we take our phones everywhere: to weddings, christenings, engagements and birthday parties, and the best way to share those moments with friends and family is by using a shared photo album. 

The technology behind shared photo albums is amazing in its simplicity, and because it is so easy and straightforward to set up a QR code-generated shared photo album, the entry-level cost of using this technology is affordable for everyone. This means that no matter how big or small your event, or how old or young the guests at your event are, everyone with a mobile phone can access your shared photo album and share their unique images with you. 

The Benefits of Shared Photo Albums 

As well as being affordable and easy to access, one of the most significant benefits of utilising shared photo albums for your event is that you will gain a unique perspective of the event that you simply wouldn’t get if just one or two people were responsible for all of the images. You are able to see your event from the point of view of every single one of your guests. No single photographer can ever capture the same unique range of images as you could if you use all of your guests as a photographer: by capturing and gathering their images, you will have the most unique and varied perspective of your event possible. 

What’s more, shared photo albums allow these special images to be shared widely. Unlike sending photos to one or two guests via SMS or another messenger service, when images are shared via a shared photo album, each moment of your event can be both gathered by and shared with every event attendee that has access to the shared photo album. This makes sharing images easier than ever before.

Examples of Unique Memories Shared Photo Albums Can Capture

• Whilst everyone else is focusing on the bride, someone may capture a photo of the groom as he sees her for the first time. It’s a moment that every bride would love to treasure forever. 
• The proud tears of the mother-of-the-bride as she watches her husband dancing with her daughter. Whilst everyone is looking at the dance floor, this is a rare but precious moment to capture. 
• The unique moment a baby cries (or laughs) as water is poured on their head as they are baptised is a widely photographed one, but few people think to take a photograph of the proud parents looking on. 
• Grandad teaching granny how to jive on the dance floor at your anniversary party. 
• Small children helping themselves to the buffet when no one is looking!

Every laugh, smile, hug, or tender moment between friends and family members young and old can be captured and uniquely preserved for you to treasure forever when you encourage all of your guests to use a shared photo album at your next special event.

Launching a new brand or product is an incredibly exciting time, but for your product to get the reception and recognition it deserves, you must ensure your launch day is a success. One of the most significant ways to do this is to think about the imagery that you will both share and gather on your launch day, ensuring that this perfectly reflects the vision you wish to create for your brand. 

We know that visuals impact buyers' behaviour. But the power of social media has demonstrated that customers place more value on seeing real users interacting with a brand, rather than on formal e-commerce imagery.  User-generated content is considered 35% more memorable than content from professional marketers. For this reason, gathering user-generated content for your brand is incredibly valuable, and there’s no better time to do this than at your launch event. 

Gathering User-Generated Content

EventsAlbum is a website that will enhance your launch party, allowing you to capture your event from your guests’ points of view. EventsAlbum is an online album where your guests can easily share all their photos from your event, and it’s so easy to use. You simply set up the event and create a QR code that you share at your launch party or event. Your guests can then scan the QR code and share their photos straight to your events album. This is an easy and convenient way to gather all your guests’ user-generated content in one place, and then access it whenever and wherever suits you.  

Using shared photo albums is a great way to gather imagery from your launch event because it gives you more control over the photos that you choose to share with a wider audience via your own social media accounts. Whilst it’s hard to control the content that your event guests share via social media, you can control what comes from your brand directly. 

Sharing Your Launch Day

One of the best ways to get to know your customers better is to get social with them: that’s why launching a product with an event is such a popular choice. And whilst the majority of your customers won’t be invited to the event, your photos will give them a window into it. Consumers build a relationship with your brand on a personal level and sharing the details of your launch event provides the opportunity to share your brand personality: Are you fun, playful, or flamboyant? This will all be reflected in the type of party you throw.

Other ways to ensure that your launch day images add as much value as possible to your brand include using your brand colours in your event décor and props, so that these will be prominent throughout those images, and making your party memorable with a unique and shareable theme. Don’t be afraid of using social media to bring real-time visibility to your event, using those images you gather from EventsAlbum to choose and curate the very best possible photos of your event. 

Visit the EventsAlbum website to find out more about how this unique shared photo album could enhance your product launch day. 

There are many reasons you might want to share photos with a large group of people: weddings, birthdays, christenings and anniversary parties, for example, are all perfect places to take group photos that everyone in the group will want to see, keep and treasure. But what is the best way to share these photos with everyone without having to send them to each member of the party individually? What is the best way to share large group photos? Here are five great options: 

1. WhatsApp 

Almost everyone has WhatsApp, and it is a great way to share photos with a group of friends or loved ones. One of the benefits of using WhatsApp for photo sharing is that the app is equipped with end-to-end encryption, so your photos are secure and can’t be accessed by anyone else. However, you can only share up to 30 photos at once via WhatsApp, meaning that if you have a large number of photos to share from a big event then it might be time-consuming to share these via the messaging platform. 

2. Google Drive

Google Drive is a great tool to use for backing up and searching a growing photo collection, making it a great place to store your photos from your large group events. It's probably most useful for personal use, although you can use the tool to share images with friends and family too. Google Drive is a cloud storage service, meaning you can upload any kind of file to it, but sharing multiple photos with friends and family can be time-consuming. 

3. iMessage 

If you have an iPhone or iPad then it’s easy to share the photos you take via that device using the iMessage app. However, sending multiple photos on iPhone or iPad via the iMessage app is limited to 20 photos at a time. Given that the average bride has her photo taken 3,000 times on her wedding day, this might not be enough for large events, but is a great way to select and share some of your favourite photos. 

4. SMS Messaging 

If you have taken the photo on your phone, then perhaps the fastest and easiest way to share a photo is to send it via SMS messaging. However, this will only work if you have the phone numbers of everyone you want to share your photos with, and it’s also important to note that photo sharing in this way can be expensive unless you have a good photo sharing or SMS plan in your mobile phone package. SMS messaging is generally considered the best way to share just one or two images, but shouldn’t be used if you have a whole album of photos to share. 

5. EventsAlbum 

If you have a large number of group photos or photos taken by a number of different photographers, then the best way to share them is by using EventsAlbum. You can use EventsAlbum and see all of the photos from your event (no matter what it is) through the eyes of your guests. This is a great option because everyone in the group can both contribute to and access the single event album, and because you can access the album via a QR code, there’s no need to worry about the time or the expense of sharing your photos via a messaging service.

Not everyone is keen to splash their photo all over the internet or social media. This is particularly true for families with young children, who may wish to maintain the privacy of those children and minimise their online presence. Recent reports have found that many kids will have well over 1,000 photos of themselves on social media before they're 5 years old, but sadly these photos can sometimes turn up on disturbing websites and forums. For this reason, it is increasingly common for parents to keep images of their children offline, and most people respect this. According to a report by Ofcom, 70% of people do not think it is acceptable to share images of others without permission. This can make sharing photos of special family events, such as birthday parties, christenings, or weddings for example, very difficult. How do you balance the needs of families who wish to maintain the privacy of their children with the needs of families that want to share photos of special events?

How do you share photos privately with your family on a large scale? Here’s everything you need to know: 

Create an Event QR Code 

One of the easiest ways to share photos with your family and friends privately is to create a QR code for your event with EventsAlbum. The family members attending the event simply scan the specific event QR code and then use it to upload all of the photos they’ve taken directly from their phones. You can display all the photos on a rolling live gallery as they're uploaded at the event, allowing your guests to interact with the process, but these images remain private with only those family members or event attendees that have access to the QR code that is only used for your specific event. This is a fun and easy way to share photos whilst also keeping them private. You can try a free demo here and begin the sharing process! 

Use Private Facebook Albums 

Many people already have a Facebook account, which means that using private Facebook albums is often considered one of the most straightforward ways to share event photos with your family. But before you choose this option you should consider that Facebook's privacy issues are well-documented, which means that many people prefer not to share their data with the company anymore. It’s also important to note that some families would prefer their children not to appear on Facebook, even in private albums, so this is something you consider if your event is being attended by children. 

Cloud Storage Services 

They can be both complicated and expensive to set up, but if you have a considerable number of images to share (perhaps from several big family events) then Cloud storage services allow you to share photos online privately. There are plenty of different options available, but the three companies that dominate the arena include Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive. Each of the services allows you to create a folder, upload the photos you want to share with your family, and then share the folder via email. This is ideal for large numbers of photos but can be more time-consuming to implement.

They may look like nothing more than black and white squares, but QR codes are quickly revolutionising the way we do almost everything! A QR code (short for Quick Response code) is a machine-readable code that consists of black and white squares that can be read in the same way as a barcode. They are typically used to store information or images and can be read by both cameras and smartphones.  This is a process that happens in seconds, meaning that in a newly touch-free world, QR codes are suddenly everywhere. There has been a 94% increase in QR code usage since 2018. But what can QR codes be used for? And how can QR codes be used to access multiple photos in a photo album? Here's everything you need to know:

What Can QR Codes Be Used For? 

The uses available for QR codes are near-endless. Because many smartphones have built-in QR code readers, QR codes are increasingly being used in a wide range of social situations. In a post-Covid-19 world where both tracing and minimising Covid-19 contact is vital, QR codes have been used for location tracking and for reducing the use of multi use items; you can scan a QR code to access a menu in a restaurant, for example. They are also regularly used in marketing and advertising campaigns because potential customers can quickly scan a QR code to access additional information. This can also lead to a reduction in advertising costs, with QR code usage reducing the need to print leaflets and flyers. In all these cases, the QR code will be used to direct to a website URL. 

Other uses for QR codes include, but are not limited to: 

- In retail, so that consumers can access more information about a product. 

- In the travel industry, to share information and simplify processes such as hotel check-in. 

- In the transportation industry, to provide real-time information to passengers e.g. the whereabouts of the bus, the next tram time, etc. 

- In property on 'For Sale' signs.

- To encourage email newsletter sign-ups for your business. 

QR codes can also be used in a non-business context, e.g. at special occasions for sharing wedding photos with guests or between social groups. But what if you want to share more than one image? Can you make a QR code for a photo album? The simple answer is yes. 

Using QR Codes for Photo Albums 

Because a QR code typically directs a user to a specific URL, if you want to share a QR code photo album then you would need to either create a folder in Google Drive or create an album in Photos and then generate a QR code for the link to either of these locations. You can then set up open access permissions so that anyone with access permissions can add their own photos to these albums. Whilst this makes sharing photo albums via QR codes possible, it is also quite a time-consuming and labour-intensive process. 

If you’re time-poor or want to create a shared access photo album via QR code for a special occasion, a much easier way of doing this would be to use a company like EventsAlbum. This is an online album generation website where anyone invited to do so can easily share their photos with you e.g., wedding guests can easily upload photos. You set up the album group, create a QR code and link to your album from their site. The whole process is quick and easy, and doesn't require you to download a photography sharing app (or do anything else time-consuming) to make it work!