Branding

Your watermark can be a signature, a small photo or a logo. As such, it serves to brand you. When people look at your images, they learn something about you.

If you consistently show photos that appeal to them, they’ll get to know who you are and look forward to seeing more of what you publish.

Your images may be quotes or landscapes or funny stuff that you share.

Promotion

Watermarks on your photos promote. What do you want viewers to do? Where do you want people to go? What do you want them to see beyond the image?

Answer these questions to determine what kind of watermark you should create.

You may want to promote yourself, your business, a website or blog. Make sure your watermark reflects that.

For example if your business has a logo, choose that for your watermark.

Your signature would be a good choice if you are promoting you,

I chose to create a community on Facebook, and as such, use a logo of its name, which is both personal and business.

If you use social media with its sharing capabilities, your images can potentially be viewed by thousands or million of people. That’s a lot of promotion.

Protection

Certainly if your images go viral on the Internet, you want to protect your brand, so that people cannot simply take your photo and brand it as their own.

Although this latter point isn’t foolproof, because watermarks can ultimately be removed, it has some safety benefit.

In most cases, unless you are a professional photographer, you won’t need to copyright your photos.

If you’re like me, a network marketing professional, you will be using other relevant photos you find online that you want to put your own words to or your favorites quotes.