10 Places to find great free images for your social media campaigns

Images are one of the most powerful tools you can use in your marketing, but finding the right images to go with your content can be tricky. You want something eye catching, something different, but you don't want to spend a lot of money and you definitely don't want to get sued for copyright infringement.


Luckily there are now dozens of places where you can go to find images of all kinds that are free to use. Many of these images use Creative Commons Attribution licenses, which require credit to the artist in some way, while others are completely free for you to use and alter. In other words, you'll still have to read the exact licensing agreement to figure out what you can use it for, but all the images on these sites can be used freely.


Check out these sites:


1. Freerange Stock -- http://freerangestock.com/


This website does require you to sign up but all the stock photos on it are free to use for both commercial and personal use. New high resolution photos are added semi-regularly by both Freerange staff and a community of talented photographers.


2. BigFoto -- http://bigfoto.com


Amateur photographers who want nothing more than to see their work out in the world submit stock photography to BigFoto. This photography can be used freely for personal or commercial use as long as you're willing to give attribution to its creators. BigFoto is best when you're looking for good landscape shots.


3. FreeDigitalPhotos.Net -- http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/


If you're looking for stock photography with people in it, FreeDigitalPhotos.Net is one of your best options. All of their images are free to use for personal, commercial, charitable, or educational work. Attribution is required for any use. Downloaded images tend to be on the smaller side but larger versions can be purchased.


4. Foter -- http://foter.com/


Foter hosts over 190 million free Creative Commons images and is designed to help you quickly insert these images into blog posts and articles. You must give the photographer credit for anything you use, but otherwise the images on Foter are totally free.


5. OpenClipArt -- http://openclipart.org/


You'll find the work of over 3,000 artists on OpenClipArt, and the entire collection can be downloaded for free. All images in the collection can be used for either personal or commercial use and no attribution is required.


6. From Old Books -- http://www.fromoldbooks.org/


This site hosts over 3,400 images collected from vintage and rare books. All images are in the public domain so you can do whatever you want with them, no attribution required.


7. Pexels -- https://www.pexels.com/


Pexels is one of the most frequently updated databases of free images, updated with new stock photos every single week. This can really help you find new images and break away from using the same stock photography as anyone else. No attribution is required and all photos are available for both commercial and personal use.


8. Unsplash -- https://unsplash.com/


Unsplash is another frequently updated database, with 10 new free stock photos added every 10 days. All images on Unsplash are licensed with the Creative Commons Zero license, which means they can be copied, modified, and distributed for free, whether you're using them for commercial, personal, charitable, or educational purposes. No attribution is required for any of these uses.


9. Best Stock Photo Free -- http://beststockphotofree.com/


This is another site you'll actually have to register for but they provide access to a wide range of high quality stock photos, all of which can be used freely for both personal and commercial use without any attribution required.


10. Libreshot -- http://libreshot.com/


Libreshot is a surprisingly large collection of stock photography taken and posted by a single person, all of which are available for free for personal, commercial, educational, or charitable use. No attribution is required.


Do you know of any great places to find stock images that aren't on this list? I'd love to hear about them!