Using stock photos for testimonials

[ribalize]

I know that Tim suggested using stock photos for testimonials, but they all seem to look too professional. Most people won't believe that individuals who used a product went out and got professional photos done in order to send in a testimonial. Has anyone else had this concern? If you're just testing your product, how do you get around this? Do you search on Google for pics of random people and then try to use them? I have heard some people suggest that, but couldn't that cause legal problems?

[webgal]

Stock photos do look bogus. Why not a photo of a friend? Personally, I won't post any kind of testimonial that is not real even in a test situation. Just how I feel about it.

[SeanyG]

Use facebook pictures of your friends. Google 'headshot pic" and terms like that and see what comes up on Google images.

I hope this helps!

~Sean

[AlexMoen]

I believe he referred to advertisements and the such. But, anyway, why are you using pictures for testimonials? That in and of itself sounds like a contrived situation to me, not whether the pictures are professional or not.

[ribalize]

Use facebook pictures of your friends. Google 'headshot pic" and terms like that and see what comes up on Google images.

I hope this helps!

~Sean


Thanks Sean! This definitely helps.

[kamakiri]

Do not use that stuff. It holds way too much potential for problems. The sheer amount of artwork out there that you can easily search and use for free that is under a creative commons license makes it foolish to steal an image from google images.
Just go to flickr and look for photos under the creative commons license.

[Marcie]

There is also a creative commons search engine at http://search.creativecommons.org/ that allows you to search google images at the same time, however, please do read the message in the gray box there...they don't guarantee that the search results are actually under a cc license...

[SeanyG]

Thanks Sean! This definitely helps.

Glad I can help. Thats worked for me for years! ;)