For years I've happily used an iPhone for professional social media photography. These are my top 10 tips I'd like to share with you :)
1. Lighting, lighting, lighting. I can't stress this one enough! Lighting can make or break your photos. Often times it's easier to take an outdoor photo when it's cloudy to avoid harsh shadows. Don't be afraid to photograph slightly into the light, you can get some pretty awesome sun ray effects that way making a filter obsolete (#nofilter). When photographing indoors, keep a few lamps handy to surround the object with, that way you will also eliminate any harsh shadows if necessary.
This nifty video shows just how great lighting has an influence:
2. Angles. When photographing food, birds eye-view works like a charm.
3. Don't touch that zoom. Your photo will most likely be out of focus. Instead, literally bring your smartphone closer to the object.
4. Keep it real. Don't stress yourself out trying to make a breakfast table look neat, embrace that out of place fork. It adds character.
5. Texture. Experiment with texture as background and surface. A wooden table, a brick road wall. You can even buy all kinds of printed paper from your local art supply store or make use of random things you find around the house - like an oven tray!
6. Be aware of social media formats. Long and skinny for a cover photo, square for Instagram...it's helpful to keep in mind what you intend to use the photo for. Sprout Social has got your back: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-image-sizes-guide/
7. Get weird. Don't be afraid to try things, you never know what could come out of it. If you're really getting weird and can't reach the capture button on your screen, use the volume button on the side of your phone to take the photo.
8. Get comfortable with editing apps. I use Photoshop (feels so old-school to say that) and I also love the Afterlight app. Get comfortable but don't get crazy with the editing, unless your goal is to have an unnatural photo, keep it as subtle as possible. With food photography, less is more.
9. When in doubt, do both. Thinking maybe a video would be better for your social media but don't want to miss out a good photo either? You can easily snap a photo while recording a video. While recording, a white button appears on the screen next to the red record button. Tap that to take a photo. (This applies to an iPhone, Samsung also has the same option but instead of a white button it's a camera icon)
10. Better too much than too little. Take a ridiculous amount of photos, that way the odds of finding that perfect shot are much higher.