To reach the right audience, you should invest in visual content given that it is what users like the most. After all, 90% of the information a person receives is through visual perception.
By using graphic design in SMM marketing, you can make content easy to read. Plus, it increases brand awareness and memorability. Try using these simple tips while creating social media posts to update your Internet profile with help of graphics.
1. Create a Catchy Logo
You should start building a visual identity around a powerful logo. Many small business owners turn to a brand consultant and graphic designer to design a logo for their business, paying several hundred dollars.
As an alternative, you can create one yourself if you are sure that you can make it flawless. A good logo is simple and easy to remember. Avoid complicating things as overloaded logos often look bad on some media. Moreover if you are planning to create a blog for your portfolio or CV.
We recommend using logo makers such as Adobe Creative Cloud Express and BrandCrowd Logo Maker. They include various design options for creating eye-catching logos for your business. In these programs, you can find tons of great logo designs by customizing the search parameters according to your needs.
Pro Tip: Change the dimension and other parameters of your logo based on the requirements of each social network. Don’t use a logo of the same size for all social media profiles as it may appear in a cropped or stretched form.
2. Choose the Right Colors
Color is a key factor in 85% of snap judgments made about products. Colors help brands evoke the right emotions. Try to choose shades that convey your identity. If you’re looking for brand credibility, go for blue. If you want to emphasize playfulness, you should choose cheerful yellow or orange.
Try experimenting with color combinations. For example, bright, eye-catching tints will increase user engagement. At the same time, make sure the colors are balanced. Otherwise, you can confuse your subscribers and distort brand perception.
Below you will find a brief description of how our brain perceives different colors. These tips are useful for marketing and storytelling:
- Red – Energy and urgency
- Orange – Belligerence
- Yellow – Optimism
- Green -Wealth and calmness
- Blue – Confidence and safety
- Pink – Romance and feminine
- Purple – Tranquility
- Black – Power and elegance
3. Determine Fonts Suitable for Your Brand
Just like colors, fonts affect how your audience perceives your brand. A well-chosen font can enhance graphics on your social media profile page and convey the right message to your followers. But don’t overdo it: two or three fonts are enough to reflect your brand’s identity.
The choice depends on your goals. Serif is a traditional font. If you want a more modern one, then go for Sans-serif. Italics are ideal if you want to make your brand image more “human” and evoke a sense of nostalgia in your audience. The main thing when choosing a font is to make sure that it is legible. Most of your social media followers check content via their mobile phones so fonts should be simple and easy to read.
Pro Tip: Don’t use more than three fonts at a time. You should select a font group for the company’s official design content. Keep in mind you can take free fonts from Google and DaFont libraries or buy some original ones.
Add Contrast with Colors, Shapes, and Sizes
You can make your social media profiles more attractive with the right use of contrast. However, be careful. If you go overboard, no elements will be highlighted.
There are three effective ways to achieve a flattering look.
- Adding contrast with colors. Using contrasting colors is one of the easiest methods. You can combine light and dark tones and get proper contrast.
- Creating contrast with shapes. Shapes also come in handy if you need to add contrast to a design. For example, you can use asymmetrical organic shapes with symmetrical ones to achieve the desired effect.
- Build contrast with sizes. Play with sizes of different design elements to make your social media images more interesting. It’s a good idea to bold a word in the text. This will help add more weight.
5. Create Social Post Templates
Any graphic design made for a small business should be saved as a template for reuse. For example, take social media posts. It would be nice if a business owner or SMM manager can create a content grid using ready-made forms with minimal editing.
A promo that requires only updates of dates, price and small details is a good example. You can make a template yourself or you use a pre-made one. In the second case, you will need to edit the colors and branding elements.
ProTip: We recommend using Canva and Crello to create such templates. These are two similar online editors with free access and a set of paid and free templates. The main differences are in prices and designs.
6. Tailor Visual Content to Each Social Network
All social networks are different. Therefore, you first need to find out how to present a professional profile on social media platforms, taking into account their features, target audience, and content formats.
Instagram. It is designed to help people share interactive visual content. Thus, you can attract customers to your products and gain their trust. The following things will be relevant here:
- Product images. They help showcase your most popular goods and increase sales. Whether you’re hiring a professional photographer or taking pictures yourself, try to stick to a coherent style and use the same filters to keep your account consistent and recognizable.
- User-generated content (UGC) is images and videos created by your clients or influencers. It increases brand credibility and shows customers that you are chosen by people just like them.
- Inspirational quotes. By using the right colors and fonts, you can create quote posts that inspire your followers and build more trust with them.
- Behind-the-scenes photos of your offices, employees, parties that display the people behind your brand.
As for Instagram photo size requirements – photos must be 1080 x 1080, stories – 1080 x 1920, and landscape images – 1080 x 566.
Facebook. Here you can engage your audience, increase the number of subscribers and build a closer connection with them. The most popular types of content on Facebook are:
- Visualization of information (infographics, charts, and graphs). This kind of content allows you to make complex information understandable and drive traffic to your social media profile page.
- Graphics and animation. Original branded graphics will help you capture the attention of users on overloaded social networks.
- Memes. They are unmatched when it comes to showing the human face of your brand. You can share popular memes in your field or try to create them yourself.
- Blog headers. They serve for attracting users and motivating them to click on your link.
Facebook accepts different content formats. Image size for a post should be 1200 x 628, for 360° images – 4096 x 2048. The largest image resolution allowed is 2048 x 2048.
LinkedIn. This is a well-known professional website with great options for getting in touch with potential clients, partners or employees. The most popular content types on this platform are:
- Infographics and other types of visuals. It helps present information in a simpler and more understandable way, as well as increase your brand awareness and sharing of your content.
- Banner images make your brand more memorable and enhance its identity.
- Slideshare presentations. They allow you to communicate your business philosophy to potential customers in a simple, well-organized manner. You should use charts, animations, brand logos and other design elements to maximize engagement.
Profile images on the platform should be 400 x 400 and banner pictures should be 1584 x 396.
7. Follow Design Trends
Design principles remain virtually unchanged but graphic design tendencies are constantly evolving. Therefore, it is important to follow new trends very closely and adapt your design to what is relevant now. Be careful when you update your Internet profile with the help of graphics so as not to break the consistency but make your design look fresh.
The ideal option is to introduce small updates from time to time without departing from the original branding. The best role model is Coca-Cola. The brand has existed for many decades but it manages to keep its visual code almost unchanged. As a result, it is considered one of the most iconic brands in history.
Final Thoughts
Logo guides are just guides afterall. You can follow your heart, your industry’s specific conditions, and your market’s certain needs. In the end, a good logo takes time, money, and research. Don’t hasten the process in hopes of getting there first. Take all the time you need because a logo is forever (unless it calls for a rebranding.)
If you want the effort off your shoulders, you can hire a designer. Why not create a contest? Then work with whoever wins. DesignCrowd is a platform built just for that initiative. If you trust yourself more than the designer then create your own using BrandCrowd’s Logo Maker. Search through templates and customize them further.
Written by DesignCrowd on Friday, June 3, 2022
DesignCrowd is an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world.