If you catch yourself thinking, ‘It's just pictures, anyone can do that’, think again! Ensuring that your brand’s social media graphics are top notch helps to build brand awareness and connect consumers with a business and its products.

But managing consumer expectations by delivering exceptional designs is no easy feat. media update’s Taylor Goodman unpacks three top design tips to help boost your brand presence online. 

Let’s get into it:

1. Determine what your goals are 

Before you launch into design mode, you need to know the who, what, when, where and how of it all. Ask yourself: What do I want to achieve with my work? 

Why? Well, you can never be too prepared or informed when it comes to creating content. Knowing the purpose behind your work will help you form a solid understanding of how to create designs that resonate with your audience. 

So, how do you uncover this purpose and form clear-cut goals? By learning more about your consumer base and what they want to see from your brand, of course

You can start by answering the following:
  • Who is my brand’s target audience? 
  • What platforms are my target audience most active on?
  • What message am I trying to convey with my designs?
  • What emotion do I want to provoke with my designs? 
  • What action do I want users to take after viewing my graphics? 
Once you answer these questions, you will not only understand the consumer better, but you will understand how to create content that reflects your goals. 

Continuing to create content with these intentions in mind will keep your brand voice consistent; it will leave your audience happy and wanting to know more. 

2. Visuals are everything

Of all the five senses, your vision is shown to be the most important. That is why visuals are so important on social media. Fun fact: Of all the information that enters our minds daily, 90% is visual

Additionally, consumers retain 80% of what they see, 20% of what they read and 10% of what they hear — so if you want to make your message stick, great graphics are the way to go. 

As the visuals are what first grabs the users attention, you want them to stand out. To do that your graphics must be: 
consistent: When creating visual content, you need to ensure all material aligns with your brand. This includes everything from company colours, logos and fonts.
varied: Want to keep your audience on their toes? Then be sure to switch up the type of visual content you post. Photos, videos, animations — you name it, your audience will eat it up! 
accessible: With social media becoming an increasingly conscious environment, it is key that all your posts are inclusive. You can make visuals more accessible by adding captions to your videos or alt text captions to your images. 

If you need any more convincing, including more graphics in your social content creates more traffic and clicks on your brand’s page, which could convert into sales as you build rapport with your followers. 

Know when and how to incorporate text

As you already know, visuals are everything, but this doesn't mean it shouldn't be accompanied by useful text. The key here is that your texts adds to your designs, instead of being distracting, wordy or unnecessary. 
But how can you ensure that you add text that enhances your graphics? You need to consider:

Font

If you want to add text to a graphic, you need to ensure the font matches your brand image and complements your visual instead of distracting from it.


*Image courtesy of Digital Synopsis

Positioning

What is the point of selecting the perfect image or designing a beautiful graphic if you’re just going to cover it with text? Again, here you need to ensure your text does not subtract from the visual.

*Image courtesy of Visme

Legibility

Fancy typography is all good and well, but when it comes to adding text to your designs, it is best to keep it simple. Your audience needs to be able to read your text without any difficulty.

*Image courtesy of Kimi Kinsey

Coherency

This is all about how well everything meshes together. Pay specific detail to whether the colours you use are complementary to the size of your text and whether your text aligns with your intended message.

*Image courtesy of sotamedialab

What makes a graphic on social media stand out to you? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Want to know more about how you can improve your social media content? Then check out these Four tips for writing shareable social media copy
*Image courtesy of Unsplash