7 Social Media Design Tips For Brands to Stand Out
According
to Statista, 47% of social media users like to see content from brands in the
form of pictures, and 25% like to see videos.
Visual
content is more in focus today on social media than it ever was.
The social
media design you choose for your page becomes of utmost importance as it helps
establish your aesthetic to your audience. A specific social media graphic
design will help users distinguish your brand when they see a post without you
explicitly telling them.
Below are
seven actionable tips to help you create a social media design aesthetic that
will help your brand stand out from the crowd and attract users immediately.
1. Use high-quality photos and videos
The first
and most important thing to focus on when creating your social media design is
to use high-quality pictures and videos. No matter how simple or
minimal your social media graphic design is, it will automatically grab
attention when it has superior quality.
You can
find stunning quality photos and download free videos online. You can use them for free
and enhance your social media aesthetic with minimal effort.
All you
have to do is choose the pictures and videos based on what the content post
needs and what goes with your aesthetic.
Having a
varied stock of free videos helps you pick the right ones that enhance the post
and go with your aesthetic.
2. Define your
brand’s visual identity
Pick a
design style for your brand and stick with it. There are three parts to this:
a) Picking an aesthetic for your brand,
b) Defining it in terms of fonts,
colors, and other visuals, and;
c) Implementing it with your posts
going forward.
Your style
will depend on your brand’s identity, vision, and values. It can be bright,
vibrant, subdued, minimalist, or sticking to a singular color.
Once you
decide on your style, you must define aspects of your page’s visual based on
that.
A page's visual
includes defining the colors, fonts, icons, pictures, and videos you use. If you’ve chosen a bright and vibrant
style, your font will be bigger and more stylistic.
Pick
smaller fonts and monotone colors if you are going minimalistic. Try out
different styles to see what works best with A/B testing. And don’t be shy to
update the style with changing trends.
3. Be
consistent with your posts
One thing
that brands often need to remember is sticking to the aesthetic they worked
hard to establish. They will try various styles to see what works best for
their audience. This denies their page a consistent aesthetic your audience can
get behind.
Sticking to
the color palette you choose is essential, as this is what users remember.
Once they
see consistent posts from you that follow the same color scheme and text style,
they will start associating that style with you.
After some
time, they will start associating that particular style with your brand,
recognizing it immediately, which can help you connect with your audience and
stand out in the crowd.
4. Be creative
It may seem
contradictory to the last point, but you need to switch your style occasionally
to keep things fresh and be creative to catch your attention in a world of
distractions.
If your
audience keeps seeing the same style of posts from you, they might find them
tiresome and unengaging.
If your
aesthetic is minimalist, throwing in handmade visuals, such as in the picture
above, can generate interest in your viewers. It may intrigue them, make them
seek more, visit your page, and look around, generating organic interest and
activity.
5. Add text to
videos
No matter
how short or long a video is, you should add text to it as it immensely helps
increase the value of the video:
a) It becomes more accessible to people
who are hearing impaired, don’t understand the language of the video, or cannot
watch it with sound on.
b) It becomes easier for search engines
such as Google to crawl your content and show them relevant results.
c) As people associate your video
content with high-quality subtitles, they’d be more willing to engage with
them.
6. Adapt your design to the platform
Not
adapting the design to each platform is a common mistake by many brands where
they create posts with one social media platform in mind and post it as-is on
all platforms without reworking it to suit them.
This makes
you look like a rookie and creates a disconnect between you and your audience.
More
importantly, it deters you from making the point you intended with the post, as
some key elements can be lost.
For example, a text post on Tumblr can be trimmed by adding a ‘read more’ segment, but no such feature exists on Twitter and Instagram.
If you are in B2B for a specific platform check TransportStake, Publicity Marketplace, FunctionalSourcing, EducationStake, and SmartMoneyMatch for the respective guidelines.
You need to
create posts with keeping the unique functionality of each platform in mind.
Tweak posts based on them and test the preview before you go live with them.