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.

7.  Watch out for trends

While it's important to stick a page aesthetic for your brand, you should stay up to date on trends in your industry and social media.

If you spot a trend that could work with your brand, you can mold it to your page style to create something new and unique

If it catches on, your brand could go viral on the internet. You can always scratch it and return to your regular content if it doesn't work.

The idea is to tap into what is resonating with your audience.

Bottom line

A social media design aesthetic is a powerful tool that can help you distinguish yourself from a sea of competitor brands.

Pick colors, fonts, pictures, and videos that reflect your brand’s image and vision at its core.

Be consistent with your theme, as it helps your users associate those colors and fonts with your brand and easily recognize you.