With an astounding 3.2 billion people now using social platforms worldwide, the power of social media marketing is difficult to ignore. Whilst which social media platform you should get involved with will differ from business to business, every company should have some form of social presence.
A well-constructed post is just the first step to an effective social media strategy, these posts should also be accompanied by a well-designed and engaging social visual. Imagery is vital to standing out on social media platforms, but they must stand out for all the right reasons. Poorly designed visuals will detract from your brand’s key messages. So, how can you create an engaging visual?
Choose the right software
Before donning your designer hat, you should choose the software on which you will create your visuals. If you are comfortable with your design skills then Photoshop will be ideal as its functionality will give you a great deal of scope in terms of design. For the novice designers, there are many design tools out there that provide drag and drop features, Canva is a personal favourite of ours.
Get your sizes right
Ensuring your images are the right size for posts is vital. Putting a great deal of effort into a design is worth nothing if your image is distorted or cut off on a social platform. There is no one size fits all option when it comes to social visuals, so this means that your visual must be amended for each individual platform. As a rule of thumb, the social team here at Entyce tends to use the following sizes (as of 15.11.19):
> LinkedIn – 1104 x 736px
> Twitter – 440 x 220px
> Facebook – 1200 x 630px
> Instagram – 1080 x 1080px (Story size – 1090x1920px)
Utilise your brand
Consistency is key when it comes to social visuals. You want your followers to know straight away that a post and its accompanying image belongs to your brand. Keep your colours, font, tone of voice and imagery in line with the rest of your marketing collateral (website, business cards, brochures, etc.) and don’t forget to include your logo.
Short and snappy copy
Any copy used on a visual should be kept concise. Don’t try to cram as much text as possible onto the visual as this ultimately means that it will become difficult to read and detract away from the overall design. Some of the best visuals out there contain very little copy, therefore think carefully about the message you want to convey and how you can do this in the shortest form possible, backed by fantastic imagery.
Here at Entyce we understand the power that social visuals can have on the overall social strategy for a business. For the majority of our social clients, we design accompanying visuals within our service. Want to learn more about how we can support your business’ social media marketing? Contact the team today on 01244 310 140 or email [email protected].