Design principles to enhance your social media posts
Social media is one of the most powerful and rewarding tools for organizations of any size. When used well, social media is a great way to empathize with your audience and generate brand awareness. No matter what you sell and who you sell it to, using social media as a marketing tool can help you grow your brand and pad your wallet. Quality social post design is key to double your results.
Design principles to enhance your social media posts.
1. Use consistent layouts
You can create a series of posts using consistent layouts. These are a great way to engage your fans, as they look familiar every time your post them on your social media pages. Make sure the layouts are designed with a common theme in mind. Nutella has demonstrated this approach on its Facebook page, creating a series of graphics with suggestions about how to eat Nutella. This is a clever, not to mention time effective, way to create unique visual content that builds your brand image, and boosts user engagement.
2. Use your brand colors consistently
Color is one of the most important and complex aspects of any social media design. It helps to set the mood, create an atmosphere, convey emotions, and even evoke strong individual experiences.
How do I want my customers/audience to feel? The psychology of color and branding is a dedicated art, so ensure you choose brand colors that speak towards your personality and focus. Once you’ve created your brand color palette, which should consist of two to four colors, apply your colors consistently within your designs.
3. Good contrast
If you haven’t heard it by now, negative space (also referred to as white space) is a great way to make your image stand out. Contrast attracts the eye and can be applied with font, colors, alignment, size, and more. How can you contrast an image? A simple way to implement contrast into your graphic design is through the use of colors. For example, to use a white logo with a contrasting dark color making the content both readable and visually appealing. The right balance can bring any social media graphic design content to life. Text is also an important part of contrast. Choosing text sizes that contrast well, as mentioned above, will help to make your graphic pop. Creating a flowing design by surrounding words with white space will allow the elements to breathe. The use of space around text, shapes, and other elements will make your design easier to read and also attract more attention than a cluttered design.
4. Clarity
Whether your design is simple or complex, it should be clear, especially with regard to social media graphics. Don’t overdo the design and keep the balance between simplicity and informativeness. You don’t have much time to impress followers, so ensure your message is obvious. Visual graphics are an integral part of any social media marketing plan and the designer’s contribution to the success of a marketing strategy is undeniable. As a designer, you should take into account marketing goals and your company’s tone when creating any visuals for social media.
5. Choose background images with clear copy space
Copy space refers to empty areas in images. Placing your text in areas with clear copy space will improve the legibility of your design, and help you get your message across. If you need to create more copy space within an image, enlarge and crop it. This will give your text more room to breathe.
6. Choose fonts that reflect your identity Selecting the perfect font or set of fonts that work seamlessly together can bring your social media image to life. It also has a big impact on how your design is received by people and, ultimately, the message your brand sends across. When selecting which font or fonts to use in your design one of the most important aspects to keep in mind is readability.
Social media design is your chance to get creative with your font collection. Whatever fonts you choose, make sure you apply them consistently.
7. Hierarchy
Help your audience to comprehend information quickly and precisely using visual hierarchy. Ordering the information within your graphic based on the importance will help your audience digest the content quickly and easily. Using visual hierarchy, you can instantly get your key messages out to your audience by drawing their attention to the most important part of the graphic.
Manipulate font, color, and alignment to direct the attention of your audience to the most important elements of the graphic. Generally, the bigger the element, the more importance you are placing on that element.
8.Use filters that enhance your brand identity
Whether you’re posting images via social media or using them as backgrounds in your designs, applying a filter can help give them a unique look and feel. Some filters will brighten your images, while others will bring out certain colors, so it’s important to have a clear idea about how you want your images to look. Remember filters are optional, so only use them if you feel like they add value to your post.
9. Prioritize images over text
People respond well to images on social media because they’re easier to digest than text updates. Take advantage of your visual elements and only use text when necessary. Using icons is a creative way to minimize your text in your graphics. In fact, if your images are strong enough, you might not even need any text or graphic overlays.
10. Know your platforms
You have to know your platforms because each platform is different. Knowing ahead of time what works best with each platform will not only help visually with your audience but will make things easier for you in the long run. Know what works best on each and know you’ll have to resize each piece of content to fit the dimensions of every platform you plan to share a social media graphic design with. It may seem tedious, but a quick size check could make the difference.
