Have you noticed how our attention spans seem to be getting shorter and shorter, especially when it comes to social media?! If something doesn’t excite, interest, or shock us within a few seconds, we’re already scrolling toward the next thing.
That’s why it’s SO important for our graphic design for social media to be on point to hook prospective clients quickly and easily.
In this blog, I’m going to explain five ways you can take your graphic design for social media to the next level! I hope you find these top tips helpful.
1. Get good at Canva!
Canva is a graphic design platform that can be used to create graphic design for social media, as well as presentations, posters and bags of other visual content. It’s very intuitive software that can be used to tweak curated templates or to create your own from scratch.
There’s a free subscription, or if you’d prefer to pay a small fee of £10.99 a month, you can upgrade to the Pro option. Canva Pro gives you access to more stock images and plenty more awesome features, such as resizing, a background remover, a social media scheduler and a whole host of awesome elements which are brilliant in graphic design for social media.
As with any software, it can seem a little daunting to use at first, believe me, I know this feeling! But I can assure you once you’ve played about and created some graphic design for social media, you’ll soon get the hang of this must-have platform.
Would you like to learn more? I’ve put together a fantastic, short tutorial on Canva. You can view that here:
2. Choose your brand colours
Colours are a simple and powerful way to convey mood and define emotional states. If you take a few minutes, I’m sure you can picture many famous brands, their recognisable colours and the feelings they evoke in you. Many large brands are even identifiable by their logo or colour alone. Just think about Apple, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola!
Choosing the right colour for you and your business can be a quick and easy way to reel prospective clients in and create a lasting first impression on them.
Bearing this in mind, I thought it would be worthwhile to look at the kinds of emotions different colours bring to mind and examples of brands that have opted for each one:
Red – evocative of passion, energy, and excitement… Tesla, Netflix, Disney.
Purple – a sophisticated yet mysterious colour. It’s often used for high-end products due to its associations with royalty and religion… Cadbury, Hallmark, Zoopla.
Blue – one of the most popular colours, with around 1/3 of the top brands choosing it. It can elicit a couple of responses; one is calm and serenity as in the sky and sea, and the other is trust, security and confidence… Facebook, Ford, PayPal, Oral B.
Green – tends to be associated with nature, health, and freshness… Land Rover, John Deere, Tropicana.
Yellow – popular for injecting positivity and vibrancy into a brand... McDonald’s, Lipton, Post-It.
Orange – combining the passion and energy of red with the optimism and brightness of yellow, orange is a friendly and adventurous colour… Nickelodeon, EasyJet, Fanta.
Black – another popular colour, especially with luxury brands. It stands out and provides a classic and sophisticated look… Chanel, Gucci, Sony.
Once you’ve selected your brand colours that compliment your business's goals and aspirations, be sure to use your colours across your social media platforms. This could be in your templates, fonts, logo and complimentary stock images.
3. Choose two to three fonts to use
Just as colours evoke an emotional response, so do fonts. They can be easily overlooked though, with many people concentrating on their business name, logo and colours!
Your choice of typography on your graphic design for social media can say a lot about you and your brand and can influence how people interpret what you’re trying to convey to them. The correct fonts can certainly help to deliver your message and portray your intentions. On the other hand, the wrong fonts can be distracting and cause people to make incorrect assumptions about you and your business.
As with colour, select two to three fonts (maximum) that match the values and feel of your brand, and stick to them to achieve consistency and familiarity.
4. Be consistent to get known and stand out
One of my biggest tips for getting the most out of graphic design for social media is showing up regularly! There’s no point throwing the odd post out there and hoping it will attract hundreds of new followers. It can be a slow burn, especially when you’re first starting out, so the key is putting meaningful content up frequently.
This can seem really daunting but there are so many different pieces of content you can share. For example, blog content, videos, Lives, infographics, case studies, testimonials, how-to guides, polls, and to keep things light… fun memes!
To help achieve all this, I highly recommend planning ahead using a content calendar, researching awareness days to supplement your content strategy, and remembering to organise offers, new lead magnets, events and training sessions to promote your brand. We have a monthly Social Media Planning Session you are welcome to join us in. We combine planning, creating and scheduling during the session as well as advice on graphic design on social media.
Templates are a great way to quickly and easily batch-create graphic design for social media so you don’t have to spend loads of time on your content creation… which leads us nicely to my final tip!
5. Save time and buy some templates
If you feel like you don’t have the time or the confidence to create your own templates, don’t fret! There are plenty of creative people out there who can support you with this.
Buying templates can be a cost-effective way to source high-quality, eye-catching content blueprints that you can tweak as and when you need to.