Social Media Posts – 9 Tips for the Best Designs and Styles

Social media posts are the key to a successful social media strategy for maximum customer engagement. With the ever-increasing social media networks and users, a business needs to make sure that its content reaches the existing customers as well as new audiences. Using engaging posts that are optimized for each platform is essential in driving a successful marketing campaign.

Social media is extremely competitive because of its popularity. Every second, new content enters pushing aside older content. To stay on top, you need to make sure that your social media posts are noticed by the users. It’s not enough to be noticed, they should also be able to effectively convey the message you intend. Just like in nature, it is survival of the fittest if not the best. 

There are some key elements that you need to turn your social media post ideas into successful posts. We will discuss what those key elements are as well as some tips for the best design and styles for such posts.  

Key Elements of Social Media Design

Social network users don’t usually go looking for new content. They discover things on their social media feeds. Different social media networks may have different interfaces, but the constantly updating feeds are there in one form or another. Users may discover new content while they are scrolling the feeds. This means that you have a few precious seconds to catch their attention. Let’s look at the key elements of social media design to make sure your posts are exceptional. 

Color

Colors affect perception and evoke emotions in people. When you design your social media posts, choose colors that would enhance the message you want to convey. For example, holiday posts can incorporate colors that are associated with them like Christmas is with red, green, and white. You need to make sure to integrate brand colors to give it identity but without conflicting with the overall message.  

Contrast

Contrast is a great way to grab attention. Contrast can overwhelm your audience if not done right. So, make sure not to use too many colors or conflicting structures. Contrast should be complementing. Color, size, and typography can all be used to create contrast effectively.

Typography

Once your audience reaches your social media post, they will continue to read the text. Using a legible text style that is clear and structured will keep them. With the increased use of smartphones to browse social media, you need to make sure the typography is suitable for that. If your fonts are too decorated and difficult to read, there’s a good chance of people skipping over it.

Hierarchy

Guide the eye of your audience using visual hierarchy based on Gestalt principles. Humans look at visuals as a whole, then only they notice the individual elements. There are six basic designs you can use. 

• Proximity
• Similarity
• Figure-ground
• Continuity
• Closure
• Connectedness

Style

All of the above elements combined to form the style. You can have a consistent color or pattern scheme that runs throughout all your social media platforms and posts building a visual identity for your brand. People will be able to identify your content from the unique style they preset.

Importance of Graphic Design in Social Media Marketing

With the fast consumption of information in today’s digital world, it is important to use visuals. And graphic design is a must-have aspect of your digital marketing strategy. Being able to create unique, informative, and customized graphics will turn your social media ideas into engaging social posts. Here’s why graphic design is important for your social media marketing strategy.

Looks Professional

As a business, you need to present a professional image. Your social media presence should reflect the same level of professionalism as your business. Your brand identity should be presented to the target audience as a professional one. Graphic design can help you to create and align your professional identity across your social media accounts.  

Provides Brand Recognition

Visual content such as graphics and infographics has more user engagement than text-only content. Having consistent design and style to your graphics will help your audience recognize your brand. Your posts will have their unique brand personality and stand out from user-generated content. 

Works on the Attention Span

With the vast amount of fresh content created continuously, user attention is constantly moving from one item to the other. Graphics help you take advantage of this short attention span of users. A properly designed visual content can convey your message, brand, and call to action within seconds.

Caters to the Digital Natives

Digital natives, named such because they were born during and after the development of digital technology, are attached to their smartphones, computers, and other digital devices, forming a large portion of the social media users. Your brand needs to be able to meet their standards if you are to have a chance against your competitors. Having a strong graphic designing strategy enables your brand to create unique and relevant visual content which could survive the judgment of these digital natives.   

Sends a Clear Message

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” Your graphics can communicate the message of the brand or the campaign effectively with a single graphic. Infographics have more shares than most posts on social media because they convey the message or the information more clearly than words. Sometimes, they can break the language barrier and reach a new audience. 

9 Tips for the Best Designs and Styles

Standing out from the crowd in social media needs uniqueness. Especially in your graphics and styles. A few years ago stock photos would have given your posts a boost, which doesn’t work so well now. Being able to create visual content with your own brand identity will give you more visibility and create engagement. We have made a list of nine tips to create the best designs and styles.

#1 Use Bold and Bright Color Schemes

The digital world is going back to color. A few years ago, the trend was to use minimalistic color schemes. But it is moving back to more bold and bright color schemes. Sometimes contrasting yet complementary colors can give your social media posts the boost you need.

#2 Use Icons to Illustrate Concepts

Sometimes, simplicity can stand out among the complex content. Using simply designed icons to illustrate concepts of your post can communicate the message alongside an elaborate design. Look at the mail icon. The traditional envelope is still surviving as the icon of emails, simple yet effective.

#3 Create Unique Illustrations

Unique graphics will stop your audience from scrolling past no matter the social media platform. Try to create illustrations that are unique to your organization such that the competition can’t duplicate. This will go a long way in improving your brand recognition and identity. 

#4 Visualize Data with Charts and Infographics

Presenting data visually will make your posts credible and share-worthy. Infographics have a high engagement rate and generate shares. You may already have used a data-driven infographic in your blog post. Why not try and use the same on social media posts as well? While marking your social media presence credible, it would build links to your blog posts as social media resources.

#5 Use Text Strategically with Graphic Design

Graphics can exist on their own. But if you plan your social media post ideas well, using text strategically to enhance your graphics can work wonders. Using the appropriate typography and font sizes will make them stand out from the plethora of posts available on social media. 

#6 Use Social Media Templates to Get You Started

If you are just starting your social media journey this will help you to keep consistency. You can experiment with different templates and slowly grow your social media visibility. You can use specific design templates to drive campaigns where users can recognize the specific campaign. 

#7 Create Custom Gifs

Gifs are a popular way of communicating a message or an emotion. But for your business, using common gifs is not going to work. Create unique or custom gifs to suit your brand’s requirements. The motions in the gifs can catch the eye of the users while they are scrolling through the social media feeds.

#8 Incorporate Your Branding into Your Design

This is the simplest of design tips to understand. Your whole objective of posting on social media is to create visibility for your brand to attract potential customers. Therefore incorporating your company branding into each and every one of your designs is important. Finding ways to creatively do so will make your graphics more appealing to the audience. You can use logos, unique fonts, or color themes to make your branding into graphics. 

#9 Optimize for Different Social Media Platforms

The last tip is not just for design but is important for design. It is optimizing your content for different social media platforms. The Twitter audience will like a simple yet informative infographic, while the Instagram audience would need relatable hashtags. Identifying the optimization strategies for different social media platforms will help your designs reach a wider audience.

Conclusion

In the modern digital world, social media marketers have challenging tasks ahead of them from being able to generate relevant content, to staying on top of the latest trends, and to dealing with competition. Keeping the social media posts in optimal visibility and engagement needs a good social marketing strategy backed up by strong graphic design. We hope this article helped you to learn the key elements and some tips for the best designs and styles.