Social media is continuously evolving, making it important for brands to stay abreast with the latest trends. Social media posts are a vital part of marketing campaigns now, looking at the growing popularity of social networking sites. More than 50 billion photos have been shared on Instagram, showing the importance of visual content on social media.
Successful brands often leverage the power of social media by sharing visual content on various platforms. In fact, the brain processes images 60,000 times faster than it does text. This is the reason why content with visuals gets 94% more total views. Attractive images, therefore, help in improving your reach to your target audience and boost your sales.
We have put together five simple tips for making eye-catching visual posts on social media to help you in your efforts.
Color:
Color is one of the most important aspects of any social media design. It can strongly convey emotions and evoke certain feelings. Colors must support the personality you want to portray. Use colors in your social media designs that can tell your brand story.
To understand more about what each and every color conveys, you need to understand the psychology behind them. Colors set a mood, create an atmosphere, and can relate to a memory. As every color has psychology behind it, finding a color scheme that can convey the emotions that you want to through your brand is important.
Study your brand and decide what you want to convey, whether fun, aggression, happiness, trustworthiness, etc. You should be using colors that reflect your brand personality, first starting with two or three primary colors. Determining your color theme is vital for the success of your design. Using the same colors in your social media design will guide your audience through the story.
Use proper color combinations and color theory. If your colors contrast too much (e.g., two bright colors), they lead to visual vibration, and if they don’t contrast, they don’t look good as they blend into one another.
Once you have picked up the colors, use the same color combination on all your posts. It is important that the colors you pick should create the right kind of reactions from your target audience. The better the color combination, the more feelings it conveys, the better the chances of your social media images to create an everlasting impression on your target audience.
Color combinations will determine how your audience perceives you and how they respond to your brand.Typography:
Generally, sans-serif fonts are preferable for web, unlike serif fonts that are preferable for print. Selecting the apt fonts or set of fonts can bring life to your social media image. They are highly responsible for how your design is perceived by people and what message your brand wants to convey. They can project moods and emotions.
Your fonts should be a reflection of your brand. Therefore, understand the psychology behind fonts. For example, sans-serif is a neutral font, serif is timeless, whereas Script is elegant.
When using typography, the first important aspect is the readability factor. Whatever fonts you use, whether serif, sans-serif, or any other, you have to ensure that your target audience can read it. It is better to use not more than three types of typography as eyes find it difficult to scan multiple fonts.
Use a font size that is suitable for social media design. Adjust the spacing between letters in the title for better legibility. Use a combination of various styles like bold, italics, condensed, etc. Arrange fonts to make text legible and more appealing.
Also remember to have a consistent font, which you can use across all your social media platforms. Fonts which not only reflect your brand personality but reinforce your tone of voice should be used. Well-crafted typography can enable the audience to quickly scan your content and grasp the most important elements.Lines:
One of the visual elements of social media design is the line. A line can be straight, curved, solid, thick, or of variable width. It can add elegance to the design and draw eyes to a specific point. Lines can be used to emphasize a particular word, or phrase, or paragraph. They can be used to decorate and represent information in social media design.
Different lines depict various states of mind:
- Horizontal lines represent motionless rest and peace.
- Vertical lines are seen as tall and depict magnificence.
- Horizontal and vertical lines when used together in a square or rectangular, indicate stability.
- Diagonal lines are used to convey fluidity and movement.
- Shallow curves are relaxing, and a series of diagonal lines show a sense of energy.
DesignsDesign with a border can give a more polished and sleek look. Lines can even be used to differentiate between internal colors. This can be of great help when you wish to create a design that has different messages and emotions.
Contrast:
Add contrast with colors, fonts, and shapes.
Contrast provides differentiation between various elements, making one of them stand out more than the other element.
The use of effective contrast is an amazing way to enhance your social media images. Without contrast, your image looks flat, and overdoing it can lead to your image looking cluttered.
One of the ways of implementing contrast into your social media image designs is through the use of colors. For example, using light colors and dark colors together to make the image look readable and visually appealing.
Another way is to add contrast is through the use of various shapes like using triangles, squares, circles, etc. together in an image. One more way is to use different sizes of fonts together or make a word or words bold.
To apply contrast, negative spacing can also be used, which can make your image stand out.
The right balance of contrast can bring life to a social media design. The use of space in text and shapes will make your design attractive and gain more attention than a cluttered design. If you have a dark-colored background, use a light font and vice-versa.Balance:
Balance is the placement of elements in a social media design. The design has a visual weight to it. If you use a dark color besides a lighter color, the darker color would obviously weight heavier in the design. If you don’t have a balance in your designs, then your customer’s eye won’t know where to look and what you are trying to put across through your design.
Balance doesn’t mean that every element has to be perfectly symmetrical; it can be attained through asymmetry as well. With symmetrical balance, the visual weight is distributed evenly. A symmetrical composition would give a more orderly look.
An asymmetrical composition is done intentionally to create an imbalance of the elements in a social media design. It gives a sense of movement to the design. One side feels heavier than the other, but still, there is a balance to it. The elements might not be of the same size, and not be positioned evenly, but there is a sense of balance, creating visual interest among your target audience.
Then there is discordant design or off-balance that suggests motion and action. If you want your social media design to make people think, a discordant design can work well.
Conclusion
Consider these things the next time you are creating images for social media.
It is an art to capture the attention of people and their eyes. With the above tips, you will get an idea about how to create more engaging and targeted graphic designs for your social media content. Tweaking these elements in your social media images can do wonders for your brand. Adopting the above things can have a positive impact on the outcome of your social media marketing.
If you don’t have an expertise to create such images, you can hire graphic designers. ProDesigns is a well-known graphic design company, creating high-quality social media designs for its clients across the globe. Drop us an email at [email protected] to get an idea about our social media design services.
