10 Great Tips for Your Brand’s Social Media Graphics

Want To Level Up Your Brand’s Social Media Graphics?

By nature, human beings heavily rely on vision.

That’s why when it comes to marketing, quality business graphics can help elevate possible clients’ impression of your business from your competitors.

And in today’s digital age, you need to make sure that your social media graphics stand out and leave a lingering impression on your audience.

So in this post, we are helping out with this as we give you 10 great graphic design tips for your social media graphics.

Let’s jump right in!

10 Design Tips For Your Social Media Graphics

1. Find your goal
2. Decide on the color
3. Text
4. Typography
5. Good contrast
6. Visual identity
7. Consistency
8. Know your platform
9. Get creative
10. Keep it simple

Tip #1: Find your goal

Before you even start designing, think about your target audience, who they are, and what you want them to think or feel when they see your graphics.

And then ask yourself these questions:

• What is my post’s purpose?
• Am I trying to drive sales?
• Do I want to increase traffic to my website?
• Am I trying to increase my page’s engagement?
• What message am I trying to convey?

It’s also important to take note of how your audience will be viewing your visuals.

Are you expecting most of them to view your post on their desktops? Via mobile phones or tablets?

Once you know your target audience and your post’s purpose, you’ll have a clear vision of your goal.

And moving forward, all the decisions you make for your social media graphics should reflect that goal.

Tip #2: Deciding on the color

Your chosen colors can easily set the tone of your visual branding.

Specific colors and color combinations can evoke different emotions and can be a powerful psychological tool to portray what your brand represents.

Be sure to take color psychology into account when creating your brand graphics.

Aside from color psychology, you need to be thinking about color interaction.

Make sure your colors don’t clash, and when used, complement each other well.

You’ll want to be mindful of which element you want to assign your colors to.

For example, when it comes to text and background color, you’ll want to avoid combinations like this…

…where the text is hard to separate from the background. 

This is an example of how some colors can bleed into one another.

You’ll also want to avoid colors that contrast the wrong way, like this combination…

…where the outcome strains your eyes quite a bit.

With all this in mind, be sure to choose the right kind of color scheme that will create the right kind of reactions from your audience.

Bonus Tip: Since your social media designs are only going to be displayed on screen, make sure the color is always set to RGB, no CMYK colors!

Tip #3: Text

And no, we’re not talking about typography here. We’re talking about the overall area that your texts cover in your graphics.

As a rule of thumb, try to keep your text within 20% of your image because you don’t want to overcrowd your graphic with wording.

It makes your visuals less aesthetically pleasing and you’re not leaving ample room for other elements to create a more balanced graphic.

This rule of course doesn’t apply to reviews, quotes, and infographics which do require more coverage.

In these cases, it’s fine to cover more area because the long-form text is the hero or main feature of the graphic.

Tip #4: Typography

Typography is an important art to practice in digital marketing graphics.

Selecting great fonts to align with your branding can be tough, but when done right, can bring your social media graphics to life!

Like your brand colors, be sure that your fonts reflect your brand’s personality.

Try to keep at most, 2-3 brand fonts to be used in different scenarios.

Any more than that, you run the risk of distracting your audience and diverting them from the overall message your social media graphics should convey.

A couple of things to keep in mind are Serif fonts are best for print…

…and Sans serif is best for web.

If you’re unsure which fonts to combine, aesthetically speaking, a couple of great combinations are a serif font and a sans serif font.

Or, you can also try a script font and a sans serif font.

Tip #5: Good contrast

If you haven’t heard of it by now, negative 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.

If you’re using a dark background, use lighter elements. On the other hand, if you’re using lighter background, use dark elements.

The use of space around text, shapes, and other elements will make your design easier to read and will also attract more attention than a cluttered design.

Tip #6: Visual identity

On average, it takes about seven times of seeing or hearing your brand for someone to recognize it.

This is why consistency and repetition of brand elements such as your logo, colors, and fonts, is essential to establish that association with your visual identity.

If you haven’t already, make sure you have proper documentation of your visual branding.

Aside from your logo, colors, and fonts, be sure to establish which kinds of elements and textures you want and don’t want to be added to your graphics.

And then, add in a set of samples of do’s and don’ts of how you want your graphic elements to interact with one another.

We have a tutorial on how to create your visual branding guide here…

…and it comes with a free Canva template so you can easily set up your own visual branding so be sure to check that out.

Tip #7: Consistency

A core building block of your business’ visual marketing is going to be consistency.

If your social media graphics look and feel connected, and never off-brand, your audience will form a clear understanding of your business and its message.

Following your set of visual branding and staying consistent with your style can prove to be challenging.

But, taking the extra time with your visuals to make sure you don’t stray from the look and feel…

…that you have set for your audience to associate your brand with will prove to be worth it in the long run.

An easy way to keep consistency is to take the time to create templates for

• quick quotes,
• announcements,
• promotions, or
• sales,

…at least 3 of each to start with. This will make it easy for you to quickly create content.

Plus, it’ll also make it easier for the audience to quickly recognize your brand and increase customer engagement.

Tip #8: Know your platform

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 when creating your social media graphics in the long run.

a. Facebook 

• It is geared toward the older generation.
• It makes great use of articles and promotions.

b. Instagram

• It is geared towards millennials.
• It is great for lifestyle-themed images with minimal graphic elements added into it.

c. Twitter 

• It is great for engagement.

d. Pinterest

• It is great for inspiration and new ideas.
• It is for people looking for new products.

e. LinkedIn 

• It is great for business and networking.

Know what works best on each and understand what are the best graphic styles…

…and 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.

Tip #9: Get creative

Believe it or not, creativity is in everyone.

Being creative when creating or curating your content will not only help tie your brand and audience together…

…but will also make your company stand out from your competitors.

Make a variety of different style graphic posts for your social media content. Some of these can be:

• brand-relevant quotes,
• infographics or charts,
• behind-the-scenes photos,
• themed graphic posts like Motivation Monday, or throwback Thursday,
• reposts, and
• quality photos of either your products or services.

Social media graphics and pages that are appealing are more likely to be shared, and in turn, increase engagement.

So, don’t be afraid of exploring and having fun with your creativity when making your business graphics…

…so long as you’re keeping your visual branding in mind.

Tip #10: Keep it simple

With many complex graphic styles coming in and out of trend, it’s always a best practice when in doubt; to keep things simple.

When working with such a small canvas, created to be viewed on mobile phones, overcrowding happens too fast.

Some essential things to keep in mind when you create your social media graphics are:

1. To use icons, eye-catching graphics, and illustrations in appropriate sizing and never overcrowd a single graphic with too much of each.
2. Limit font choice to 2 fonts.
3. Stick with 2 to at most 3 contrasting (or ‘complementary’) colors

It can be easy to get carried away with so many great design elements and fonts to choose from…

…but by reducing clutter, you are more likely to get your message across!

Remember, when it comes to visual design- less is more.

Now that you have all these graphic design tips in the bank, you can create more engaging, and targeted graphic designs for your social media content!

And that’s it for today’s post!

If you need more help with any of your marketing visuals, be sure to check our graphic design services today. Or contact us to get started!

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