Let's be honest: social media is a mostly visual medium. While I'll swear by the importance of a solid social media caption, in truth, it's your design that hooks users in. Whether we're talking Instagram squares, Pinterest graphics, or a Facebook post, we're wired to notice stunning visuals.
As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. That's why Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr are primarily visual platforms.
But, if brands already found social media captions intimidating, creating a coherent, engaging design strategy feels like a step into the unknown. Your social media graphics will determine a user's perception of your brand. Every post needs to align with your overall messaging, connect with your audience, and drive action. Sounds like a big ask. It is.
You need to attract the right audience. We'll cover that and more below.
Speaking a Clear Visual Language
Don't dive straight into creating social media posts without a solid brand identity. What's a brand identity? It's the visual language you use to convey your brand. Think colours, fonts, shapes, and styles. While Skittles might use a cartoonish character or a bright palette, it'd look out of place in Apple's curated, sleek design language.
Ask yourself these questions as you formulate your brand identity:
Who are my audience demographics?
What are my business values?
What do customers expect from my industry?
What three words could I use to describe my brand?
Developing a brand identity doesn't happen overnight, and it's far more than a colour palette and a handful of fonts (any more than your personality is your clothes and vocabulary).
For more information on creating a brand identity, I highly recommend the book Brand Yourself; it's a complete guide for branding small businesses.
Developing Your Social Media Designs
1. Pick a consistent colour palette
Your colour palette will be the most recognisable part of your brand. You can either go tasteful and risk being boring or use a variety of colours. The latter option is definitely riskier but has a better payoff. Get it wrong, however, and your social media account will look like a unicorn's vomit.
Luckily, picking colours is something of a science. We're all familiar with the colour wheel. Opposite colours are known as complementary and look visually pleasing: blue and orange, green and red, yellow and purple.
You can also be monochromatic, choosing different shades of a base colour. Such designs tend to be more conservative, lending themselves to a sleek aesthetic.
Analogous colours sit side by side on the colour wheel. That could be different shades of green or dark blue, purple, and pink.
Last, we have triadic and tetradic colour schemes. Here, we choose three or four colours equidistant on the colour wheel. Impeccable Writing uses a triadic colour scheme, sometimes switching to a monochromatic scheme using one of the main three colours.
See Canva's fantastic overview to learn more about colour science.
2. Compliment your profile image and cover image
Most brands use their logo as their profile picture. There's no reason to defy this sensible approach. You can try variations of your logo, however. You'll want to ensure your logo, cover photo, and other profile images all complement each other. That means using a similar colour palette and mood across all three.
3. Develop a recognisable image style
Creating graphics to fill your social media page is extremely time-consuming! (I speak from experience.) Little wonder many brands rely on photos as the bedrock of their social media photos. But just posting any old photo is unlikely to increase traction. Your photos need to be as synonymous with your brand as a graphic would be.
That means using the same colours, filters, and tones. Confused? Let's see an example: Blue Bottle Coffee.
Featuring images of coffee, products, and cafes, their Instagram grid is a beautifully curated space. Blue Bottle's colour palette exudes classy coffee: rich browns and oranges offset against blues ranging from electric to midnight. It's as smooth as a fresh brew.
Moreover, their image selection is entirely consistent. You can translate this to any brand. If you sell running shoes, your posts could work off a bright, vibrant colour palette; your photos will include fit, active people running through streets, woods, and the great outdoors. Try sketching out a style statement.
4. Trust one or two fonts
Fonts are words made art. They're the subtext of your text. Go cartoonish and balloon-ish, and customers expect a whimsical brand. In contrast, a slick, modern typeface evokes technology – think Apple.
A common mistake is to use too many fonts in your social media posts. While there's a time and a place for an unusual font, you should only use two fonts – one for your header and the other for your paragraphs.
Doing so simplifies your post and, like your colour palette, creates a consistent design language.
5. Use Canva templates
Let's be frank: Canva is a godsend to social media designers. Intuitive and easy to use, it's banished PhotoShop to the pros. Most social media graphics don't need to be works of art—just eye-catching images. Here Canva excels.
Best of all, they've got an extensive library of templates to get you started. Tweak the colours, adjust the design, change the fonts, and you have a totally unique social media post ready to go.
6. Build a stock of templates
Creating 100% distinctive social media posts is night impossible. Nor is it worth it. Even the best social media designers rely on a stock of templates to create consistency on their pages. Plus, it's a lot quicker.
There's no need to reinvent the wheel. If you've got a great quote design or stats post, reuse it at a later date. Change the base colours and content, and you're ready to go.
7. Optimise image dimensions
Not all social media platforms use the same post dimensions. While Instagram relies on a classic square, Pinterest and Tumbler opt for a long rectangle, whereas Facebook tends to go wider. Ensuring your posts are optimised for these platforms will increase your traction and visual layout.
Canva, once again, has social media templates available for each brand. (And no, they're not paying me to say that.)
Be Brave; Express Your Brand
Social media design is central to online success. Your brand's look and style will inform how customers think about your company. Use consistent design language and instantly recognisable images to create a social media page that your customers won't forget.
Looking to enhance your social media presence with compelling captions that engage your audience and boost your followers? Impeccable Writing can help you craft captions that stand out on social media platforms.
Don't settle for lacklustre captions - contact us today to schedule a free consultation and learn how we can help you improve your social media strategy with high-quality captions that drive more success for your business.
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