Social media design is vital for your brand

Properly designed social media content provides your business with some consistency, added brand recognition and connects with your target customers.

Customer-focused, eye-catching graphics go a long way in accompanying content that you share on social media, which communicates to your target audience.

This content could be top tips, client testimonials, facts, statistics, key information, industry expertise and much more, which make for engaging social media material. The graphics help to make your brand look professional and consistent, while ensuring you’re building your brand awareness on social media, and at the same time, complementing this content.

What is social media content ?

It is important to understand what we mean when referring to social media content.

Types of social media content include the following:

Branded image frames

Ready-to-use or editable graphics

Story graphics and templates

Cover images and profile picture images

Swipeable templates

Highlight covers

Header images (for Facebook and LinkedIn)

Branding for new social media features, such as Instagram Reels

They are used for several different purposes on their various channels, including Facebook, LinkedIn,

Twitter, Instagram posts and so on.

How social media design can help your business

They establish your brand as professional. Just like business card and letterhead designs establish authenticity and a professional approach, your social media channels should convey the same message.

Think of your social media platforms as the digital equivalent of a business card, with your unique brand personality shining through, which your customers can see as they navigate your page, posts and images.

Graphics connect your brand with your followers and customers.

Posting content on social media with attention grabbing graphics means you’re maximising your chances of achieving shares, likes and reactions.

You may find your content gets far more engagement if it has your branding, strapline or logo included, than the other way around.

If this is what people like about your brand’s social media post designs, you can use this to your advantage.

They help your brand recognition and awareness.

Social media templates and covers can increase engagement with visual content, such as images and infographics.

Customers will begin to recognise your branding, colours and subsequently, they’ll soon become your biggest fans. A graphic template builds consistency across all your marketing platforms.

Whether your customers are visiting your website, meeting you at an event, or responding to a piece of printed marketing material, you shouldn’t ignore your social media presence.

When marketing your business, having a consistent brand across all your marketing resources is much more effective than having your old logo design scattered across dormant social media profiles.

Consistency is key. They help you stand out amongst your competitors.

There are several graphic design apps available — such as Canva — where templates can be used and edited to suit you, but are pretty basic in terms of design.

These cookie-cutter templates do not offer great opportunities for your brand to stand out, and using them could paint your business as similar to another company, or even worse, your competition.

If you genuinely want to stand out from the crowd, invest in professional, high-quality social media graphics and templates which will give your channels the unique presence it deserves.

In conclusion social media content helps you as the business owner to understand how to design your business’ ideal target customer.

Using social media graphics can help you stand out, but you also need to consider consistency in fonts, typefaces, colour schemes, the graphic layout, as well as what type of content you want to post. Combining these strategies can help you in so many ways.

Phillip Jonhera

Phillip Jonhera is a creative digital marketer and brand identity specialist founder At Nova Digital

-ebusinessweekly