Social media marketing is an integral part of digital marketing. Recent surveys show that social media networking sites have over 4.26 billion active users–that’s four billion potential leads you can connect with. Needless to say, businesses must learn how to design engaging social media graphics to guarantee marketing success. Lucky for you, Seter Graphic Labs graphic design experts are here for you!
Understanding the power of social media graphics
Social media websites are inherently visual platforms. Research suggests that social media users read only about 20% of texts on a page. On the other hand, there are over 244.4 million digital video viewers in the USA alone.
Aside from the eye fatigue experienced by today’s generation, social media algorithms tend to push visual content better than text-based ones. Social media networking sites automatically recommend videos and photos according to users’ browser histories. For sure, you’ve already experienced logging into your Instagram account to watch a single haircare video, and the next thing you know, you’ve already gone through 20 haircare-related posts.
While social media posts and copies are still vital for marketing success, there’s no denying that social media users resonate better with social media graphics. So, if you want to achieve better conversion rates, it’s best to use multimedia formats.
To learn more about the impact of visual content in marketing, read our full article here.
Choosing the right social media platforms
Like any marketing campaign, researching your target audience should be your priority. Knowing the nature of your demographic, including their interest and preference, will help you determine your content. This way, you can create marketing campaigns that will not just resonate with potential clients but will also fit their user behavior.
Aside from this, your target audience defines the social media website you should use. Here’s a quick guide to the user demographic and content practices on the top social media websites:
- Facebook – 25 to 34 years old; general advertisement
- Instagram and Tiktok – 18-24 years old; eCommerce and retail marketing campaigns
- Twitter – 18-29 years old; conversation-led or thought leadership marketing content
- LinkedIn – 30-39 years old – B2B campaigns
- Pinterest – 25-34 years old – artistic content marketing
Knowing the unique characteristics of each social media platform is essential in creating engaging and effective marketing campaigns. For instance, if you want to target a general audience, you must optimize your Facebook marketing campaigns. On the other hand, if you’re a B2B or SaaS company that wants to reach out to more high-ticket clients, improving your LinkedIn ads is your best option.
Key elements of engaging social media graphics
While there are now numerous design software and tools that make graphic designing easier, creating engaging social media campaigns remains to be tricky. According to marketing experts, the average person sees between 4,000 and 10,000 ads daily, which means your campaign is competing with thousands of marketing assets.
Here are some of the best practices to create effective social media marketing campaigns that will give your business an edge:
Eye-catching visuals and colors
Social media users are constantly exposed to numerous marketing campaigns every day. For this reason, graphic designs must use eye-catching visuals and colors. While this doesn’t necessarily mean you must constantly use bright colors, utilizing all visual elements to create a visually appealing social media graphic is imperative.
For example, these two banks have the same offer and copy, and they’re posted on the social media networking site. However, while the first one was able to create a social media graphic that grabbed the attention of users because of its strategic color use, the second one failed to utilize its brand color to accentuate its offer. Needless to say, the first one is expected to drive better conversion rates than the second one.
Same offer, same copy, different visual execution.
Clear and concise messaging
As mentioned a while ago, social media users rarely read long-form texts. The content limit of most social media websites further increases this phenomenon. For instance, Tiktok has a 60-second screen limit, while Twitter has 280 character limit.
For this reason, each of your marketing campaigns should be clear and concise. Your audience should know right off the bat what you can offer to them. This Amazon ad is a great example. It tells the audience all the essential information about their offer while leaving a sense of curiosity to encourage readers to go to their landing page.
Amazon Facebook ad about AWS Cloud Training.
Incorporating storytelling elements
Great storytelling is the secret to effective content marketing. Cliche as it may seem, you should be able to sell a lifestyle instead of selling products.
This one-minute Youtube video of BY FAR for their DAYDREAM fragrance is a great example. The simple yet creative ad successfully showed that DAYDREAM users could live through their summer dream every day by using their perfume.
Kendall Jenner on BY FAR’s DAYDREAM Youtube ad.
Optimizing graphics for mobile devices
The rise of social media websites launched the mobile-first principle in marketing. The idea is that marketers should create images, videos, and other visual content with a mobile interface in mind. And it’s still very much an effective strategy. Recent surveys suggest that 58.72% of internet users use mobile devices, 39.18% their desktops, and 2.1% their tablets.
While different smartphones have their screen and visual specifications, there are some suggested specifications for each social media networking site. Here are some of them:
- Facebook – 1200 x 628 pixels
- Twitter – 900 x 450 pixels
- Instagram – 1080 x 1080 pixels
- LinkedIn – 1350 x 440 pixels
- Pinterest – 236 pixels x adjustable height
Here are two of the leading streaming websites in the market today. While the first one successfully utilized its Facebook banner to promote its latest show, the second one clearly wasn’t able to do the same as their banner appeared to be pixelated.
Facebook cover photos of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
Creating shareable and interactive content
The effectiveness of social media marketing campaigns is mostly measured through their engagement. For this reason, it’s best to create shareable and interactive content.
While each company has its metrics, a recent Hootsuite post says that most social media marketing experts agree that a good engagement rate is between 1% and 5%. Your campaign’s reach significantly increases with every share, comment, or reaction your social media post gets.
This simple Facebook post was able to generate an impressive engagement rate. The photo alone shows how fun it is to be at the artist’s concerts, creating a sense of FOMO among their audience.
Simple Coldplay’s concert post generating impressive engagement activity.
Optimizing graphics for search engines
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) remains one of the primary strategies of digital marketing. Regardless of how powerful your ad is, if it doesn’t reach your target audience, then it’s futile.
While the traditional SEO implementation uses keywords, optimizing social media posts can be slightly different. For instance, using popular music on Instagram can help your reels be recommended to other users. On Pinterest, creating Pinterest boards can help you reach more users.
Etsy’s Pinterest board.
Testing and analyzing performance
Ultimately, you carefully track and analyze the performance of each of your marketing campaigns. This can help you identify what messaging or offers truly resonate with your audience. You can even try implementing A/B testing before launching a big campaign to determine the effectiveness of your marketing strategy.
Fortunately, social media websites have made it easier for business account owners to see the performance of their ad campaigns. Here’s a sneak peek at the Facebook ads manager.
Sample of Facebook Ads Manager dashboard. Source: Linear Design
Getting professional graphic design services
Creating social media posts is easy. However, creating social media marketing assets that generate conversions and boost revenue generation is challenging. This is why it’s best to get social media graphic design services for your brand.
With Seter Graphic Labs, your company can get high-quality visuals that will grab the attention of your target audience. Our professional graphic designers have the expertise to create visually appealing and eye-catching designs that effectively communicate your brand’s message.
Aside from this, our designers and artists are well-versed in the latest design trends and techniques, which enable them to create modern and visually appealing graphics that align with your brand’s aesthetic. They have access to advanced design tools and software, allowing them to produce polished and professional-looking designs.
Seter Graphic Labs will enable your company to execute social media marketing strategies accurately and effectively. Your team doesn’t have to play a guessing game about which campaign will work and which one will not.
Interested in getting social media graphic design services? Read about Seter Graphic Labs services here.
In Summary
Designing effective social media graphics for your marketing campaigns might be challenging, but it’s not entirely impossible. As long as you know your audience, understand the algorithms of different social media websites, and carefully track the performance of your marketing campaigns, you can drive revenue across your social media accounts.
