Wondering what types of social media graphics should you use for your social media marketing campaigns. Well, here’s a list of 6 effective social media graphcis that will help you make good posts for your social media handles and eventually grab the required attention.
Social media has become one of the primary tools for businesses to reach their audience. But the popularity of the networks has also made it close to impossible for small businesses to get noticed among the many large brands and influencers.
Fortunately, small businesses can turn to social media graphics to make an impact on their digital impressions.
Gaining attention in the digital sphere need not be a difficult task especially if you use the right kind of graphics and do social media marketing for them the right way. Visuals are an excellent way to not only attract attention on social media but also to convert casual visitors into loyal customers.
Graphics can be leveraged for earned media, which has become far more important for brand growth in digital marketing than owned or paid media.
The right kind of visuals can make a massive impact on your engagement, but you need to know what works for you.
If you’re wondering what kind of graphics you can employ on your social media, we have six different kinds of social media graphics that you can include in your social media marketing plan.
1. High-Quality Photos
When one thinks of visuals, photographs are what one first imagines. Attractive photos are an essential cog in the social media wheel, especially when one considers that there are one billion active Instagram users a month.
Using high-quality photos not only arrests the attention of your audience but also showcases your brand identity to internet users. By using consistent branding colors and fonts throughout your photographic collateral, you will be able to identify your business to audiences, even without placing your logo on every image.
For small businesses and start-ups, it isn’t always possible to source high-resolution imagery, in which case you can incorporate stock photos into your marketing strategy. However, though this is a good way to start your visual marketing plan for social media, authenticity has become more important to audiences so you will need to update your plans in the future.
Most major brands use excellent quality images to share their messages online and it is successfully gaining them a great deal of traction. Starbucks employs a distinctive visual style that ties its brand to relevant events and seasons, such as their post for summer drinks below.
Image credit: Starbucks
As a starting point, photographs are a great way to begin your visual marketing strategy, as they display your willingness to provide attractive, quality content to your audience that will make you stand out in the crowd.
2. Quotes
Whether you have an in-house photographer or are using stock images, once you have a collection of photographs that speak to your brand, you should use them as the basis to create quote graphics. These kinds of visuals are short, sharp, and attractive, using a combination of stock images and free text font to captivate viewers, as you can see from the example below.
Image credit: Venngage Instagram Templates
The other great thing about quotes is how popular they are as shareable content. Particularly on Facebook, quote graphics are shared widely, which increases the chances of your content going viral and boosting your follower numbers. Square Sayings’ Instagram account is a testament to how well quotes do—their simple quote graphics earn between 3000 to 6000 likes regularly.
If you are planning to adopt quote graphics into your marketing strategy, you should create a schedule to post them. Use online tools to manage your social media marketing campaigns so you can share your quotes on a particular day and time every week. Your audiences will know when to expect the post and will share it accordingly.
3. Infographics
If you’re asking yourself, what is an infographic, let me explain. Infographics are a type of visual that incorporate images, data, and text.
Infographics are a great way to share a large amount of information in a succinct and attractive way, which is why they have become popular social media graphics.
Infographics are a great way to share complex information as they allow you to use a variety of media to explain your topic.
In the below infographic, a bold headline outlines what the topic is, while subheadings clearly demarcate the area.
Icons and text add color to the visual, adding to the overall readability of the image.
Image credit: Venngage Infographic Templates
For businesses that have a large amount of information to share, infographics are a great tool to impart knowledge without having to rely heavily on text.
With internet users getting busier by the day, you want to ensure your social media graphics capture their imagination instantly, which is why you should use infographics.
4. Charts and Graphs
In the same vein as infographics, charts and graphs are excellent tools to condense data and share it with your audience in an easy-to-read manner.
If your content is heavily reliant on data, you should look into employing charts and graphs to display it
Charts are also a great way to get followers to read more related content—if your chart captures someone’s imagination on a social media channel, you can include a prompt to read a blog elucidating the chart further, thus increasing your website and blog traffic.
A simple chart, like the one below, employs graphics and colors to share information, with a call to action to read more.
Image credit: Venngage Chart Templates (https://venngage.com/templates/charts)
Among the kinds of graphics you can use on social media, charts can captivate the attention of your audience easily while also being shareable.
5. Animations
For businesses hoping to tap into the video marketing trend, animations are a good resource for engaging with audiences.
Especially as video marketing statistics show that 85% of consumers are engaging with video content online.
While videos can be expensive to create, animations are not as taxing on your budget. Short animations can share a wealth of information to your audience, much in the way that infographics do.
Califia Farms successfully uses animations that are colorful and beautiful to sell their products.
Image Credit: Califia Farms
Animations are not only a useful tool on social media but are excellent for using in cross-promotional marketing and as promoted content.
Embedding animations on your website or in newsletters will increase the chances of your content being seen and engaged with.
6. DIYs
Do-it-yourself guides and how-to tutorials have become another popular type of graphic on social media. They are an excellent way to interact with your followers, as such graphics ask the audience to pay attention for the length of the animation or video in order to learn all the steps.
DIYs also encourage further interaction by asking users to follow the instructions provided to make the item. This will, in turn, give them a reason to share their accomplishment, or failure, on social media.
Buzzfeed’s Nifty has made this particular graphic style extremely popular, posting everything from recipes to home improvement tips on their channels. There is also a niche of influencers who get paid to blog about their DIY projects, because of the popularity of the subject matter.
And video and animation aren’t the only tools for creating how-to guides—you can also use infographics for how-tos. Whatever form you use, DIY tips are a fun way to captivate audiences and thus, are an excellent addition to your marketing strategy.
Use Graphics in Your Marketing
For a small business, it can be intimidating to find ways to incorporate visuals in the marketing strategy. However, social media graphics are a worthy investment of time and energy as the ROI is guaranteed to be much higher than with other kinds of content. Have you had success using graphics on social media? Share your best practices with us in the comments below.
You are now aware of the importance of social media graphics. Here is a blog post that lists additional crucial issues that you should pay attention to as you aim to increase your social media engagement.
For graphic designing inspiration click here.
