Eye span in social media is decreasing.
With increasing internet users and easy availability of resources, the process of marketing online is becoming intense.
According to brand watch, there is 60 million business who have their business pages and out of which 4 Million are actively advertising.
So, it’s an advantage as well as a disadvantage for new business.
Advantage because they can use this opportunity well as they do not have many competitors.
Disadvantage because they haven’t made optimum utilization of the resources.
Every brand now is making itself available online and trying its best possible way to reach its audience.
The non-demanding social media platform has made it easier for companies or individuals to promote any product or service.
In the online world, every company is bidding to get that first spot where its audience is present most of the time.
so now the point is, what distinctive experience are you creating so as to create value for your visitor.
There are already multiple companies selling the same products like yours.
With the increasing competition, it is very crucial to choose quality over quantity.
Because catching and retaining even one eye span of your consumer will play a vital role in creating a conversion for your brand.
Being Visually appealing is what will attract your viewer towards you for the first time. It can be your logo, brand colour, types of fonts used, etc.
Your post should make your viewer think of him experiencing the product.
It’s more about not just creating a hard pitch but a story which can cater to a huge mass.
Social media is a virtual place so, attractive social media posts will help you in getting more shares, engagement, and clicks.
According to a Microsoft study, it was found that technology has reduced the average attention span of users to 8 seconds which is one second shorter than goldfish.
Images with faces are powerful attention grabbers. Especially, when it contains the message or the headline in the image itself, it’s more likely to be read.
It can take five minutes or more to upgrade a post in this way. But the results are exponentially better.
“Work a little harder on your social media posts. It’s worth the effort.”
To make it better, here is a list of essential elements to keep in mind before making a social media post.
- Finding your objective
- Sync in the typography and logo to create a single visual image in people’s mind.
- Get started
- Finding inspiration
- Look at your product, look at your brand and think laterally.
1. Finding your objective
To be creative and intelligent with social media, it is best to have your objective set in mind which you want to accomplish.
Whether it is to catch people’s attention with a funny story or sharing a fascinating picture, a clear objective will come in handy while making your post.
Your objective should be to give a clear communication by balancing all objects in your graphics which will hold your user’s attention.
To be intelligent with social media is to find a different way to do things that would be appreciated by your audience.
With increasing traffic of companies using the social platform, makes it very monotonous for the user to keep on scrolling until something really fascinating catch hold off its eyes, which can be fascinating news, a fun comic, memes of a famous personality, or a trending thing happening over the world.
In other words, rather than Instagramming with your bowl of cereal or sharing a selfie, an intelligent way will be in portraying your brand communication that will make all the difference.
2. Sync in the typography and logo to create a single visual image in people's mind.
Typography is 95 % of the design you make- it’s the driving force in all form of communication.
It is key to setting mood, tone, and style in your designs.
If you are using an image-driven promotion, make sure to use a simple font text so that it doesn’t distract your viewer from your image.
Use type as a way to communicate your message in a clear way.
While choosing the font size keep 3 principles in mind: readability, legibility, and purpose.
To help you with fonts. Here is a list of 75 fonts to reduce your work of looking for the best font for your creative. click here to see the list
It’s preferable is to use 3 fonts at max for a creative. But the best practice would be if you use the same font with a different size, weight, spacing or colour.
The choice of typeface affects how a piece is understood.
The typeface on the left conveys power, seriousness, and important whereas the typography on the right conveys playfulness, fun, and light.
3. Get started
Getting started will reduce your time of thinking.
The certain time it happens that researching and taking inspiration consumes a lot of time.
The best way to avoid such is to START.
Start with noting down all your requirement and making a rough draft or drawing what your mind ask you to draw.
It has happened many a time with me, where I was not clear with the design.
In such a situation what I did was to start with playing different objects for a while and see what can be created out of it
It definitely doesn’t help me with a perfect creative but at least, give me a pathway for making one such and eliminate the hard time which involved coming up with new design again & again.
4. Finding inspiration
The Internet is full of creatives; garnering inspiration is no more a herculean task.
A creative mind, which can derive the visual art out of anything is what required.
It need not be replicated in the same format but moulded into a new outlook
Beyond finding your font, pair it with your inspiration.
Pairing font with inspiration is as important as finding a font. It will help you in creating a Visual hierarchy and help in conveying your message.
You can also pair fonts on font pair by visiting the link here or use sites like Behance and dribble.
5. Look at your product, look at your brand and think laterally.
You must have come across theory defining the brains into ‘ Right brainers’ and ‘Left Brainers’, a pretty cool theory to know isn’t it!
But have you heard about vertical, critical and lateral thinkers?
When you think vertically, you go top-down and chain of command. There may not be a wiggle room, and as a result, it leaves no room for innovation to flourish.
And critical thinking can be methodical and by the books which again leads to too much of hard work and then getting a result.
Lateral thinking, though. Now that’s the stuff.
It’s creative, non-sequential, which means you can try a variety of routes to address your problem- even if you thought it to be silly in the first place.
In easy terms, it’s the secret shortcut which only locals know, where you can avoid the standstill and avoid the traffic.
When you create a social media post keep the brand aesthetics in mind which can be related to its logo, its product variety and, its ultimate audience. i.e. the consumer.
Maintaining this in all your posts will give a clear picture to your consumer’s mind and brand recall would be easier.
In the beginning, there might be times when you would have come with objects to use in your creative but then being unable to place, might have led to cancelling your thought.
This is where lateral thinking comes into the picture, where you have a lot of ideas but harvest only the best ones.
Challenging your assumptions, finding the third route when there are only two options will help you in getting the desired result.
Conclusion.
Designing creative is all about experimentation. It’s both a science and art.
It’s a challenge to break out of the comfort zone and explore the various possibilities in your design.
Have you tried this step while creating a creative for your social media post? how was the result? If there is a step which you feel is essential in making a creative, do mention it in the comment below.
