How to Design Effective Social Media Graphics for Business

If you really want to increase your social media engagement you need a good graphics game. The right social media graphic will be attention grabbing, memorable, message-oriented, and shareable. So how do you create that?

Increase Social Media Engagement With Graphics

With so much noise online, a well-crafted graphic element can stop a person’s social media scroll and draw them into the post. Studies have found that graphics used in social media posts directly influence engagement metrics. This can lead to an increase in:

• Comments
• Likes
• Shares

Understanding Visual Hierarchy

In order to understand what makes a graphic engaging and visually appealing, it’s important to understand how a person sees it. And that doesn’t mean what personal opinions they bring to it but how they physically see the work.

Regardless of whether a person is looking over your socials on a phone, or a laptop or while waiting for the bus or on a train to work they are going to have a similar experience. That’s because we see things in a visual hierarchy.

That means that we might look at an image as a whole but we see it across various elements. When our eyes first hit an image we view it in sections:

• Section 1 –  This encompasses the primary graphic elements of the piece like the fonts (this bold headline) and primary colors (often brand specific). 
• Section 2 – Next your eye will travel around the piece and pick up any smaller points of copy (like subheads or body copy). You’ll also see a secondary color palette (often secondary brand colors or supporting colors used in a newer way).
• Section 3 – All of the other visual elements of the piece including the background fall into this third visual zone. 

Designers understand this and will use it to guide a visitor through an experience which, in social terms, is simply understanding and interacting with a story.

The Importance of Data to Design

That understanding of the relationship between a viewer isn’t based on intuition. It has real data behind it, data gathered from:

• Heatmaps – This is a testing process that can be accomplished with specialized equipment that analyzes where a person is looking on screen. There is also a sub-set of this process that tracks the areas on screen that a person interacts with. It goes beyond clicks to see what you are hovering over, how you scroll a page, and the path that your mouse takes.
• A/B Testing – With A/B testing you have two versions of a graphic. You would put each into an identical situation “environment” (such as using Graphic A in a social post that goes to part of your feed and then using that same post, only with Graphic B, with the other half of your feed). This allows you to gain an understanding of how your followers react to each image. The goal of the test being that whichever gets the better reaction will be the image you will use for your broader social media campaign.

These tests do not need to happen exclusively either. Using them in combination provides an even more accurate understanding of which graphic is better received and why.

Fitting Your Graphic to the Platform

Just because you can take a graphic you have already and throw it into a social media post doesn’t mean that you should. Every social channel has its own specific personality, style and unique specifications. Matching your graphic to those is something that a follower might not immediately pick up on but they will certainly notice if the graphic feels out of place because you didn’t spend the time to get it platform-perfect.

The “requirements” for some of the leading social media platforms include:

• Instagram – Insta is a highly visual platform. If you are going to tell a story in a post, let your graphics and images do it. 
• Facebook – Graphics you create on Facebook should speak to the widest possible audience. When possiblem include some unique identifiers as they are likely to be shared.
• LinkedIn – On this business-focused platform, users are looking for professional graphics that are heavy on information vs. creativity. 
• X – On X, one of the keys to engagement is being able to leverage trending hashtags. This can be done in the content of the post and you can include them in your graphic assets. This won’t appear in a search, but they will catch the eye of a scroller.
• TikTok – When it comes to creating graphics for social media, TikTok might be the outlier. That’s because on this video-right site, still graphics won’t cut it. You need enticing motion graphics that can be incorporated into your video content. 

How to Use YouTube Thumbnails

While YouTube isn’t generally considered social media, there is an argument to be made that it is part of that family. So when you think about how graphics are used there, consider the first thing you see on the site. Yes it’s a video platform but every video is represented by a uniquely created graphic thumbnail. You could just pull a still from the video and make that your thumbnail or you could create a wholly unique graphic that will bring scrolling to a screeching-halt. Do this with:

• Colors – Bold colors, with a little contrast, help in creating effective YouTube thumbnails that stand out.
• People – Adding people to your thumbnail humanizes your video.  
• Font – This is an often overlooked design choice but its importance can not be overstated. If a person can’t read something because the font is not practical, you run the risk of losing a follower/customer.
• Brand Assests – Always remember that just because you put your YouTube video on a branded company Youtube page that doesn’t mean that’s where people will watch. Branding your video is an important way to provide identification to the viewer. Wherever they are watching.

While considering who you will promote your video with graphics, it’s also important to look at how you might produce the video. If, due to time or economics, you can’t work with a video production company you might want to look into opportunities with an AI video generator. These tools can utilize features to improve the production timeline (and quality) of your next video.

As an example, if you used an AI tool that had been trained on all of the particular aspects of your company’s brand and voice you could quickly spin up an AI-driven voice over to include in a video for social media. The advantage is that this improves your reaction time, enabling you to jump in on a social trend before it passes.

Now that you have a better understanding of what makes a good graphic to use in a social media campaign, let’s look at three things that you can do to create one.

1.Focus on User Experience

A meme-like image of a cat with lasers coming out of its’ eyes might draw negative responses on LinkedIn but you’ll be ringing up the Instagram shares. 

It’s important to understand where your graphic will be used and what the audience looks like there. This allows you to create graphics that resonate with the users of that platform. And the results of that?

• An increase in shares and overall engagement
• Brand recognition
• Stronger message recall

Of course the downside is the need to create multiple graphics (one per platform). The question then is will a little bit of extra work upfront be worth the potential for increased engagement on the other side?

2.Choose the Design Tool for the Task

There are some great tools like Adobe Sprk and Canva that make it easy to design graphics for use on social media. Two of the key benefits they provide are:

• Templates that can help you kick-start your design process.
• Collaboration settings for team engagement.

I have used Canva on a number of projects and found it to be easy-to-navigate and very efficient. It also streamlines the review process thanks to the collaboration component.

3.See What Everyone Else is Doing

A key step in the design process is investigation. Take some time to see what others in the industry are doing and then do the same for other brands. What you are looking for is to see what works, what doesn’t, what types of graphics make you say “I wish I did that, and which ones make you click away fast.

This is a great way to get a sense of what your competition is up to and what graphic expectations are being set for consumers.

Getting the Most Out of a Template

Design templates, which can often be found at no cost, have some amazing benefits:

• They can be used to jumpstart your creativity.
• They are huge time-savers.
• People with limited design skills can create professional-level graphics.

Template libraries can be found in Canva, Crello, and Adobe Spark. 

Don’t Take a Template “As-is”

Remember to use a template as a starter for your social media graphics. If you don’t you run the risk of putting out a graphic that essentially looks exactly the same as someone elses. And a perceived lack of originality can be a big negative to customers.

To avoid that, customize the:

• Colors
• Fonts
• Messaging

By doing so you’ll create a perfect representation of your unique brand identity.

Two Ways To Use Design Templates 

There are two types of social media graphics that you can almost always use a design template for:

1. Infographics
2. Sales/Promotions

The goal of both of these is to present information in a clear, precise manner. There’s no need to get overly creative with something like enrollment numbers.

But What About…

Myth #1: People Will Trust What They See When We Show All Available Information

If you cram all of the detail of a topic into a graphic, all you will do is confuse people. Yes that detail should be made available but only add a fact or two into the graphic and then direct people to where they can find all of the supporting information.

The graphic should be part of the message, not the whole thing.

Myth #2: Only Professional Design Programs Can Create Professional Graphics

Ten years ago that might have been the case but today you don’t need to invest in software liscenses to create simple, professional-looking graphics. Platforms like Canva can give you the templates and tools you need at an affordable price.

What Are the Tech Specs I Need to Know

Every platform will have slightly different requirements for images you want to post. Before you start designing find out what the:

• File type
• Resolution
• Size

need to be and then design to those specifications. 

Understanding these details will help to ensure that your social media graphic loads efficiently and looks consistent across all devices.

Set Your Design Strategies

Consistency or Innovation

Both are important but which should you focus on in your design? 

Innovation helps your company to stand out but consistency can build brand recognition.

Innovation is an attention-grabber while consistency marks that people know what to look for and who to trust when they need your products and services.

Should We Listen to Feedback?

On a very basic level you are using a social media graphic to “talk” to your customers. If they are not getting the message, either because they don’t understand it or don’t like the way it is presented, it’s important to know that. And act on it. After all, you don’t want to lose customers because they told you something wasn’t working and you didn’t listen.

Putting It All Together

Social media use is growing exponentially and if you’re not making the most of the opportunities it holds you are throttling your business growth. With the information and guidance in this post you should now be able to overcome any concerns you had about using graphics on social media. So grab a design template from Canva (or a similar platform) and get posting!