Social Media Visuals: Crafting Compelling Images

Social Media Visuals: Crafting Compelling Images

Visual content is essential for cutting through the noise on social media.

With so much competing for audience attention, images and videos that instantly capture interest can mean the difference between a post being seen or overlooked.

This guide will explore best practices for creating and sharing engaging social media visuals.

The Power of Visuals

There’s no denying the power of visuals in digital communications. Consider these statistics:

• 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual
• Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text by the brain
• Posts with images see 2.3x more engagement than those without

In the ubiquitously busy, endlessly scrolling world of social media, visuals give content a fighting chance to connect.

Well-conceived images speak directly on a visceral, emotional level. They transcend barriers of language and background, conveying messages universally through shape, colour, framing, and recognisable symbols.

Let’s examine specific tactics to leverage visuals for better social media outcomes.

The Importance of Visual Identity in Social Media

Maintaining a consistent visual identity across varied platforms is essential for brand recognition. Elements like logos, specific fonts, and signature colour palettes play significant roles.

Brands such as Apple and Nike have mastered the art of visual coherence. Their imagery is instantly recognisable due to a well-curated aesthetic that supports their overall brand message.

Having a unified visual presentation helps build customer trust. It reassures users what to expect and aligns their perception with the brand's values. Such consistency is essential for fostering a loyal customer base, which sees alignment between visual representation and brand ethos.

How Visuals Help Brands Achieve Their Goals

So why has visual social media content become a must for modern brands? Compelling images and video help companies:

• Increase reach & awareness – Videos and images spread rapidly through social sharing and recommendations
• Tell their story – Visuals put a relatable, human face on a brand by highlighting company culture, employees, or behind-the-scenes glimpses.
• Educate customers – Demonstration videos and informational graphics clearly explain or showcase products.
• Drive conversions – Product imagery, styled lifestyle photos, and video testimonials nudge viewers towards becoming customers
• Build engagement – Interesting, fun visuals prompt reactions and discussion from followers.

In an increasingly crowded digital landscape, eye-catching imagery is essential for brands striving to achieve their growth objectives. The rest of this guide will explore best practices for creating standout visual content.

Brands can integrate user-generated content by encouraging participation through social media contests or challenges. These initiatives often result in authentic content that resonates well with broader audiences.

VW’s famous “Think Blue” campaign effectively used customer-created content to enhance engagement and boost ecological awareness.

Such integration not only enriches content variety but also cultivates a community feel. Recognising users' contributions by featuring their content alongside branded materials enhances user interaction.

This recognition can significantly boost brand loyalty and audience engagement, whether through a simple mention or a dedicated feature.

Crafting Shareable Social Media Images

Imagery for social sharing should be created or curated with the platform, audience, and goals in mind.

Image Types

There are three main visual formats to choose from:

• Photos: Real-world pictures captured by the camera
• Illustrations: Hand-drawn or computer-generated artwork
• Infographics: Data visualisations combining text, charts, and graphic elements

Image Subjects

Almost anything can be fodder for compelling social visuals, but some common subjects include:

• People, especially faces that viewers can relate to
• Animals – cute, funny, or intriguing
• Food – beautifully plated or decadent-looking
• Nature – landscapes, seascapes, flowers
• Cityscapes – architectural marvels or street scenes

Whimsical, emotional visuals also tend to attract high engagement.

Image Composition

• Use the Rule of Thirds – Mentally divide images into nine equal parts with two vertical and horizontal lines, placing key focal points along these lines or intersections.
• Lead the eye – Use diagonal lines, framing, contrast, perspective and other techniques to take the viewer on a visual journey.
• Simplify – Remove any distracting or unnecessary details so the subject immediately draws focus.
• Use negative space – Blank areas around and between subjects can increase the impact.

Image Text

Overlaying text on photos can make the message more explicit, but it’s wise to follow a few rules:

• Keep text short and readable at small sizes
• Use high-contrast colours between text and background
• Make text pop with shadows, outlines or interesting alignments
• Don’t cover critical parts of the image

Now, let’s look at tailoring visuals for specific social platforms.

Advanced Tools for Creating Visual Content

Graphic design professionals often turn to a suite of advanced tools to enhance their content quality.

Adobe Creative Cloud stands out with its comprehensive offerings, including Photoshop for photo editing and Illustrator for vector designs. These applications allow for detailed customisation and high-level creativity.

Canva Pro offers a user-friendly interface with vast template libraries and collaborative features ideal for teams. Meanwhile, Figma is gaining traction for creating interactive designs and prototyping.

Its real-time collaboration and cloud-based platform are particularly appealing for remote teams. Using these tools helps creators produce impactful visuals that align with varied content strategies.

Beyond desktop solutions, mobile apps like Snapseed and VSCO are invaluable for on-the-go editing. These apps offer advanced editing features rivalling desktop software, empowering creators to refine content directly from their smartphones.

This accessibility ensures that high-quality visuals can be produced and shared in real time, enhancing agility in content strategy.

Optimising Images for Key Platforms

Understanding the types of images that garner engagement on each site allows creators to customise content accordingly.

Facebook

As the largest social network, Facebook serves various ages, interests and backgrounds. Smart Facebook image strategies include:

• Portraits of people – Photos showing authentic moments genuinely connect.
• Behind-the-scenes images – Show people, processes and places usually unseen for intrigue.
• Employee spotlights – Let audiences relate personally to the humans behind businesses.
• User-generated content – People identify with real customer photos and videos.
• Photo albums – Tell an ongoing or episodic visual story, and multiple images can narrate.

Facebook displays image posts at 16:9 horizontal. Landscape images fit natively without cropping.

Ideal Facebook Image Size:

• Feed Post: 1200 x 630 pixels
• Stories: 1080 x 1920 pixels vertical

Instagram

Instagram is now used by those 18-29 who skew toward inspirational, beautiful, envy-inducing images. Ideal visuals here might incorporate:

• Influencer collaborations
• Products styled in context
• Aspirational settings and tableaus -Unique perspectives of recognisable objects
• Variations on popular meme formats

Instagram's main feed image posts appear to be 1:1 square. To avoid cropping, original images should be 1080 x 1080 pixels.

Stories appear full screen at 9:16 vertical. Create mobile views in 1080 x 1920 pixel dimensions.

X (Twitter)

The text-focused platform still rewards stellar visuals, making posts more scannable and shareable. Some solutions include:

• Infographics
• Data visualisationsThought-provoking iconography
• Memes
• GIFs

In the main X feed, horizontal rectangle images 16:9, like 1200 x 675 pixels, display best.

For cards, 3000 x 15732 pixels fills the full expanded card display.

YouTube

YouTube square thumbnails display at 446 x 252 pixels. This small size means strong, recognisable visuals are essential. Faces, striking text contrasts, and bright, contrasting colours make the best impressions.

Pinterest

On the visual discovery engine Pinterest, vertical 2:3 images at 1000 x 1500 pixels best fill the columnar content feeds. Appealing food photography and unique DIY project images gain high engagement here.

Strategies for Sharing Excellent Social Visuals

Beyond crafting excellent stand-alone images, sharing them effectively greatly multiplies impact. Here are methods for getting the most traction from great visual social content.

1. Enhance with editing: Use photo editing tools to refine images before posting. Adjust lighting colours and apply stylish filters. Subtle improvements go far in digital spaces.
2. Add textures and elements: Layering custom graphics like textures, shapes, and lines atop photos adds artistic flair that helps stand out.
3. Animate with cinemagraphs: Blurring partial movement in mostly still images creates magical cinemagraph GIFS that mesmerise viewers.
4. Share natively when possible: Post videos directly on platforms instead of links to maximise views and limit friction.
5. Try embedded posts: Share content from one social profile seamlessly on another using embedded posting rather than screenshots.
6. Give context in captions: Craft captions that explain what viewers see, why it matters and how they can respond.
7. Tag collaborators and locations: Social handles and geotags credit contributors, which can expand reach.
8. Use relevant hashtags: Include hashtags on topics depicted and emotions evoked to reach interested audiences.
9. Post consistently: Share visual content regularly to stay at the top of your mind while continuously optimising based on performance.
10. Comment and engage: Respond when audiences react and keep the conversation flowing. @ mention those interacting for value and visibility.

Now, let’s analyse the data around performing visuals.

Video Marketing Methods for Social Media

Video has exploded across all social platforms in recent years. YouTube popularised video sharing and is now second only to Facebook globally. With video comprising 82% of internet traffic by 2024, per Cisco, it's a critical visual medium for brands.

Types of Videos Viewers Love

What video formats help companies achieve social media marketing objectives? Consider these high-performing options:

• Product Demo Videos – Showcase product features and functional benefits
• Behind-the-Scenes Footage – Capture work culture, team events, office space
• Expert Educational Videos – Thought leaders provide how-tos, tips, tutorials
• Customer Testimonial Videos – User reviews build credibility and trust
• Annual Recaps – Review major company milestones and achievements
• Relevant Hashtag Challenges – Entertaining riffs on viral meme trends
• Live Videos – Real-time announcements and Q&AS foster connection with audiences

Best Practices for Social Media Video

Follow these tips when producing video assets for social channels:

• Lead with compelling visuals – Captivate viewers immediately to maximise watch time
• Convey authenticity – Position actual employees and customers instead of actors
• Share company personality – Let humorous, heartfelt moments shine through
• Ensure high-quality capture – Use HD equipment; improve lighting, stability, and framing
• Get straight to the point – Hook attention within 10 seconds; wrap up within 90 seconds if possible
• Boost viewability – Add subtitles, captions, and audio descriptions for accessibility
• Include Calls-to-Action – Provide relevant next steps for viewers
• Cross-promote videos – Share previews across other social channels to maximise viewership
• Analyse performance insights – Track view counts, completion rates, clicks, and engagement

Optimising Imagery and Video for Key Platforms

While many best practices apply broadly, brands should fine-tune visual content for each primary social site's audience, algorithms, and display environments.

Adapting Visual Content for Different Cultural Audiences

Visual content can significantly benefit from cultural awareness and adaptation. McDonald's, for example, customises its visual campaigns according to regional preferences and cultural nuances. Attention to these details ensures that content resonates broadly, despite differing cultural backgrounds.

Cultural symbols, colour meanings, and local trends should inform visual strategies. Where possible, regional teams should be involved in translating cultural contexts into visual elements effectively.

This practice ensures that content respects cultural boundaries and uses them for enhanced relevance and appeal. Adapting visuals in this manner increases acceptance and positive engagement across various markets.

Facebook

With roughly 3 billion monthly active users (Q4 2023), Facebook remains the king of social media. It offers extensive reach, particularly among older demographics.

• Play to strengths: Personal connections, life events, news consumption
• Ideal video length: Up to 5 minutes
• Image dimensions: 1200 x 630 pixels

Instagram

Instagram is seeing explosive growth, nearing 2 billion users drawn to its photo/video-first experience.

• Play to strengths: Aspiration, inspiration, behind-the-scenes trends
• Ideal video length: Up to 120 seconds
• Image dimensions: 1080 x 1080 pixels

YouTube

YouTube fuels 2.7 billion monthly logged-in viewers with boundless video content possibilities.

• Play to strengths: Entertainment, learning, problem-solving
• Ideal video length: 8 minutes or less for casual viewing
• Thumbnail dimensions: 1280 x 720 pixels

TikTok

TikTok feeds addictive short videos to over 1 billion monthly active users, skewing young.

• Play to strengths: Humour, challenges, trends, music, creators
• Ideal video length: 3 to 60 seconds
• Thumbnail dimensions: 720 x 720 pixels

Additional platforms like X, Pinterest, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and more boast hundreds of millions of active users: research optimal creative directions, video lengths, and image sizes for each.

Common Pitfalls in Visual Content Creation

Mistakes in visual content creation can dilute brand messaging and engagement. Overcrowding images with text is a standard error that can overwhelm viewers. Another frequent misstep is producing low-resolution visuals, which can detract from a brand's professional appeal.

High-quality images that align with brand identity are essential; poor alignment can confuse and alienate audiences.

For example, colours that clash with established brand palettes might undermine brand recognition. Balancing content elements and ensuring each piece fits the larger strategy is necessary for maintaining brand coherence.

Another frequent oversight is ignoring the target audience's preferences. Without considering what viewers find appealing, content might miss the mark, leading to low engagement.

Tools like social media insights can provide valuable audience data, guiding more targeted visual content creation that aligns with audience interests and maximises impact.

Top-Performing Visual Content Tactics and Examples

Social listening and analytics make clear which visual strategies engage most. Some current trends in excellent-performing visual social content include:

Measuring Social Media Visuals Performance

It's vital for brands to closely monitor how visual assets perform after publication across social sites. Key performance indicators reveal what works and misses the mark, so future initiatives improve.

Key Metrics to Track

Review these analytics to guide decisions:

• Engagement Rate – Likes, comments, shares divided by total viewers
• Views – Raw view count for videos and image carousels
• Completion Rate – Percentageof video viewed through to the end
• Link Clicks – Tap-throughs from images/videos to linked destinations
• Responses – User-generated visual content with brand hashtags

Compare performance by asset types, topics covered, product features highlighted, captions used, calls-to-action included, and more. Look for patterns informing what resonates best with each community.

Key Takeaways

Social media visuals represent an invaluable opportunity for brands. The imagery captures attention rapidly, and the video immerses viewers in messages.

Compelling photos and videos can boost awareness, highlight products appropriately, communicate cohesive stories, engage followers, drive conversions, and convey authenticity at scale when optimised effectively for each platform.

As adoption grows across new sites like Snapchat, brands must continually evolve visual content strategies. Creative, thematically relevant visuals will only increase in importance as more flashy distractions compete for finite user mindshare. Companies need to both harness trends and nurture their unique identities.

Visual social promotion requires planning, creativity, production resources, careful distribution and diligent performance tracking. However, brands willing to fully leverage imagery and video can realise tremendous dividends.

FAQS About Social Media Visuals

Here are answers to five common questions about maximising the power of visual content on social platforms: