7 Steps to Visually Brand Your Business on Social Media

Strong visuals are key when you’re building a brand. They have a strong impact on your audience, and typically see more engagement than text posts. Attractive, informative visuals capture the attention of your audience, prompting them to share your message far and wide.

It’s proven that images are a powerful way to build your brand, but you’ve got to know the secrets of visual branding to make use of social media as a resource. You should carefully curate the images you share – they should have a strong impact on your audience in a way that shares your company’s mission.

We’ve put together 7 steps to visually branding your business on social media.  Visual marketing can be an excellent step forward for your brand, and the following steps will help you get started in the right direction: 

Step 1: Understand the types of visual content.

Dozens of different mediums make up “visual content.” Certain mediums of visual content may work more effectively for your brand than others, so it’s important to understand what defines “visual content.”

We’ve created a list of popular mediums you may use as visual content:

• Infographics
• eBooks
• Videos
• Photographs
• “Memes”
• Quotes
• Vector Images
• Video podcasts

This list is by no means comprehensive – there are dozens of other ways you can visually brand your business. However, this list can be a great place to start as you discover which visual mediums work best for your brand.

Step 2: Define how your visual content will help your brand.

The goal of visual branding on social media is to build your audience and create a better relationship with your customers. Your visuals should work to support this goal, and it’s important that you select visual content that serves a purpose:

• How will your visual content create conversions?
• How will it serve your customer?
• How will your audience share your visual content? 

Answer these questions to define the type of visual content you should share on social media.

Step 3: Understand what makes visual content effective.

There are many factors that determine the effectiveness of your visual content. You must understand what makes visual content effective, and how you can incorporate it into your own.

Major factors of effective visual content include:

• Color choice: Certain colors have a specific impact on your customer’s emotions. For example, blue can stir feelings of trust in your audience, while green speaks to financial stability. Research color psychology to understand which colors represent which feelings, and use the right colors in your visual content.
• Font: Your font choice also plays a major role in the effectiveness of your visual content. Fonts should match the message your company and your content wish to send – you wouldn’t expect a company like Rolex to use fun, playful fonts in their visual content, and you wouldn’t expect a Fisher-Price to use serious fonts. Your font choice depends on your company and your audience, so choose carefully.
• Visual harmony: Your fonts, colors, photographs, and graphics should all work together harmoniously to create beautiful, creative visual content. Every part of your content should complement the others – not distract from them.

Step 4: Create visual content that appeals to your audience.

The right visual content for your brand depends entirely on your audience. We can’t tell you exactly what your audience will love, but we can give you a few tips to get started:

• Brand your social media pages. Create a consistent look for your visuals across all social media platforms. Use colors, fonts, and images that complement the rest of your profile and boost your brand.
• Create images for your target audience. Who is your target customer? What do they like to see in visual content? Channel their interests in your visual content.
• Re-purpose evergreen content. Old content that remains relevant can be re-purposed and used as new visual content. Turn your evergreen content into an infographic, eBook, podcast, or video to re-brand it as visual content.

Step 5: Keep platform specifics in mind.

Every social media platform has guidelines for image size. Keep your platform in mind when you create content, so you can make sure your content will fit within the guidelines. This is particularly important when you create banners and logos for your brand, as every platform differs drastically in cover/header image size.

Step 6: Use efficient design tools.

In order to create professional visual content, you must use the right tools. There are hundreds of design tools available on the web – and many are free. We’ve put together a short list of our favorite design tools to get you started:

• Canva
• PicMonkey
• Skitch
• Relay

Step 7: Promote Your Content.

After you’ve created fantastic visual content, it’s time to share it with your audience. You must have a promotional strategy in place if you wish to succeed with your visual content – by outlining your strategy, you can keep yourself on track and make sure you are meeting your goals.

Some tips for promoting your content:

• Use every major social media platform to share your content.
• Create partnerships with others in your niche in order to co-promote.
• Join outreach programs to build your audience.
• Use paid features to boost your posts, when necessary.

By following the steps above, you can use visual content to brand yourself and your company on social media. What are your tips for visual branding? Let us know in the comments below!

Read the full article here…

Photo Credit 🙂