Creating good graphics is one of the most Important aspects to content marketing. Creating engaging and high-quality graphics is not as easy as putting some words, shapes, and pictures together. Graphics are not just videos and image that you post on social media, they take in depth thinking and a lot of trial and error before getting it right. Following these 5 steps will help you improve your company’s image and help engage more attention from your customers.
Whether you are looking at physical or digital content, the aim is to grab the viewers’ attention. With the amount of time that people pay attention to images shortening, getting the message across swiftly and effectively is crucial. They are what make up the frontline of your company, they are you! Everything from the colours, the fonts, and the images you use matter as these will draw back to your company, so it needs to be positive.
With websites out there like Canva and Figma, you do not need to be paying external companies to make your graphics for you, you can save money, increase your online engagement and learn new skills.
1. Create a good colour palette.
You want to start by looking at colour theory and the colour wheel. Colours are separated into a few segments, Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and Quaternary. We are not saying you need to use all the colours from each of these, but knowing how to use them well together, or to avoid mixing certain colours altogether is a great skill.
Now with colours being viewed differently by everyone, you need to know your audience and their cultures and how they interpret different colours, so always make sure you know who you are marketing too.
It also worth knowing what colours trigger what emotion, which ones make people feel happy and positive? Or which colours are a sign of horror and sadness? Picking the right colours will draw customers in to your business and create a memorable moment for them, make this positive. Yellow Is often associated with happiness, try applying yellow with some of your designs and measure the results. Consumers are more likely to view your advertisement and have a positive feeling
towards your brand.
Once you have broken down your audience and your colours, you want to look at the different schemes and ways to mix colours together from the colour wheel, the 3 most common ones being Monochromatic, Analogous and Complementary. Look at what you think suits your brand and your message best, it never hurts to try multiple variations and you can always ask others for their opinions.
2. Use images correctly.
Ensure that you use correct and relevant images, you want to ensure you draw people’s attention in, using blurry and irrelevant images just makes viewers look past them. You want to make sure that the images you are using alongside your graphics compliments the overall message, are clearly visible, and of high quality. You do need to be aware of image licensing though, this is important as it outlines how and where you can use certain images on the web, not paying attention to this can have serious consequences if images are used incorrectly, and could further bring legal trouble. To avoid doing so you can look at some royalty free options, some recommended sites are Unplash, Adobe and Gratisography, or even better yet use your own photos!
3. Use text wisely.
The human brain can only absorb so much information at once and too much text could be overwhelming so try and make sure you are picking the best text to put on your graphics, sometimes less is more. With a lot of social media now a days there are options to add information/bios, so if you need to add more information, you can. When working with your text make sure to take into consideration your fonts and colours as well, how easy is it on the eyes? How does the colour sit on the background? Is it easy to read? Applying these to your graphics determines how viewers eyes move around the canvas enabling you to essentially point them to where you want them to go.
4. Quality and sizing.
Make sure to choose appropriate sizing for your graphics too, Instagram specifically only works with certain sizes, the most popular being a 1:1 ratio. Not choosing the appropriate ratio or resolution can lead to images being stretched or cropped, this creates an unprofessional image of your company and people will not take you seriously. With the majority of users accessing social media through mobile apps, ensuring these sizes are correctly seen by your audience can decide whether or not you make a sale so make sure you look at this on platform to platform basis.
5. Know your audience. Taking all the previous tips into consideration, make sure to learn your audience! Changing campaigns and adapting them to your target audience can be a deal breaker, for example there is no point advertising a campaign about alcohol towards children, your sales wouldn’t increase at all! They may even decrease due to bad publicity! Look at different demographics, what age are you aiming your campaigns at? Are you predominantly aiming to sell to parent, single adults? couples? By doing your research you are helping yourself to understand your consumers and enabling you to adapt campaigns when and where you need, in turn this will boost your sales.
Taking all of these tips should help you improve your graphics to a new level but remember you cannot always stay in the same place. Graphics are just like clothes, they are ever changing and there are constantly updating trends. Going into 2023 we are looking at the return of things like clip art characters and botanical patterns, so make sure you are regularly staying up to date so that you can apply these new trends and methods into your marketing, or who knows, maybe you will even get so good you might create a new trend yourself!
Got other thoughts? I'd love to hear them!
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