I manage a few social media accounts including a festival and a restaurant. Both of which have great imagery to use for social media content. They have a dropbox full of great photos and they get tagged in content constantly from customers and people that have attended their event and restaurant. The big problem that I originally had when managing the accounts wasn’t scheduling the content, that was pretty easy because the content was already there. But the difficult thing was when we had to schedule announcements. Important news, events or information that needed to be eye-catching and still fit in with the theme of the account.
Creating social media announcements can be the hardest part of content creations and social media management. You see, putting important notices like that just in a caption with a pretty picture isn’t enough. People need to be told these important messages loudly, for example, an event date change or a closed early notice. They can’t just be missed as someone is scrolling or perhaps doesn’t read captions properly. So that’s why important messages like this on social media I do with text on images and videos. It’s worth doing your research and find some posts that give you inspiration. Twitter Video Downloader is a great way of saving those posts that catch your eye. It’s really simple but can be tricky to make them stand out but still look in keeping with the brand theme. Here are three key tips for creating your own social media announcement artwork.
Background
Whether you’re using an online programme or an app, I use a really simple process. The key tip I have is to use an image that really highlights the brand. So an image of the restaurant, for example, one that really encompasses the restaurant but doesn’t have too many different colours. Try to use an image that has a block colour if possible or mostly the same colour when choosing an image. It will make it look less messy and the tet won’t fade in certain areas or be too difficult to see. Then I darken it a little with a square overlay or just darken the image slightly – nothing major and then add a border so that the text will sit within this area and means people will focus more on the text than the picture. The border colour is usually one of the main colours that the brand uses. We’re trying to keep it as in keeping with the theme of the feed as much as possible.
Font
Choosing the font can be the hardest part of the artwork, especially if the brand doesn’t have a set design framework already. You can choose a basic font from the programme that you’re using but sometimes they look really unprofessional and super basic. So you can opt for a more fancy font from somewhere like Font Bundles. Using a unique font will make the notice stand out and will help make the notice look professional. There’s so many to choose from and it will look like you’ve brought in a graphic designer to create a custom look for the brand. I’d keep the font relatively simple, stay away from loopy fonts with it’s of curls because they can be difficult to reads on social media. But that’s the joy of Font Bundles, there are so many to choose from that you’’ always find the right one for you.
Don’t forget, you can keep the font so that any future announcements all look uniform and you can use it for future brand promotion too, so things like leaflets, menus, posters… you can use the same font for all of them. When I finally do my text, I usually use a colour that comes from the brand’s logo and if that doesn’t work, on social media using white text on a coloured background usually works best.
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Logo
The final thing to remember is to add the brand’s logo to any artwork that you do. This means it can’t be stolen (or makes stealing it a little harder), it brands it so people know it’s official, and it looks professional. On top of that, if you try and use colours that come from the logo, having the logo on the artwork will tie it all in together and it will look uniform and seamless. Make it small and put it anywhere that suits, as long as it’s on there, that the main thing.
Save the image and use it as a template, so all the effort you put into this one piece of artwork will be worth it because in future you just have to amend the text. It makes os much easier and once again, means the brands online presence is professional seamless and unform. This isn’t about winning social media awards just yet, it’s about getting the basics right so the brand has a great social media foundation to build from. Happy designing!
