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We can all agree that social media can be quite addicting. Swipe up, up, and up until you reach the end of the feed. And while you were swiping, a bazillion new posts appear, so you’re back to where you started. But what can break the cycle? What can stop us for a second and compel us to look at the content in front of us for a little bit longer?
Social media content has to be either absolutely, groundbreakingly controversial or ecstatically visually pleasing. And while we can’t help you create good content, we definitely can help level up your social media design game.
This article will cover the following topics:
Contents
Social media design refers to the process of ideation, planning, and development of aesthetics for your social media pages. It also includes the creation of visual content that contributes to that aesthetic.
The most common types of content under the social media design umbrella include:
Brands use these formats for a variety of purposes. Businesses can use social media graphics to:
While these goals can be achieved without visuals, the use of social media graphics enhances your message. Moreover, it can potentially give it a significant boost as visual content tends to be more popular on social media. Visuals make your brand more memorable and successfully differentiate it from competitors online.
Before moving on to the more practical part of this article, let’s clarify the reasons why it pays off to invest in great design. Investing more time and resources into the quality of your social media design and other graphics has correlated to your brand’s success online.
If you think that staying away from questionable images is enough to appease the social media platform you use to promote your brand… No. There are a few more regulations to consider.
It’s important to design your social media visuals with the size guidelines in mind.
Each platform has its own rules and guidelines when it comes to image dimensions, which keep changing as the platform grows. So, it’s vital that you stay up to date with any changes.
Here are 2024’s recommended visual sizes for the top 4 most popular social media platforms: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
Top tip: Using a set of premade canvases and templates is a surefire way to always stay within the image size limit. You can either create one yourself, or turn to online graphic editors for help. All you need to do is pick the format you want to design a visual for, and the tool will offer you the right canvas dimensions automatically.
You should also account for the best colors to use on social media when planning content. Otherwise, you risk your visuals blending in with the background of the platform.
For instance, the best colors to use for Facebook visuals are warm and bright reds, oranges, violet, and golden yellows that contrast well with the platform’s signature blue and white. If you want to conquer Instagram feeds, on the other hand, opt for shades of blue, pink, and yellow.
These social media design recommendations are pretty timeless — they were relevant back in 2015, are relevant now, and will likely remain relevant in the future. Buckle up, we’re about to explore the key principles of high performing social media design in 2024 and the hottest social media design trends of the year!
Let’s briefly go over the 4 principles of successful social media design in 2024. Spoiler alert: it’s heavily video-based, customer-centric, and branded.
The first mentions of video taking over social media surfaced back in 2016 when Snapchat was at its peak and everyone aimed for that cool, casual look that could only be achieved with motion clips and Snapchat’s signature AR filters.
A lot of things have changed since 2016: Snapchat is no longer the most popular social media platform; we’ve been introduced to YouTube Shorts, everyone is on TikTok, and Instagram’s main point of focus is Reels.
In 2024, video is the format, which means your social media content plan should be enriched with video-based designs or at least feature animated elements, big or small.
If you don’t want to go all out with animation, you can simply add a couple of barely noticeable (yet impactful) animated objects — arrows, stickers, flashing effect, etc:
Alternatively, you can combine the static elements of your social media posts with video clips and GIFs.
And, if you have sufficient time and budget (since this option requires way more resources than the previous two), you can even turn to motion design.
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For your social media design to be truly customer-centric, focus on user experience above anything else. Just as mobile app UX is important in creating an app, understanding the basic principles of UX and UI in social media content is crucial. Incorporating a UX design roadmap and usability testing tools can guide the creation process, ensuring designs meet user needs effectively without relying on overused jargon or complex terminology.
The first part of the equation is pretty straightforward — design your visuals with the people who will be viewing your social media profile in mind:
However, the second part can be tricky for some: how do you make design accessible to all?
Thankfully, there are a few rules to follow:
On top of that, you also need to keep in mind that not everyone is a tech guru — some people need a little more guidance to be able to use social media and get the most out of it. Here’s an example of a LinkedIn post by Mailmodo that managed to make their visuals extremely user-oriented by including small, yet important details: an arrow and a CTA to “Swipe” to find out more, an indicator of how many slides are left till the end of the publication, a continuous line that connects different points in the copy.
Earlier in the article, we mentioned that social media design can bring your brand some extra exposure and increase brand awareness. This, however, will only be the case if you brand every visual you put out there.
This includes…
To make your social media page a bit more structured, consider developing separate templates for all the different rubrics you have in your content plan: interviews, educational content, quotes, memes, etc.
Finally, for your social media content to get noticed and potentially go viral, stay alert and be aware of the latest design trends.
To know what’s currently in, we recommend subscribing to different blogs on design, following a bunch of digital trendsetters and keeping in mind that trends come in cycles.
Pro tip: Remember that not every trend is worth adopting. You need to assess whether or not a trendy design would resonate with your target audience and be relevant to your current social media design. Being on-brand is more valuable than being a cutting-edge business (unless that’s part of your branding, of course).
And, since we’ve already touched on the topic of social media design trends, let’s look into some of the most viral ones in 2024.
We’re already nearing the final quarter of the year, so these 2024 social media design trends have been around for a while now. Nonetheless, they still remain relevant, which makes us believe they’re going to roll over to 2024 and continue to dominate any cool brands’ social media profiles.
As we said, fashion is cyclical, and the current period that’s in is the late 90s and early 2000s a.k.a. the Y2K.
Some of the must-have elements of a Y2K-inspired social media visual:
Another big part of this trend is the 2000s obsession with technology, computers, and the Internet. Which is understandable — it was all brand new back in the day.
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So, the 2000s nostalgia social media design trend is inseparable from glitch effects, cursors and search bars, 8-bit images, and Matrix-like textures.
A prominent example of an Instagram account that capitalizes on the Y2K aesthetic is Olivia Rodrigo (in fact, she’s partially responsible for the revival of this social media aesthetic).
And, if Y2K aesthetics are not up your alley, there’s an edgier alternative — the 90s grunge.
Some of the features intrinsic to this social media design style are:
Since we’ve already mentioned the 90s and the decade’s love for different textures and print, it would be unfair not to mention another social media design trend heavily inspired by print — risograph-style visuals.
Thesaurus time! Risograph is a type of printing that originated in Japan in 1946. Some of the key features that characterize riso are a limited palette of vivid colors and charming imperfections (dust, grain, scratches, etc).
Some other elements intrinsic to this design trend include funky shapes, bold fonts, or the absence of text in general.
From the previous two social media design trends, you could’ve noticed that the world has swayed away from the once so-beloved minimalism. Today, more is more.
No one does maximalism better than people in the late 60s and early 70s. So, modern social media designers borrow techniques from them:
The proof of people being done (kind of) with minimalism is the current popularity of futuristic slash 3D visuals.
Businesses and individual creators alike want to tap into the technological advancement offered today and showcase their skill.
The best way to position yourself as a cutting-edge brand is to opt for hyper-realistic social media design, which includes:
No matter which direction you decide to take with your social media design, remember to stay genuine — your audience can feel it when you’re faking coolness.
Now that you know all the secrets of successful social media design, filter out the tips that are applicable to your specific scenario and incorporate them into your work the next time you create a visual for your social media.
Valerie Kakovkina is an experienced content marketing manager and content writer with hundreds and hundreds of published articles about marketing, social media, branding, design, productivity, and sales. She loves exploring new concepts, examining new socio-cultural trends and figuring out how they can be applied to businesses to boost their sales.
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