In a world where everyone has a voice online, it can be hard to make your brand stand out and create a visual impact. A recent study by Microsoft Corp. found that people now generally lose concentration after eight seconds, less than that of a goldfish with nine, so stay with me here…
Creating content that is immediately engaging to your audience, whether on your website or social channels, can be a daunting prospect. Let me share some of my top tips on how to cut through the noise and ensure your voice is not only heard, but remembered!
Create a logo for your digital platforms
Let’s talk about branding. In order to strengthen your online presence, your brand needs to work across all of your digital channels. You may need to think about creating logo variations for use on social media platforms where logo size is restricted.
For example, logos displayed on Instagram pages are shown within a circle. Ask yourself if your current logo works within this shape. If the answer is no, you may need to alter the layout to better fit the dimensions. To illustrate this, here are some examples of brands who use differing logos for maximum online impact:
Waitrose uses its primary green and white logo on their website. They use a logo variation on their Instagram page with a vibrant green background to be more eye-catching for this audience.
Holland and Barratt also have a different social logo. They abbreviate the full logo seen on their website to ‘H&B’ to better fit the space for maximum appeal.
Topshop uses a photographic image behind their logo to be more visually appealing to Instagram audiences.
It’s important that you don’t create a completely different logo. Keeping fonts and colours consistent will ensure brand recognition allowing you to have multiple logos fit for every platform for maximum visual impact online.
Consider the quality of your images
Using low-resolution imagery that looks pixilated and grainy can be really detrimental to the visual impact you make online. Audiences don’t have time to waste on low-quality content and will simply ‘unfollow’ or disengage with you if they feel you aren’t credible.
Make sure any imagery you use is sharp when viewed online. If you don’t have any suitable brand imagery currently, using stock imagery is a good alternative. There are some great websites offering free stock imagery such as Pexels and Unsplash. Take time to choose imagery that you feel is reflective of your brand.
Take engaging photography
Selecting the right photography to use alongside your messaging is essential to keeping your audience interested. But what makes a good photo? Aside from lighting and composition, getting your subject right is key to success.
Real-life shots tend to be more engaging than obviously staged ones. Include some ‘behind the scenes’ photos to appear more genuine.
Take close up pictures of your products, this works well with food to give your audience a multisensory experience. You can almost taste the doughnuts in the image above as the camera zooms in on the detail.
Think about the colour in the frame, is there enough to captivate an audience? Try including some red, yellow or orange in your shots. These are classed as dominant colours because they reach your eye first and therefore are best to grab attention.
Lastly, try to convey your brand’s personality within your photos. Include fun shots that are less corporate and show who you really are. This will make you more relatable to your audience.
Say it with icons
As they say, a picture paints a thousand words! Icons can be used to not only add interest to your online content but to make it easier to navigate. Users will often scan pages of text, so breaking it up with icons can be a great visual cue to help them quickly locate the content that is of interest. It’s important to keep your icon design simple and in line with your brand look and feel.
Use a template
It can be difficult to keep up with the demands of social media with audiences wanting new content on a daily basis. Creating awesome content shouldn’t be rushed, so using templates can help with your output. Using a templated approach keeps your brand imagery consistent and saves you time.
So how do you do this? You may have seen posts displaying memorable quotes, facts, thoughts and questions. These can be a great way to interact with your audience by providing bitesize snippets of information that are easy to digest. Sharing content in this way helps to create a dialogue with your online community. To get started try using one of these free templates from Hubspot.
Don’t forget video
Video is a powerful tool for getting your message out there. According to Insivia, viewers retain 95% of the content when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text. So instead of listing all of the stats you need to know here, check out this video by Bitable.
Remember to keep your videos short and snappy, as videos under two minutes long get the most engagement. It’s also important to make your videos mobile-friendly, with the majority of viewers watching video content on their mobile phones.
Written by Victoria Fairbank, Creative Director at Fairbank Design – A Cheltenham-based design studio delivering designs with added WOW factor, helping clients stand out from the crowd. Have a project in mind? Talk to Victoria.
