Social Media Visuals: How to Easily Create Visuals Without a Designer

Do you use visuals in your social media?

Want tools and tips to help you create images?

To discover how to create great social media visuals when you're not a designer, I interview Donna Moritz.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode I interview Donna Moritz. Donna is a visual marketing expert, and her blog Socially Sorted was recognized as one of Social Media Examiner's Top 10 Social Media Blogs in 2015 and 2016.

Donna will share why social media marketers should care about visuals.

You'll discover what to consider before you design images for social media and learn about new tools to help you.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Social Media Visuals
Why care about visuals?

Because the news feed is so busy these days, Donna explains, marketers need to do everything they can to capture attention. She says visuals catch that attention and typically drive users to take some sort of action because visuals support an emotional connection.

Donna points out that the fastest-growing channels such as Periscope and Snapchat are highly focused on visual content, as are Instagram and Pinterest. She also notes that traditional platforms Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are giving more attention to visual content and users are 44% more likely to engage with content that contains pictures.

Video is also on the rise, Donna adds. Socialbakers research shows that brands are now uploading more video directly to Facebook than YouTube, and about 80% of all video engagement is coming from Facebook native video. And that's before Facebook Live is really being measured. Plus, she says, 110 years of video footage is watched on Periscope every day.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, out of a range of priorities for content creators, visual content is in the top three.

Visual content is a very important topic because it works. Marketers just need to find out where to start and how to produce and use images efficiently.

Listen to the show to discover the current standard image format and how image sizes have changed.

Getting started with images

Before you start to design images, Donna says you need to think about what types of visual content get shared well on which platforms. Content that's effective on Facebook might be different from what works on Instagram, which might be different from Twitter.

She's seen people get overwhelmed trying to do visual content on every platform, and advises that it's better to focus on visuals for one particular platform at a time. She also cautions that you shouldn't jump into visuals on a new platform until you have systems in place for visuals on the one before it.

Donna shares her Visual Content Blueprint, which is five elements to help you create images that work.

First, decide what the image is going to be in regards to what works on the targeted platform (more on this later). Then consider the call to action. It could be asking for more connection or engagement (likes or comments), driving more shares or click-throughs, or a combination.

Next, think about your landing content (where people arrive when they click through or share). Will people get more information, blog content, a free download, or something else of value?

After that, make sure users are achieving some sort of goal. Do you want them to sign up for something, read a blog post, or stay on your website?

Donna recommends that every image be able to stand alone. That way, if something is pinned or shared out of context, people will still understand what you're offering and how to get it.