One of the most effective ways to get more bang for your buck with social media is ensuring that your posts are well designed, that appeal to your target audience and look professional. It is one of the easiest ways you can build trust with your audience and keep them coming back.

The old saying in the world of social media is that you need to keep in mind that your Page’s posts are not competing with your business competitors – it’s competing with your audience’s friends. If your post doesn’t engage your audience, they will keep scrolling and see pictures of their friend’s new golden retriever puppy.

So – what are the key things to keep in mind when designing a great post? There are a few simple rules to keep in mind with social media posts…

Keep it simple, silly!

Ensure your post has just one concept – and, ideally, less than a paragraph. Keep your message simple and to the point.
If someone needs to press ‘read more’ to expand your post, they need to be really invested in what you’ve said in the first sentence to entice them.
Having direct copy doesn’t mean you can’t add personality or warmth – but just be aware that if your post is too long or rambly, your audience will tune out.

Who ya’ talkin’ to?

The language of your posts must match your business culture and tone. How do you want your brand personified on social media?

If your business is a professional body, you may not wish to use emoticons and smileys. If you are targeting teens – you might find emoticons are essential to communicate with your audience. If you work with your clients in a personal capacity, then share personal stories. If you’re a corporate, ensure you don’t have typos to reflect that perspective.

Make sure the language you use reflects how you’d like your audience to see you.

There’s a great quiz over at Big Brand Systems to help you narrow down what your brand personality should be. It can help you determine the kind of voice you want to use in your posts.

Related Post: 7 Tools to Level up Your Small Business Social Media

Pretty as a picture

One of the key things which is easy to overlook is ensuring your image is sized to the correct size to suit each social platform you’re on. Sprout Social’s Landscape tool is a great way to size your images for each social platform in one or two clicks. If your image isn’t sized to the platform, it’s hard to read and looks messy. On top of that, with most users being on mobile, it’s really important to consider if users can zoom into your image to get information written in smaller text.
If you’re wanting to create custom images, use Canva’s design templates to help create content which looks great (affiliate link).

Related Post: The Best Free Image Sites You Need to Bookmark Immediately

Link on up

One great way to connect with your audience is to share content and links which they find relevant.
Firstly, ensure your status update associated with your link clearly states why the article is something your audience should be interested in. Share why it’s interesting, but you don’t need to give it all away. Let your audience experience the article for themselves.

However, it’s all too common that businesses share content and links without considering how it looks.
The title and description that pulls through with a link automatically might not be up to scratch. For example, there might be coding errors or bugs, which means the link looks unprofessional. Click on the title and description before posting the link, and you can edit the copy to remove any unwanted text.

Occasionally, the actual image for the article doesn’t pull through. See the screengrab below – disaster!

Instead of posting the link with a ‘broken’ image, there is a trick where you can tell Facebook to refresh the URL, so it pulls in fresh data, including an updated image. Run the link through Facebook’s Object Debugger Tool (sometimes a few times!) and the image will appear the next time you post the URL.

Right on target

One of the most effective ways to make a post shine is to really target your content. Who is your audience? What do they want? And what is your objective for this post? Some posts are designed to drive people to your site, others are designed to engage your audience and build relationships, while others are to share your business culture and to build trust.

Make sure you know why you’re posting each piece of content, and think about how it will resonate with your audience.

Font Face

A really simple way to make your posts look great is to use a consistent look and feel. If you’re creating custom content, select a set of fonts to use, or a set of colours which are your brand colours.

If you don’t have a colour palette outside of your logo, ColourLovers.com is a great place to go to come up with a colour palette. Or if you already have some set colours, but want to expand your official palette with complimentary colours, coolours.com is a neat site for this.

When choosing a set of fonts, you can use ones from your logo, or another set which is just for your social media. Feel free to select one or two fonts, but make them complimentary fonts. 

Got any other tips for creating perfect posts?

Let me know in the comments!

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Want to work with Rachel?

Rachel Beaney is a writer and social media content specialist, helping businesses connect with their audiences.

She’s worked with local, national and global companies, in addition to not-for-profits and government bodies. She loves helping businesses tell their stories with creative and data-driven solutions.

She is based in Sydney, Australia.

Want to work together? Rachel would love to hear from you. Get in touch today.