Design 101: If You Aren’t Designing for Social Media… You Should Be

If you aren’t designing your client’s inline post images for social media, you should definitely reconsider. Actually, “80% of consumers said “authenticity of content” is the most influential factor in their decision to become a follower of a brand.” Which makes a lot of sense.

As a designer, you’ve probably seen poor design work and had ideas on how to improve upon it since the poor designs cripple the credibility of the message. The same goes with your client’s social media reputation. If they don’t share beautifully designed social post inline images, then their authenticity is being stunted. Here are 3 tools you can use right away to make these beautiful social images!

Tool #1: Canva

If you’re not familiar, Canva is a great overall solution for creating quick branded social images. The major pro to this tool is that you can upload branding elements such as colors, logos, and even your own fonts. As an added benefit, you can even create custom templates or designs so you can create unified social post inline images. This tool is such a great solution because in a matter of seconds, you can create a completely branded image to share to your client’s social channels. If you don’t have much extra time on your hands but you’ve got the spare cash, use it here.

Tool #2: Adobe Post

Okay, this is some great stuff. You know that great Adobe subscription you have? What if I told you there’s a mobile app called Adobe Post you could download to make these social images on the fly? Yep, Adobe has outdone themselves again and provided an amazing app such as described for their customers. You can create a branded social image in seconds. You can choose from pre-made templates and “remixing” (modifying) them with your own text/image/colors or you can create your own images. You can even use photos straight from your phone if you’d like.

Tool #3: Adobe Illustrator

This solution will take you the longest to set up because you’ve got to create the artboards, import your logo(s), swatches, etc. but it’s the best way to go if you want pixel-perfect and unified social post inline images. This is what we primarily use here at Red Branch Media to create our social post inline images, and thanks to working with Canva, we have the perfect size for you to set all of your artboards that you can use to post to all of your social media channels. It’s 800x800px. Simply open a new Illustrator file, import your branding elements, and set up a few layouts in 800x800px artboards and give your template a save. Now you can make your own custom-branded and designed social images with full control.

Though we do use all of these tools here at Red Branch Media, it’s up to you to pick the right tool that works best for your company. Maybe it’s not just 1 tool, maybe you use Adobe Illustrator for your primary social post inline images and use Adobe Post for images on the fly like we do! Either way, these tools are powerful and will get the job done with my full recommendations. Don’t let your client’s social media reputation slip any longer! Get designing!

Kyle Christensen

Kyle is the Brand Director at Red Branch Media.

Kyle leads our Graphic Design Department at Red Branch Media. His ability to manage incoming tasks, collaborate with the design team, hit deadlines and keep our file storage system well-organized has helped to shape the design department clients love today. While he’s away from the branch, he spends his time playing drums, video games, cranking the latest emo, pop-punk and screamo songs on Spotify, drinking local Omaha brews, and enjoying life with his wife. Kyle has a BASA with a Concentration in Graphic Design and a Minor in Art History from UNO.