There is a lot to say about the state of social media these days. It seems like every week there is some breaking news regarding some of our most used apps. Yet the more noise that's being made about social media, the more important it becomes to have a well-designed, and visually appealing presence.

Obviously, each platform has their own distinct aesthetics to play by, but there are still ways to set up a strategy to create amazing social media design for all your profiles. Having a beautiful social media across all of these platforms, whether for personal or business use, is a great way to bring positive attention to whatever message you're bringing to the world.

Designing a dope social media post can seem tougher than advertised. That's why we are back serving up some slick strategy and handy tips to master the process of creating stunning content!

Having  these techniques in your pocket not only will be useful for making a social media presence that stands out, but will also for accelerating workflow allowing for a ton more creative output.

But enough of the fanfare on creating delightfully dynamic social media content, let's hop on into the tips needed to elevate the game!

1. Start Planning Ahead

Waiting until the last minute to create content is no bueno!

Rushing to finish something right before the deadline usually produces results that don't live up to the full potential. That's why, having a well thought-out schedule of what and when to post will not only save tons of stress, but it will also elevate the work itself.

Setting up a social media calendar will help with visualizing the overall look and feel of the creative work. plus, getting on calendar and planning your social media design and strategy will dramatically cut down on busy work and last-minute changes.

So before you actually dive into designing and creating content, start by making a weekly (or better yet Monthly) content plan. Google Sheets and Notion app are great places to put this plan to paper, plus sets you up for the next tip.

If you're not feeling like starting from scratch on creating a calendar, Figma and Notion have amazing customizable calendar templates conveniently at your disposal. They're fantastic for actually getting on schedule and giving an idea of how the content will look once posted to your social.

With this batch of calendar resources and templates, there is no reason not to get your wonderful content planned and scheduled! For the eager beavers out there, feel free to start planning your social media now!

• Figma's IG Calendar
• Figma's Weekly Schedule Template

2. Design Now, Chill Later!

Being able to push procrastination aside can be a tough nut to crack, but knuckling down and designing content ahead of time is a great technique for polishing social media profiles.

Designing ahead of time allows you to see the complete layout before your audience ever does, which is kind of like knowing what chess moves you're playing in advance.

Figma's Instagram UI kit is an excellent option for laying chunks of content and gaining a visual of what the overall flow will look like. Doing this will ensure that your content strategy is on calendar and ready to be published.

3. Know Your Social Media Dimensions

There are few things that throw off a quality social media composition than a poorly cropped piece of content, so having them accessible – or better yet, memorized – is an easily forgotten key to making dynamite content fast.

To start, here are the most common dimensions you should keep in mind

Instagram

• Standard post: 1080x1080 pixels (1:1 ratio)
• Tall image: 1080x1350 pixels
• Landscape image: 1080x608 pixels (1.91:1 ratio)
• IGTV & Instagram story: 1080x1920 pixels (9:16 ratio)

Twitter

• Cover image: 1500x500 pixels (3:1 ratio)
• Tweeted image: 1200x675 pixels (16:9 ratio)
• Twitter Card/Shared Link: 1200x628 pixels (1.91:1 ratio)

Facebook

• Cover image: 851x315 pixels
• Facebook stories: 1080x1920 pixels (9:16 ratio)
• Timeline image: 1200x630 pixels (1.91:1 ratio)

Having charts or templates with these dimensions will ensure that you are always doodling and creating within the specific requirements. Having these requirements in your back pocket also does wonders for saving tons of time that otherwise would be spent googling correct dimensions and guidelines all the time.

4. Colors are key!

We always bring up colors because they always are that dang important! If you truly want to make a social media that stands out visually, then having a quality color scheme is instrumental.

Especially if you are trying to design a social media to boost a profile or sell a product, color is absolutely critical. According to research, color and visual stimulation is one of the leading reasons consumers choose a certain brand over another.

So as with all projects, choose hues carefully and thoughtfully!

5. Keep content consistent

A consistent style is a simple way to drastically improve a social media profile. A profile that keeps certain elements unchanging is aesthetically more appealing than one which is unpredictable.

Here are some things to think about when it comes to consistency when designing social media profiles:

• Color
• Font
• Style
• Theme
• Illustrations

Consistent style also solidifies brand identity, which means the illustrations and visual elements that are often used will become associated with the brand. People will become familiar and attached to this type of artistic similarity, which will then become ingrained and more memorable!

6. The Golden Ratio

As previously mentioned with the dimensions, formatting obviously is a mega-important part about creating a stimulating and stunning social media presence. For most social media apps, to ensure that a format is on point, following the golden ratio is a certified way to make this happen.

The golden ratio in mathematics according to Britannica is the irrational number (1 +√5)/2 or 1.618. It's a bit of like doing mind gymnastics when you first try to think about it, but the golden ratio can also be explained when a line can be divided by two in unequal lengths, the longer of the two is divided by the smaller, and the sum of the longer part plus the shorter part divided by the shorter part equals 1.618... Yeah, a bit tricky.

But the important thing to take away here is that this ratio is what creates the perfect balance and visual appeal in formatting. The composition of individual posts will look great, and the overall aesthetics will benefit as well.

7. Social Media Design Templates

All this designing and laying out of social media content can sometimes be a creative headache and extremely time consuming. Social media design templates, however, are super sweet tools that are excellent for hyper-boosting your workflow, cutting out the hassle of trying to create something beautiful from square one, and alleviating that unwanted stress of designer blockage.

Working with templates also is great for keeping everything in sync and organized. Rather than having components and content scattered about, design templates keep all the elements in one place and easy to find.

8. Elevate your social media with Illustrations

You knew we'd say it! Customizable illustrations are a snappy way to add some personality and pizazz to your social media design. They are versatile enough for essentially every type of social media, and are excellent for crafting, shaping, and forming a narrative that is necessary for stellar social media design.

Let's see your beautiful social media profile!

Within the Blush community of creators, we've already seen countless examples of social media design that are absolutely FUEGO! If you've been using illustrations and Blush to design your social media posts, tweet us, Insta us, or wherever you have your dope compositions, we would love to see them!

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