Designing Scroll-Stopping Content

On this episode of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business, Samantha Scott, APR, is joined by Bethany Chadwick Cordero, Graphic Designer at Pushing the Envelope.

Together, they discuss the art of crafting scroll-stopping content for social media, exploring the importance of visuals, platform-specific designs, and strategies to capture attention quickly. They delve into practical tips for maintaining brand consistency, using high-quality images, and leveraging free design tools.

Have a question or feedback to share? Visit www.getpushing.com or one of our many social media channels. We look forward to hearing from you.

#marketing #business #communication #strategy

Transcript

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Hi, I'm Samantha Scott, APR. Welcome to another episode of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business, a podcast brought to you by Pushing the Envelope. Today we are talking scroll-stopping content, how to design for social media, and I am joined today by the one and only Bethany. Hi everyone, it's good to be here, and I'm excited to be talking about all things design, social media. It's gonna be good. Bethany is our very talented graphic designer, and she's got a wealth of background and experience, so she's the perfect person to talk about this particular topic. So we're first going to talk about social media in terms of design matters and the role that visuals play. And I think this is a really interesting concept because social, in my opinion, was created for people to create and kind of nurture social interactions, but now it's become this kind of feast for the eyes. It's so much more than just the content, but it's how it's presented. Exactly. So today we're going to talk about kind of what this means in terms of platform specific designs, how to create that content that really captures attention. You know, the average attention span, I think, is less than three seconds, which scientists say is the memory of a goldfish. I don't know how they know that. But either way, you got to get the point across really fast. And make sure that you capture someone's attention long enough to communicate what it is that you can provide to them and hopefully hook them and get them interested. So, Bethany, why don't you take it away? So, yeah, to kick it off, I think social media is such an important piece of a brand's online identity in general. I think for a lot of us, that's our first touchpoint with a brand. That's where we go to engage with our favorite brands or discover new brands is through social media. And I think it's something that brands really need to leverage and really put a lot of thought into the kind of graphics and visuals that they're putting out on social media because I think some people have the impression that it's kind of quick, scrollable content. There's not a lot of thought that needs to go into it, but really to be able to capture your audience's attention, like you said, in three seconds flat to gain new eyes on your content, you really need to make sure it's cohesive with your brand identity. It's going to catch people's attention and really have a hook to it that makes it different and stand out from all of the things that we see. Yeah and so I want to just jump on that really quickly because there's been so many developments in design over the last few years. I used to do public speaking and I remember talking about Canva and people would be like, what? And I had to spell it out. C A N V A. And they're like, this is so cool. I've never heard of this. Now everybody and their brother, it seems, is using that. But there's a danger to that too, because if you're in that space and you're leveraging that tool, good for you, that's awesome, it's a very handy resource. However, if you start using every single template that's provided to you, that may not align with your brand. And you may also run the risk of creating content that looks just like everybody else's. The other thing, and I know we're going to talk about that more later, the other thing that I want to bring up that you just mentioned is, there has to be strategy behind this. So, I love that you have a teenager who is very active on social media, but that does not mean that said teenager is going to be the best person to be producing your social media content. So, not knocking the next generation of those up and comers, you're going to be way better than me by the time you're my age, I'm most certain of it. However, right now, I would just really counsel businesses, whether you're small, medium, large, et cetera, to really be mindful about what you're putting out on content, in terms of what's the strategy, how do we want to position ourselves, what do we want to look like, what should we sound like, what emotion should this elicit, because it goes much more beyond just what's the trend to really what are we trying to accomplish and then how do we keep this aligned. So one of the first things I think we should talk about is that it is not a one size fits all. Absolutely. Yeah, I think it's a mistake to kind of take that approach, whether it's with regards to the formatting or the sizing of the different designs that you're doing. I think you need to be very conscious of the fact that, of course, for your cover images, the aspect ratios for LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube are completely different. So if you're designing something like that, you need to make sure that it's going to be a design that's going to be able to be reproduced in all different sizes. That goes as well for your social graphics. You need to make sure that they're going to also preview well on different platforms. Little things like how a Facebook carousel will show as compared to an Instagram carousel. Things like that. If you say, swipe for more, that's going to be great on Instagram, but on Facebook, since it's going to show up in a little grid, that's an immediate clue as to this is someone that lacks that extra detail and attention to notice those little things. So I think it's really important to be aware of exactly what platform you're going to be posting this content on, adjusting it accordingly, and then also keeping up to date with changes to these platforms. Social media changes so much. Instagram recently changed their aspect ratio for their grids. I think that's a great tip. You know, the one size fits all in terms of what you should or should not be posting, but also the one size fits all in terms of the content you're publishing. Because you've heard us talk on this podcast before, if you've listened about what you post on LinkedIn should not necessarily be the same thing as Instagram or Facebook or TikTok, etc. Making sure you're aware of the audiences on those channels, but also to your point, the sizing. Because if you think you can just do what I call a spray and pray and just do one post and then automatically publish that on all of them and it's going to look great, you're wrong. And that's very important as it relates to your brand and your brand's reputation, because to your point, that might give someone pause, even if it's subliminal, to be like, uh, does this company really know what they're doing, if this post doesn't look as good as it should. So, yeah, super, super important in making sure that you're using that. And I did mention Canva earlier. Canva does have presized templates. So, if you're new to this, or whoever's creating your designs is new to this, you can always take advantage of that. I would always say, to Bethany's point, just make sure you're double checking that against the best practices and standards. Meta has that available. LinkedIn has that available. All of them have those different details available to you. Yeah, and I think, to your point about Canva as well, especially if you're a newcomer to design, I think it's a great tool for people to kind of get started with it. If you're using it more as a resource for inspiration, or to find different images, I think it can be a great tool for that, but like Samantha was saying, it's good to be cautious of using templates that are just pre formatted, because those can be really generic. And I think we've all seen that before, where you're kind of scrolling through and you see something that you're like, I think that was made on Canva. Like, it's got a certain quality to it that you can kind of spot it. So, if you are going to use it, just make sure that you are really altering your templates to fit your brand guidelines, which is something we'll get into later a bit more as well. Yeah, really, really important, though. There is that kind of balance of like what's going to be eye catching and cool. And if you're a law firm, you might be like, ugh, I don't know what I can do. But there are ways to do that successfully. So let's get into how do we actually create scroll-stopping content. First impressions matter, of course. I touched on that a little bit. You got to capture the eye, capture the emotion, and that could even be capturing the ears sometimes if you're using sound. Absolutely. Yeah, I think one of the really important pieces of having that kind of scroll-stopping content is making sure you have really strong visual hierarchy. So that's making sure that your text is highly legible. You've got a contrast between your header text, your subheader text, and then a CTA, call to action, call to action. So make sure you have those pieces all well balanced so that when a person's looking at your content, they're not like, what do I look at first? Do I look at the image? Do I look at the header? Do I look at the CTA? Once you have that clear visual hierarchy, it makes it easy for the reader to look at the post and digest the content the way you want them to. So I think that's super crucial is making sure you have strong visual hierarchy. Another big part of that is making sure you use high quality photography or graphics. That's super, super crucial. I think like you were saying earlier, you kind of lose trust in a brand if you see that their content doesn't look as good as you want it to. And a part of that is if they have pixelated imagery or they've been using the same photography for several years. That's when it's kind of time for a refresh and to make sure you're still keeping people interested. I want to jump back to what you were talking about with the typography. I would simplify that by saying, get to the point. Get the most important message across first. That has to be the biggest, the boldest, the most direct. And then, if somebody's captured, they're interested, they'll read the rest of it. But make sure you're getting that point across. Don't bury the lead. You know, I learned that lesson through PR, but it translates really well on social as well because you want to make sure that people understand exactly what it is that you're trying to get across to them very, very quickly and capture their attention. The other thing is that graphic design isn't just static, right? So another way to really capture people's attention, which has just really become paramount, I would say, especially in the last year or 18 months, is incorporating movement. So that could be moving text. It could be using B roll or kind of like a static video in the background. It could be actually using video content instead of a flat or static design. Yes, definitely. It's been shown that video is a lot more engaging for people, and it gets higher engagement, more interaction, and that really also helps catch people's attention, too, because if they're scrolling through a very static grid, and then all of a sudden there's that movement, it does catch people's attention. So, like Samantha was saying, whether that means you're doing a simple kind of motion graphic of the text, or you're having some kind of video playing in the background, those little things can really make a difference in making your content stand out. So some other little tips there, too, would be think about contrast. That could be contrast in color, but also maybe it's a contrasting image. I will admit, I did not actually click, but I did see a really compelling clickbait post yesterday. The image did not go with the headline of the post, and then, of course, I had to read the rest of the post, and then I realized at the end of it, I'm like, okay, this is very clearly clickbait. But you could consider that, if it's within your brand guidelines, too, of creating something that's really conflicting, and just really would be catching somebody's attention. Be like, wait, what? They said don't do what? When you know that's the right thing to do or something like that. So keep in mind some creativity in that as well. I think that's part of the conversation too, of not being generic. Like, you want your content to stand out. So, like if you're doing work for a medical client, for example, you don't always have to just have medical kind of imagery as your photography. Think a little bit more outside of the box and maybe if it's women's health center have a woman laughing. If you think a little bit more outside of what's going to catch people's attention, because people maybe don't want to see medical machinery or things like that, I think those are the things that also will really bring people to interact with your content. Don't always have the obvious text or the obvious imagery so that people are kind of enticed to learn more. Yeah, you brought up a really great point there in terms of emotion, right? So we're talking about brand standards and guidelines and colors and fonts and all of those things are important, but ultimately we're trying to elicit emotion and create a behavior change. Make people take a certain action. Watch it completely, click on it, take an action. That reminds me of an example I saw where a professor was showing an example of a non smoking ad, that's what it was trying to promote, and it was a pregnant woman, and it said, this cigarette caused this person to lose her life and her child's life. And the whole intention of this campaign was to get people to stop smoking. But what actually happened was it made people smoke more, if they were already smokers, because they felt sad. They felt bad. That was the emotion. And so it had the opposite effect. They didn't take that into account when they were creating this because if a smoker feels sad, they go to the thing that gives them comfort. So really keep that in mind, put yourself in the shoes of the person that's looking at this and keep in mind what emotion are you trying to elicit, what behavior change. And it may not be exactly what you think of the first time go around. Yeah, that's where it helps, I think, to have maybe a sounding board of kind of run it by some different people and see what kind of emotion would this elicit for you. Because I think for different people that can sometimes vary. But like you said, when you saw that and you were reading about it and saw that it had the opposite reaction, I think that's really important to keep in mind is you want to make sure that your visuals are going to be representing your brand and the way you want them to, that people are going to take the action that you intended. Yeah. So we've talked a little bit about best practices, recommendations. What are some of the high level do's and don'ts from a graphic designers perspective? Let them kind of pick your brain virtually here, and share all of the best nuggets you have. So, I think there's a few that come to mind. Number one is always making sure you have highly legible text. I think that's something I notice sometimes. The design can look really great, but if the text is too tiny, or there's not enough contrast between the text and the background, immediately, to me, the design is not doing what it's intending. Design is supposed to be about communication, it's supposed to tell the story, and if the text is not legible, then that's just not working, in my opinion. And then another thing as well, kind of tying onto that would be make sure you're staying true to your brand guidelines, whether that's colors, fonts, imagery, even shapes that you're using should align with all the other aspects of your brand and your brand guidelines. That's something that I've seen brands kind of sometimes stray from, or we've all seen those grids where there's like 20 different fonts and it's very confusing and it puts you in a bit of a weird place because you're like, I don't really get this. That's a great point though, and that's something that anybody listening can do. Pull up your Instagram and look at it. Does it look like it belongs together or are there things you're like, ooh, that one doesn't really sit right. You can do the same thing on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Even YouTube, if you're, you know, publishing videos on there. How do those look, the intros, the outros? Are we consistent in really living up to that? And if not, then we need to make those changes. That's kind of a reactive way of doing that, a proactive way would be design all the content you have for the month and then look at it all together. Do these things belong together? Does one thing look like the other? You don't want to copy and paste and make them identical, but at the same time, they should look like they belong together. Yeah, double check that all of your fonts, you know, are cohesive. Really make sure that you're not introducing anything that's kind of like going to stand out in a negative way. To give Canva some credit, they have a great tool, where they have the brand kits that you can use. So if you're collaborating on a team, you can set in there the different fonts, different shapes, different logos, different colors. So then there won't be any confusion about exactly which red to use or which, you know, different font to use. And if you're not using Canva, make sure you are looking at those brand guidelines often and referring to those. And you can do that in Photoshop or InDesign as well. You can create those kind of kits if you're a more advanced designer too. Yeah, absolutely. And then I would say one other do is make sure that you're optimizing for mobile. You touched on that earlier that if you're loading a graphic, how does that cover image, for example, look on a desktop versus on a tablet versus a phone? And also keep in mind dark mode, because sometimes, whether it's email or social listings, can be impacted if the person viewing it is using dark mode versus the regular mode. And you want to make sure your graphics have the best representation as possible. Yeah, and if you're ever unsure to that point as well, if your text is going to be legible on mobile, because if you're working on this design and you've got it pulled up on a big monitor and you're not sure, always test it on mobile so you can make sure that your text is going to be legible on a phone versus a big screen. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So let's go into some of the don'ts, right? So you said all the things that you should do. What are some things that you should not do? Definitely don't use stock photos that are generic. I know different brands have different opinions about stock photography. If it's not within your brand, don't use it. We'd always suggest to not use it if you have the high quality assets to not rely on it. It's better always to use your own photography, high quality photography. And I would even interject real life photography, you know, almost everyone at this point has a smartphone that can take relatively high quality images. Leverage that, and even if they're not perfect, I'm not saying use really, really poor blurry images by any means, but even if they're not photographer perfect, if it can align with your brand and feel real, people connect with that. You know, I mentioned at the beginning, social media is created to have a social interaction with other people via the computer, phone, device, internet, right? So make it real and authentic. If you don't have the budget to hire a professional videographer or photographer right out of the gate, think about what you can do. And there's tons that you can do in terms of lighting, and audio, gimbals, all different kinds of resources that are not terribly expensive to create really great content if you're in that kind of situation. And then if you do have to use stock, like if you're just getting started, or you need some more kind of supplemental material always make sure that the stock isn't going to be generic and that it aligns as well with your brand. And that you have legal rights to use it. Also very important. I am not an attorney. I cannot give you legal advice. However, I would tell you to check the usage rights of any media that you are acquiring, whether you're paying for it or not, and just make sure you're doing the right thing. Yeah, so if you need some, a good free resource is Unsplash, that's a good one that has free stock photography. But yes, if you are going to use it, make sure you give the proper rights where you have to. And then also make sure it aligns with your brand in terms of, you know, if it's a company in Florida, don't use images with a snowy background or things that might create a bit of a disconnect. That's like a very extreme example. No, it's real. That might apply to people that work with you know, different kind of, I don't want to say franchises, but like we did work with Harley-Davidson for a while and that was a struggle for us because we had a lot of really incredible photography that Harley-Davidson corporate had taken, but it was all with like mountain backgrounds or these long empty roads or downtown cities and things like that just really didn't connect with where the dealerships were and it's a struggle. Yeah. And I think we romanticize that here in Florida, but it's definitely good to have that connection with your audience so you're not putting out a post for the Fort Myers location and then people are like, where was this taken? Right, this clearly is something corporate, something stock. Yeah, keep those things in mind whether you're working, you know, with a manufacturer, a big company, or if you are an independent. Yeah, and then another don't that I wanted to highlight was don't ignore the importance of white space, negative space in general. So give your eye room to breathe. Yes. I would say less is more in terms of text. Especially on social graphics, you really need to capture these people's attention. So keep the headlines short, keep any copy really short, and don't overload the graphic with different items. Make sure you keep it really clean. If you're ever in doubt of, do I need this element in it? Remove it, because then you don't need it. Yes, it could be like Marie Kondo, does it bring you joy? Yeah, right? Is it adding something to the graphic? If not, if it could be just the same without, then remove it. Yes, great, great advice. Okay, so, some tools and resources, because I don't like to just talk theory. Some free tools, we've already mentioned Canva is a fantastic one. Yep, Adobe Express is another one that's also free. So you can pay extra and then get more access to some of their stock and different features, but they do have a free version of that, and that's a really great tool as well. And then in terms of some paid tools, Illustrator, Photoshop, any of the Adobe suite really is really excellent. When you're trying to do more complex graphics, definitely lean on those. But Canva and Adobe Express are good just for simple things. Yeah, and there's tons of even other social media editing apps, CapCut is one that's predominantly video, but you could explore that too. There's so many available now, it's amazing. Yeah. So just some final takeaways as we wrap this up. We're talking about scroll-stopping content, how to create designs for social media that really create impact. Make sure that you're intentional with your designs. What are you trying to accomplish? What will success look like? What's the emotion that we're trying to generate? And how can we best represent the brand? So making sure that we are always in line with brand standards. That our text is very clear, legible, and on brand, that we have a very clear call to action, or CTA, and that we're using high quality content, whether that's generated on our own, or that we purchase, and that we have the rights to use it. Anything else? No, I think you covered it. And yeah, I would just encourage people to make sure you keep these things in mind. Social media design is a really important part of your online social presence and your brand presence in general, so definitely dedicate time to it and don't treat it as an afterthought. Yeah, and I would say our mantra here is less but best. So, if this feels daunting to you, that you have to spend all this time and be so thoughtful and careful about all the posts that you're trying to produce, just keep in mind, you know, your audience will tell you everything that they're looking for, and sometimes fewer posts, but really high quality will serve you so much better, so don't be overwhelmed. Well, thanks for joining me, Bethany. Great to be here. And thanks for tuning in to another episode of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business, a podcast brought to you by Pushing the Envelope. I'm Samantha Scott, APR. Thank you very much. We look forward to the next episode.