This is a guest post by Todd Turner, the President of LogoMagnet, a custom design magnet company that produces and distributes magnets for schools, non-profits, sports teams and more.
Eye-catching logos and branding on social media pages will help your nonprofit organization gain recognition and attract traffic. Poorly designed images detract from your branding and can make your company look lazy, unprofessional and even untrustworthy. Instead, follow these design tips to create unique and cohesive logos and images that will enhance your social media branding.
1. Optimize Images Across Social Media
Make the most of your social media platforms to get your organization’s name out there. The Logo Factory explains that repetition of a logo is a huge part of what will make it successful. You can create brand recognition when your logo and branding consistently show up through your ongoing social media activity.
“You want to know why the Nike logo is so successful? Is it because it’s a ‘great’ logo? Far from it. Other than being remarkably simply, the Nike ‘swoosh’ is painfully uninspiring. No, the Nike logo is successful because it’s been seen a cazillion times more than any other sports logos. On TV. On the shirts of top athletes. On the sports equipment of almost every professional sports team out there. Simply put, the Nike logo is so successful because it’s been driven into our subconscious by constant exposure. And that’s the same philosophy you should take with your logo.”
2. Make Your Branding Consistent, While Tailoring It to Fit Different Platforms
Each social media platform works a little differently. Salvador Briggman explains how the different platforms are best for the following:
Twitter: Sharing short pieces of news and thoughts.
Facebook: Connecting with people you already know.
Pinterest: Sharing photos and collecting favorite photos from across the platform.
Google+: Connecting with new people, including through communities that focus on specific interests.
LinkedIn: Connecting with others in the industry, starting beneficial professional relationships and looking for new jobs and opportunities.
Don’t forget that on Facebook, personal pages are different than business pages — where you can promote a business and get people to “like” it to receive updates. It’s easier to use a business page to promote your nonprofit’s brand, due to Facebook’s analytics and stat insights.
You should tailor your company’s message to the social media platform. For example, your LinkedIn logo and branding should be very professional, while a Google+ profile can center on an interest and be focused on photographs. So if your nonprofit organization helps handicapped experience horseback riding and other outdoor activities, consider including branding with an image of a horse, which you can share within horse-related Google+ communities. Check out the video below where social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk share his thoughts on tailoring social media in his book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World
Even though you can be a little different on various platforms, you still need to have cohesion between them. In other words, people should recognize your company from one social media platform to the next and associate it with your nonprofit’s overall branding efforts. Using the same color scheme and keeping a major element within logo variations are a couple of ways to create cohesion.
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3. Always Use High-Quality Images for Social Media Platforms
Whenever you use an image for a social media banner or within your branding in some other way, make sure it is a high-resolution image with a large pixel size. If an image is slightly blurry, it reduces the impact the image makes and seems unprofessional.
Mike Allton writes at The Social Media Hat that, first of all, never leave the default image on a platform, because it gives the impression that you don’t care. When you use images, they should be crisp with good lighting, and should look professional, fitting the industry you’re in.
“Nothing screams amateur and disinterest more than a grey head outline or Twitter egg… Not having a picture of yourself as your profile image will deter people from following you and diminish your social media marketing goals.”
4. Use a Simple Logo People Can Easily Recognize
If your logo is too complicated, people might be confused by it or at least have trouble remembering it. That’s the opposite of what you’re going after. A simple logo can stay in people’s minds and it can transition across different social media platforms.
Your logo doesn’t necessarily need to include a picture of what your company does. For example, if your nonprofit helps community children, your logo doesn’t need to have a child’s face in it. You can have different versions of your logo if you need a more complex one for different uses. For instance, you could have a 2D version for social media and a 3D version for your website.
Another important factor is that a simple logo transitions better to different sizes. With social media, your logo will sometimes be shown in a small thumbnail when your company is commenting or tweeting, so the logo needs to display as well in those small spaces as it does on your main profile page.
5. Create a Color Scheme To Use With All of Your Social Media Platforms
The colors you use can help people think of your brand, especially when you use the same ones on every platform and your other marketing materials. On The U.S. Small Business Administration website, Anita Campbell notes that two ways to incorporate these colors into social media are through a banner image on Facebook and Google+, and a custom background on Twitter.
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“In addition to ensuring that your images are the same on all social media profiles, it’s important to deliver a similar look across the board. This, too, should tie in with what you’re doing on your business’ website.
Twitter allows you to upload a custom background to your profile. Facebook and Google + provide a large banner photo or image up top. These are valuable real estate locations, and they provide you with the opportunity to use similar color and design elements to integrate with your company logo colors and the design of your site. A visitor should be able to recognize your brand from any social page they visit.”
Todd Turner is the President of LogoMagnet, a custom design magnet company that produces and distributes magnets for schools, non-profits, sports teams and more.
