In digital marketing, one of the most important keys to success is creating a campaign that can reach the broadest possible audience. An essential step in building this campaign is hiring a top-notch marketing graphic design team to create attention-grabbing advertisements that will have customers hooked after their first glance.
Another important step is making those graphics accessible across all online platforms, like Facebook, Threads, Instagram, YouTube, and others. While these platforms may seem similar, their display capabilities and the audiences they reach can be vastly different.
Fortunately, we’re here to help you tackle the challenge of optimizing the graphics of your visual content for different platforms. In the following article, we’ll explain some of the basic requirements for each platform and how you can work to ensure your potential customers have the best experience possible when viewing your online ads.
Start With a Clear Message
Let’s start at the very beginning: optimizing your graphics begins before you even consider hiring a marketing graphic design company to create advertising for you. Arguably, it begins when you first develop your product or service since that is when you will decide who the product is for, how you will reach that customer, and what will set you apart from your competitors. At that point, you can begin looking for a marketing company that specializes in creating images that can effectively communicate your brand’s message. That company’s graphic design team can also design your ads.
While the graphics your marketing team creates will need to vary depending on the platform they’re created for, the overall marketing message your brand uses must remain consistent. While you might reach a different customer base with Instagram than with TikTok, there will also be some crossover. Anyone who sees your ads across multiple platforms should be able to recognize your brand.
Have a clear idea of who you will be marketing to, their preferences, and why they should choose your product or service over others. This foundational step will help you create a strong message that your graphics will communicate to your audience.
Remember Your Aspect Ratios
When referring to graphic design, aspect ratio refers to the proportional ratio of an image’s width to height. For example, an image with a ratio of 1:1 would be a perfect square, which you may notice is the typical aspect ratio used for images uploaded onto Instagram.
Facebook uses multiple aspect ratios for posting images. Since most people view Facebook on their phones, the platform prefers that images are either 9:16, the aspect ratio of a phone in “portrait” mode, or 16:9, the aspect ratio of a phone in landscape mode.
Images look best when specifically designed for the aspect ratio in which they will be viewed. For example, an image created for Facebook must be cropped to be viewed on Instagram. Ask your marketing graphic design team to create images in the correct aspect ratios for the platforms you intend to use. Images created in the ratio specific to the platform you are using will communicate your message far more clearly than those adapted to a non-native ratio.
It’s All About Formatting
Maximizing the impact of your graphics is a matter of making sure they always look good, which is often easier said than done. High-quality graphics can use a lot of bandwidth to display effectively, and a grainy or blurry advertisement isn’t likely to impress your potential customer base.
The key to success in social media graphics is finding a balance between file size and image quality. It doesn’t matter how amazing your graphics look if your customers’ screens can’t display them correctly, they take forever to load, or they won’t load at all.
One way to ensure your images display well is to use the correct format for your image type. Most photographs (or other complex, detailed graphics) display well as raster (or bitmap) images created from an array of pixels. Raster images look excellent at the full aspect ratio of a phone screen, but you may lose quality if your image is scaled up for a larger screen or scaled down into a thumbnail size.
For simpler images like logos, you should use vector graphics. These images are specifically designed to be scaled up and down, so the quality will remain high no matter what screen your graphics are displayed on. Talk to your graphic design team to ensure the images you choose for your project are in the correct format to maximize their quality while keeping the file sizes reasonable.
Don’t Run an Ad Unless You Are Sure It’s the Best It Can Be
Optimizing graphics for print ads, billboards, social media platforms, and everything in between ensures they are the best they can be. Since your ads must display well, you’ll need to make sure you are compressing them effectively. Using the right software will help maintain image quality while reducing overall file size.
Since your ads will need to be adapted depending on the platform’s requirements, test them out on that platform and any other potential places your customers may view them. Use software like Google PageSpeed Insights to receive feedback on user experience so that you can make adjustments as necessary.
Finally, show your ad to a few people you trust, whether they’re coworkers, friends, or family members. Ask for their feedback: How does the image look? Is the message clear? Is it appealing? Once you’re sure you have an advertisement that looks great, you can post it to your chosen platform and begin reaching a broader customer base than ever before.
Working with a marketing agency with a graphic design team, such as InnoVision Marketing Group, can help ensure that your graphics look their best on any device or platform. Expertise and experience can ensure your graphics look their best, no matter where you post.
