Imagine having a quick and simple way to instantly increase the engagement on your social media posts.
The answer is simple: images!
They act as hooks, which generates more views, clicks, share and comments to our social posts. On average, images generate 53% more likes than a normal post, and using an image on Twitter increases retweets by 28% and favorites by 36%.
At Piktochart, we are well aware of the importance of microcontent in social media. We apply it everyday…
…and we’ve covered how to use it to optimize social media marketing here, and a few hacks on how to use Piktochart to create it here.
Today, we are going to cover how to pick a Pikto Template, break it down and transform it into 3 different images you could use in Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to engage your audience.
The Anatomy of A Good Social Media Image
In this visual-centric world, it’s more important to create high-quality and valuable images as they enhance social media posts by increasing engagement. However, not all image works as effectively.
First, make sure you follow each social network’s guidelines, and utilize the right image size. There’s nothing worst than an image that looks like this.
Second, pick original content that resonates highly with your audience.
If you want a more in-depth post on image sizes for social media, I strongly recommend this post by the peeps at Buffer.
Repurposing Infographics Into Engaging Images
Now, it’s time to get busy and start repurposing a Pikto template. Don’t worry, you won’t be needing the help of a graphic designer or superman for this task!
Facebook & Photos
Facebook users are drawn to stunning photography with quotes on it. Pages like Quotes, Sayings, Photos & Quotes, and Life Quotes and Wall Pics have thousands of followers. After all, your news feed seems to be covered with pictures baby pictures, so who wouldn’t?
For that reason, let’s see how to transform the Pikto template Infographics That Absolutely Rock into this shareable image with a quote Steve Jobs’ quote.
- Let’s begin by selecting the Presentation format.
- Next, we need to get rid of all of the other blocks, except the one we will use. [0:02 min]
- After that, replace the text box with Steve Jobs’ quote. [0:10 min]
- Now that we inserted our quote, we will then replace the image. We could use Piktochart’s built in photo library with over 3000 images, but we could also upload a photo of our own. In this case, we’ll use one of Steve Jobs I’ve found in Google. [0:23 min]
- Once we added the photo, use the ‘send to back’ function to make sure the picture is in the background, behind all the other elements. [0:32 min]
P.S. Please enable annotations for the guided tutorial
Instagram & Illustrations
Here’s something you can do: Grab your phone, and open Instagram. What do you first thing that comes to mind?
Instagram is populated with beautiful pictures. That’s why an illustration is ideal for standing out among the filter-heavy photos that your friends upload.
Piktochart has dozens of templates with beautiful illustrations, and a huge library of amazing icons. For this post, I picked the Let’s Go Organic infographic template. It’s simple, clean and full of illustrations. Let’s transform it into an Instagram post to promote an imaginary piece called ‘5 Reasons I Became A Vegetarian’!
As discussed above, we’ll select the Let’s Go Organic infographic template.
- First, we’ll need to get ride of all the other blocks we don’t need. [0:08 min]
- Although Instagram now allows photos of all heights, we’ll adjust our block to 800px tall. To do that, we’ll select the template and click on the Settings icon in the pop out sidebar. Then, adjust the height by entering the value in pixels. [0:16 min]
- The next step is to duplicate and rotate the header, so we could use it as a footer. For that, I used the shortcut CTRL + C to copy, and CTRL + V to paste it. [0:23 min]
- Once that’s done, let’s create the title by using the text tool! [0:38 min]
- After that, resize the picture to fit the page. [1:17 min]
- The final step is to change the background color. To do that, simply click on the Graphics icon in the left sidebar, then on Backgrounds, and select the color you want. [1:30 min]
Voilá!
P.S. Please enable annotation for the guided tutorial
Twitter & Data
People have been using Twitter to engage in personal, professional and news-related topics for years. Users utilize the platform to have great conversations, network with people or get real time news of what’s going on around them and in the world. Although the social network founded by Jack Dorsey has less overall users, it’s usership has increased tremendously since 2013.
This makes Twitter a great place to reach out and connect with your target audience. A great way of resonating with them is to share some interesting data that are appealing to them.
Let’s imagine we want to promote a 2011 article from The Guardian, Education in Africa: Where Does The Money Go?. For that, we’ll pick some data and turn it into a beautiful, bite-sized Twitter image. More specifically, this line:
“Between 2000 and 2008, the number of children in primary schooling increased by 48% – from 87 million to 129 million.”
For that, we’ll use the infographic template Education Around The World.
Listen up as this third image is a bit more complex, as it involves plotting and formatting graphs.
- As per usual, we’ll start by deleting all the unnecessary blocks. [0:02 min]
- Now, let’s edit the title and remove all the elements we won’t need. We will only keep the graph and a description as we are aiming for a super clean image. [0:09 min]
- Let’s start by modifying the graph. First, we need to select the right graph type. In this case, we’ll use the Line Graph. Then, we input the correct values in the spreadsheet on the right. [0:20 min]
- Once that’s covered, it’s time to correct the formatting, add an introduction, and finish up the process with some descriptive labels for the graph to make it more readable! [1:00 min]
P.S. Please enable annotation for the guided tutorial
Want to create social media images just like these? Here are the templates we used: Infographics That Absolutely Rock, Let’s Go Organic, and Education Around The World.
