Creative design gets you more eyeballs on your B2B social

Social media is a great vehicle to get your B2B brand and product story out there. But the competition for eyeballs on your content is fierce. 

Your posts have to be engaging, create an impact, and be memorable. So apart from the content, what else gives your posts the most impact? 

Well, we think great creative design is a key factor, but of course, we would say that wouldn’t we?  

Companies that harness creative design are more likely to perform better financially. A report indicates 32% more revenue and 56% higher total returns  (McKinsey Design Index, The business value of design, 2018 report). So it is important to be creative in all your brand communications, and B2B social media is no exception.

Still not convinced? Here are some more stats:

  • You could see your comment rate increase by an average of 98% if your LinkedIn post includes an image, or better still, a GIF
  • Twitters own data tells us that you are three times more likely to get engagement if your post is visual

If your B2B social campaigns are not delivering the results you need, then now is the time to look at how creative design could make a real difference to your awareness, engagement, education, and lead generation.

So, how can you harness creative design to get your B2B campaigns to stand out?

Here’s what we have learnt and found gets more eyeballs on your social posts. 

8 creative design tips to get more eyeballs on B2B social media:

1 – Start with a giant idea 

Example: Slack

What is the core point your post needs to make?  What is the main message or CTA?  Refine it down to ONE key message. Having too much to say on one single post can make it confusing. So whatever you want to say, make it MEMORABLE, SIMPLE and CLEAR.  

2 – Less words, more visual

Example: Economist

Depending on the platform, the algorithm will choose to prioritise what it was designed for. For example on Instagram, images and graphics are KING. If you design a post with two paragraphs of text, the algorithm will put you in the bottom of the queue.

Have a catchy headline with no more than 4-6 words, avoid lots of text – if you need more text, add this in your post caption.

3 – Make it move 

Example: Figma

GIFs and videos are a proven way to make you stand out in a social feed. These can be animated graphics or a fun meme.

4 – Make your visual the hero 

Example: Shopify

People are wired to respond to visuals and studies have shown that social media users are far more likely to engage with visual content. 

Avoid generic stock images that make you look like everyone else. Let your personality come through with colours, illustrations and images but make sure they support and work together with the main title and messaging.

5 – Consistency builds recognition, so leverage your brand assets 

Examples: Pantone 1, Pantone 2

Your brand is your personality. What better place to let it shine than social media. 

Use your colours, fonts and visual devices to create your social assets (posts, profile pictures, banners, reels, etc).  Create a clear style and templates that build and clearly connect to your brand, allow design flexibility within given parameters, and stick to it.

6 – Design for the platform 

Example: Design Museum

Each social media platform is unique and has distinct requirements. Find out what these are to take advantage of their features to boost your content so the algorithm puts you first on people’s feeds.

DON’T ignore image dimensions and format requirements for each platform. Low resolution images with the wrong aspect ratio will be stretched, cropped, and be out of proportion when posted, which will reflect poorly on your brand.

7 – Take advantage of new features to maximise the algorithms

Example: DataDog

Social media platforms are always updating and evolving. Look at Instagram highlights or the TikTok boom. So your content and design should evolve too and should take advantage of the “new hot feature” factor.

Linkedin recently came out with a new feature which allows you to post PDF files. Posts with a PDF file were prioritised by the algorithm gods ensuring great results.

8 – To stand out, keep it simple, keep it fresh. 

Example: Mailchimp

Remember viewers have a millisecond to grasp what your post is about, so avoid complexity by keeping your assets simple and clear.  Avoid too much repetition by keeping your designs fresh. Create variety with fun posts that break the monotony and keep your audience engaged and curious.

How do the Giants use creative design to get great results on B2B social? 

Before we begin any creative design work, we ask ourselves “what does the creative need to deliver?” 

To answer this we work together as an integrated team (digital, comms, strategy and creative), identifying the core strategic objectives – to answer the “why are we using social?” and the “what do we need it to achieve?”.  

These answers give us our strategic direction, and then we look at how best we can leverage the various platforms to achieve the desired results. This gives us the platform to create our “Giant creative idea” that will propel our messaging and design. 

An example of our process and how our creativity delivered award-winning results, is our social campaign for atoti. You can read more about atoti here. 

Want to find out more?

Find out more about Made By Giants here. See our award-winning creative design work here, or watch more here.