Images make blog posts more visually appealing and engaging. You can also create images to promote your brand or product on social media.
In this article, we'll show you how to create awesome images for your blog, website, and even social media yourself - in minutes - with tools like Canva's Graph Maker.
But first, let's talk about why bloggers, in particular, need to create visual content.
How do I build a visual marketing strategy?
Visual Marketing is incredibly valuable for brands because people process visual information 60,000 times faster than written content.
Designing images for all the different platforms makes it much easier to attract your target audience's attention, especially for social media - like Instagram stories, Facebook posts, and even through video content on YouTube and TikTok!
That's why brands in every industry - from the food and fashion industries to professional services like law and finance - use photos, videos, infographics, and memes to boost brand awareness in their social media marketing campaigns.
Now it's even easier to create stunning graphs, charts and more, for your marketing too! >>> Get Designing Today with a Canva Free Trial
Visual content is great news for bloggers!
Even if you're not a designer, using stunning visuals to promote your blog can help you grow traffic.
Remember: visual content is "stickier" than other types of content, so people will spend more time viewing it and sharing it on social media.
How can you create visuals and graphics that will engage on every platform?
Canva has some great ideas and resources to help you do just that! If you don't have great design skills, you can take advantage of the plethora of professionally designed templates Canva has available.
Create social media graphics that stand out from the crowd
There are several design tools available that you can use to make stunning graphics for your blog posts, but my personal choices are Canva, Photovibrance and Glorify. Today we are going to take a look at Canva as they have announced 2 new features: Teams and Canva Graph Maker.
Canva, which has an easy-to-use drag and drop design system and premade layouts for social media and blogs. Plus, Canva lets you choose from thousands of images from their image bank.
Collaboration for your graphics with Canva teams
What if you're working with a team of writers, editors, and designers?
Collaborating in real-time is the answer.
The new Canva Pro Team pricing option lets you have teams up to 5 members on one account for the same fee!
Note: this is only available for premium Canva Pro and not available in the free version of Canva.
What will you create today?
10 Best Practices when creating engaging social media graphics to promote your blog
1. Decide what is relevant content.
Your social media graphics should be unique, specifically for your brand or industry. Look at other companies' posts on social media platforms - like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, etc. - that are relevant to the subject and learn from them!
2. Interesting data visualizations go a long way.
Using statistics to give weight to your argument is a great way to engage potential customers.
Graphs, charts, and other data visualizations are more interesting than text posts because they catch the eyes of everyone in your audience.
3. Pick a template suitable for your level of design experience.
Templates are a great starting point for creating your images, especially if you're unsure what will work best for your blog. You can search for premade templates that range from simple to advanced creative designs on Canva.
4. Customize social media graphics to fit your own brand
You can customize the design with logos, images, and text boxes relevant to your brand and personalize it to fit your brand colors in a few clicks.
5. Create and reuse your own custom templates
Don't forget that your blog is one of the best places to create and reuse templates - and you can use these awesome resources for your social media posts too. Make it easy for yourself (and your team!) by creating a library of reusable content.
6. Ready, set, design!
You can use Canva's new Graph Maker to create awesome graphics, like graphs and charts that will add depth to your blog posts and convey your message in no time. And you don't have to know any graphic design skills because the tool is so intuitive!
7. Use images of your actual business in your graphics
You don't have to be a professional photographer or graphic designer to create stunning visuals for your blog. Try to use images with actual visuals of your business rather than just using graphic elements.
Make sure you always request permission before using other people's photos or graphics in your blog posts. Always credit the original source, too!
What tools do you use to create your custom design assets? Share in the comments below, and let me know if you want to see more posts like this one!
8. Keep your graphic designs simple.
Even if you're working from a premade template, don't just fill in the blanks. You can still easily add your own style or design by customizing it with your brand's colors and fonts.
Make sure that all of the elements of your design are clear when viewed on any device.
The text and graphics should be easy to read even when they're small, so make sure they are simple and clean. It's better to use big fonts and few graphics than lots of small text around a busy image.
9. Keep the file size low.
Make sure that your images have a file size of less than 100kb in order for them to load fast on any device! People are extremely impatient with slow-loading graphics - literally, 2 seconds of load time is the average amount of time. You can reduce your image file size even more by compressing them and removing any unnecessary text in the image.
The graphic design itself should be simple, clean, and clear as well.
10. Choose your colors wisely.
You honestly don't have to be a graphic designer in order to choose the right colors for your social media design and blog graphics. Just follow these general rules:
Don't use too many different colors. Stick to two or three and make sure they contrast well with each other.
Make the most of your color palette by associating similar hues with one another.
Stick with your brand colors, where possible.
Recommended Read: Simplified vs. Shortly AI: How To Choose The Best AI Writing Partner.
Tools are great - but what about your content?
To make the most of visual marketing, you've got to have content that's worth sharing with friends and followers.
Start by identifying your goals, including how frequently you want to publish, who your ideal reader is (and where they hang out), and what types of posts will truly be engaging to your audience.
Then, think about the kind of content you want to include in your blog posts: how-to's, roundups, quotes, and tips, or images with text?
Analyze your competition by studying other bloggers who are getting great results online. Look at what they're doing to come up with fresh ideas of your own!
Make sure your blog content is easy to read on any device and fits the context of the post you're writing.
You can also use Canva's design templates to make things even easier.
Already have a blog post in mind? Choose from a huge collection of templates, add your own text, photos, and graphics for a quick-and-easy visual marketing asset for your blog!
Ready to create your own visual marketing masterpiece?
Check out Canva's new graph maker tool for your social media graphics and eye-catching blog images!
With Canva's new graph maker, you can make breathtaking graphics from your data.
Canva is not difficult or time-consuming to use, unlike other online graph creators. You won't have any trouble learning how to use it because there isn't a steep learning curve.
You'll get a lovely graph or diagram in minutes, turning raw data into something both visual and simple to understand.
20+ different types of graphs available, each with its own set of features.
Templates that experts have designed to help you save time
Creating easy-to-read and simple to understand visualizations with no specialized software to learn
Make a high-resolution graph of your data for your blog, share it on social media, or download it.
With no fuss, you can embed your graph in presentations, reports, and other documents.
Non-designers will appreciate the ease of use and simplicity.
You can make a graph in 5 easy steps with Canva Graph Maker:
1. Choose the template of the graph you want.
2. Add your data or information to that graph.
3. Find pictures with icons and illustrations from the Canva library and add them too.
4. Change the design colors, fonts, and backgrounds to suit your brand
5. Your design is then ready for you to use on your blog or social media by downloading or sharing!
Canva has a wide range of templates for all your data visualization needs.
Simply input your data, and you'll magically be able to switch between different types of graphs - bar charts, line graphs, pie charts, etc. - with just one click!
Check out the template gallery and find the graph that's perfect for your project.
Canva is an easy-to-use graphic design platform that will change the way you create.
You'll be able to create custom charts and graphs with the click of a button - no complicated software or download needed.
And it's all customizable, so you can easily get the look you want: from background colors to fonts and everything in between, we make it easy to tailor your chart to your needs.
With Canva, creating engaging graphs is a cinch.
You can easily create beautiful infographics to impress your clients or graphs that make sense in the context of your business. Plus, you have plenty of templates to choose from for everything from presentations and reports to blogs and social media graphics.
Canva's graph maker makes it easier than ever before to share your social media graphic with other people. Simply publish them as you please - download them locally for editing, upload them to social media for quick sharing, or embed them in emails or blog posts.
If you are looking for the right type of graph that will suit your needs, browse through to find the perfect one. You can easily draw graphs with Canvas' variety of templates and layouts and then customize them to suit your needs. This will help you go from zero to a beautiful graph in no time!
Let's hear about these features from the Canva team:
Customize these types of graphs to create eye-catching design assets.
When it comes to visual marketing, there are a number of different techniques you can use. However, for your blogs and social media posts to really shine and get noticed by the right people, you need to create images that are worth sharing with friends and followers.
Creating engaging social media graphics for your visual marketing strategy is as easy as pie with Canva! >>> Try Canva FREE today - no design skills needed!
