Written by:
Chloe West
Ready to start leveling up your social media content? One of the best ways to start generating more brand awareness and engagement on social media is by creating social media graphics that grab attention and entice action.
But it’s easier said than done, right? That’s why we’ve put together this guide on the top 10 types of social media content to help you see more overall engagement.
Let’s get started.
Here’s a short selection of 8 easy-to-edit social media graphics templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more templates below:
We want to first make sure we’ve covered the bases. What do we mean when we say social media content? Social media content is pretty much anything you share on social media, whether it’s a text update, a photo, graphic, video, link, etc.
The point we want to drive across today, though, is that while nearly anything can be social media content, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything should be.
The content your brand shares on social media should always reflect your brand voice and values, and help you somehow get to your bottom line.
That’s the whole point of social media marketing anyway, isn’t it? You want to put together a content calendar that both engages your audience and helps your business generate more brand awareness, engagement and ultimately conversions. That's the overall goal of any social media job.
We’re going to cover the top 10 types of social media posts that your brand should consider creating and testing to see how they perform with your audience. Be sure to keep up with your social media reporting to understand which types of content your audience prefers.
This is a pretty broad content type because you can create branded graphics for nearly any purpose, but it should still be a solid part of your content strategy.
Branded graphics work on a variety of social media platforms, but are especially great for visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest. These types of graphics simply incorporate your brand fonts and colors to share a tip, promotion, blog post, lead magnet, etc.
Take a look at this example below from social media scheduling tool Planoly.
This carousel post features a stunning branded design that is perfect for grabbing attention and sharing helpful information.
While they could have just taken screenshots of the features they mention, they came up with a much more creative and shareable strategy. The best part is that these graphics don’t need much tweaking before they can be recycled into a brand new piece of content.
If you want to try this in your own social media marketing strategy, give this template below a try. Simply customize it with your own brand colors and fonts, then input your own messaging before you download and share.
Infographics are another must-have on your social media content calendar – just remember to keep it on-brand.
While the word “infographic” typically makes people think of longer graphics, infographics come in many shapes and sizes, all depending on the platform they’re created for.
And social media infographics are going to be either square or horizontal graphics showcasing just a single statistic or bit of information.
Let’s take a look at a couple of infographic examples.
The Process is a productivity company, which makes perfect sense given this pie chart infographic they shared about what we think productivity is versus what it actually is.
This type of social media content is awesome for your brand to share because it’s easily digestible and shares bite-sized information in a fun format.
Infographics don’t have to always be in-depth visualizations. Come up with some fun graphs and mini infographics you can share on your social media channels in order to engage your audience and get them to share your content on their own feeds.
Here’s another less obvious social media infographic. There are many different types of infographics. Some are statistical, showcasing different graphs and charts, while others are more informational in nature. And that’s exactly what we have here, in this example from DigitalMarketer.
Incorporating text and icons into your infographic is a great way to visualize information in a bite-sized piece of visual content.
Try creating your own social media infographic with a template like this one below. You can easily adjust the dimensions to make it match the social network you plan to share it on.
One of the best content types to include in your digital marketing plan is video. There are so many different types of social media videos that your brand can – and should! – create to reach your target audience, whether you're marketing to teens, Millennials, Gen X, etc.
And you don’t have to have a major marketing budget in order to create video content. Your small business can easily put together high-quality marketing videos using a smartphone (although even that is optional) and a video maker like Visme.
Here are a few types of social media videos you can create right inside Visme:
You can also create live videos with Facebook Live or Instagram Live to do a broadcast in real-time and have the opportunity to talk directly to your audience.
Want to see a great example of a social media video in action? Take a look at this product video from Fabletics.
This simple video places product videos in the background while having text appear in the foreground to promote their new collection.
Whether you want to upload your own video content or simply browse Visme’s stock video collection, you can easily create your own promo video just like this one.
Give this template below a try and customize it to fit your needs.
GIF marketing is not a new concept but it’s one that can still be tapped into. Creating your own branded GIFs can be a great way of adding a bit of entertainment to your social media feeds.
A GIF can be nearly any type of social media content. It can be a quote writing itself as an animation, or a tip post that shows different sections one after the other. Comparisons can also be turned into GIFs for a more interesting approach.
Read our article about GIF marketing to find out more about how to use GIFs in your social media content.
Here’s an example of a GIF that project management software Notion created to promote a virtual conference. This visual matches their brand from head to toe, including very on-brand doodles that really catch their audience’s attention.
📣 Wondering what’s next for Notion? We can’t wait to tell you all about it at Block × Block, our first user conference!
Save your spot here: https://t.co/7RetEW9hUq pic.twitter.com/a6fBcF76FH
— Notion (@NotionHQ) May 21, 2021
If you want to create your own branded GIF, you can easily customize this template below.
Another type of social media content that is an essential part of your social media content strategy is blog content. Sharing your blog content onto your social platforms is one of the best ways to increase traffic onto your blog.
There are a couple of different ways to promote your blog content on social media, but both involve visuals.
Whether you choose to share a link preview showcasing your featured image or include the link in the caption of a photo, GIF or video.
Either way, you’re going to need to put together some kind of promotional visual, whether it’s a stock photo or a branded graphic.
In this example from Agorapulse, we see a branded graphic. And if you browse through their Facebook feed, all of their blog post link previews include a similarly designed visual.
This is a great way to make their blog posts recognizable on social media so their audience knows what to look for to find out more information.
To create your own branded blog post graphics, try customizing a template like this one.
Testimonials and reviews are great content to share because they provide a sense of social proof for your social media followers. Seeing that others have both worked with your business and had a great experience is key to generating new customers.
Whether you decide to create a video testimonial or a quote graphic is completely up to you; just make sure that you regularly add these into your social media calendar.
Grab testimonials from happy customers, online review sites, case studies and more.
Here’s an example from our own LinkedIn page sharing a review our tool received on software review site G2.
We’ve created a graphic that uses some of our exclusive design elements to make the testimonial unique and stand out in our followers’ feeds.
To create your own testimonial graphic, try using a template like the one below.
Sharing quotes on social media is great for generating engagement with your audience, especially if the quote is highly motivating and relevant to your industry.
You can share quotes that your team has spoken at events or during webinars in order to really grip target customers. However, you can also share quotes from prominent people in your industry or well-known speakers that resonate with your followers.
When sharing quotes on Twitter or LinkedIn, incorporate hashtags like #qotd to reach an even wider audience and hopefully generate new followers and customers.
Planner company Day Designer shared a quote that they made up and turned into a branded quote graphic, which is another option.
Quote graphics are perfect for sharing on Instagram Stories as well as your Instagram feed. Try out a template like the one below to add some motivation to your feed.
One unique social media content idea is a presentation. You can upload these to a site like SlideShare, or download slides as individual images in order to create a social media carousel.
Presentations created for social media are likely going to be different from your average presentation. Because you won’t have a speaker to accompany your slides, you’ll need to have some slides dedicated to text to help your reader learn more about your topic.
This type of content is great for sharing industry news, tutorials or how-to content, in-depth research or repurposed blog content.
Here’s a presentation example from HubSpot that has been uploaded to SlideShare to reach a larger audience.
Try creating your own online presentation with a template like this one.
Ebooks are great lead magnets, but you still need to promote them in order to increase their reach and generate more leads. This is where your social media content creation comes in.
Consider creating graphics or GIFs to promote your ebook opt-ins to ramp up your email list for future email marketing campaigns.
We’ve got a great example of this from Buffer. See how they’ve created a mockup showing off their ebook cover to tease interested viewers.
Try a template like this one below to create your own ebook promo graphic.
Finally, our last recommended content type is webinars.
Whether you share the actual webinar recording or simply promote an upcoming webinar, this type of quality content is perfect to share with your social media audiences.
We have an example of a webinar promotional graphic from ClickUp, showcasing the speaker, the webinar topic, the date and time, and registration information.
Create your own webinar announcement with this animated social media template below.
Worried about how to go about your actual social media content creation? There are two main avenues you can choose here: hire a designer, or do it yourself.
Learn more about these options to decide which one is right for you.
Hiring someone to do it for you is a great option for established businesses and marketing teams who have the additional budget. This could be $400 or so per project, or you could hire someone full time for a salary of around $50-60k each year.
Working with a designer also requires some initial back-and-forth communication until they understand what you’re looking for.
While this can be a great answer for some teams, not everyone has the budget or desire to work with professional designers.
This is when DIY graphic design tools really come in handy. With a lower monthly fee for your design software and the ability to create bring your own graphics to life, this option is often a favorite among small businesses and boutique marketing teams and agencies.
Then, all you have to worry about is when to post on social media.
To learn more about DIYing your graphic design, watch this video tutorial on how Visme can help.
Ready to start creating your own social media content? Keep these 10 content types in mind to help increase engagement. And for those of you who prefer the DIY approach, try out Visme for designing stunning social media graphics.
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About the Author
Chloe West is the content marketing manager at Visme. Her experience in digital marketing includes everything from social media, blogging, email marketing to graphic design, strategy creation and implementation, and more. During her spare time, she enjoys exploring her home city of Charleston with her son.