Use Canva for Branding Your Social Media Marketing Efforts
When it comes to creating a brand, there are usually a few physical traits that marketers think of first: logos, fonts, colors, and aesthetic style. But when I think of branding, I imagine more nuanced traits: tone, personality, and communication style.
Social media marketing is a combination of a brand’s aesthetic and its personality.
When creating content for my blog, Instagram how-to posts I emphasize both sides because it is important to have good content (i.e., videos, photos and quote images that match your brand), and IMO - more important to showcase your brand personality so your customers can know, like and trust you and your brand.
This blog post is all about the aesthetic side of branding your social media
One of my favorite tools to help to keep my branding simple—on my website and social media accounts—is CANVA Pro.
Canva Pro for social media:
I just signed up to be an affiliate for Canva Pro because I’ve been utilizing the desktop Canva for years, and recently they modified their smartphone app to be usable for social media marketers.
I started off with the free version and quickly realized that it was well worth the money for the pro version. If you are a social media marketer or small business owner, definitely splurge on Canva Pro, because there are so many templates, fonts, and stock images that you can use to create content for social media, your website, and any other Marcom you can think of (business cards, brochures, menus, ebooks, etc).
Additionally, you can add your own branding - your colors and fonts and instantly make any photo template your own! And, BTW - their templates are awesome to make graphics that are the CORRECT SIZE for all your social media accounts like YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, and Instagram Stories!
It really helps small business owners and marketers of small- to medium-sized brands create professional-looking content like Instagram quote images, Instagram Stories, Facebook ads, YouTube headers, etc. One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone shares a quote image that doesn’t fit their branding. We live in a digital world in which it’s pretty easy to take a quote and create your own content from it, so you might as well tailor it to your brand.
This meme from @ShittyWineMemes pretty much sums it up: https://www.instagram.com/p/CKwPpRJLooQ/
Why share a screenshot of a generic meme talking about wine that DOESN’T match your brand, doesn’t have any reference to your winery (or insert any business here)—and even worse—makes it look like you aren’t even trying?! When you can be original!
There’s no reason for that when you can easily take that same quote or funny wine saying and make it work for your brand.
When I worked with Iron Horse Vineyards to create their social media content, I used Canva to change up some wine or champagne quotes to be about sparkling wine, with a background of an image I took at the winery:
How to use Canva to create content from a quote you find:
Use the Instagram save feature (read more about this awesome way to save content you like on Instagram) or Pinterest to save quotes or sayings that you like.
Find a template in Canva Pro. Edit it to include your fonts and brand colors to create text image templates for your social media content. (see the how-to video I created to see how easy it is to use Canva Pro to change your branding).
Take the quote, and make it your own!
Share on your social networks *better yet, schedule this post and your other content using a social media scheduler like Planoly.
Tips for branding your social media content and staying true to your aesthetic:
Brainstorm ideas for what you want your brand to look like. Think about textures, colors, stock images, people. If you don’t have a brick and mortar store, think about what you would want that to look like. Write all of this down.
Take this quiz (https://sibilaribeiro.com/quiz/) to get an idea of what your brand personality looks like! I took it about a year ago and found that I was a mix of playful, modern, and organic. I do feel like that fits me pretty well—I’ve never really been able to fit my brand into one specific box.
Once you get Canva Pro, go into the branding tool to set your fonts and brand colors (you have the option to create a few brand colors if you’re sharing your account with someone, like your spouse). Stick to two or three fonts for everything you do. Any more and it starts getting overwhelming. Within the branding tool you can have a lot of different colors, but when you’re creating content, use only a few in each work so it doesn’t get overwhelming, either.
Find social media templates that match your style (search in social media templates on the left-hand side and add your keywords).
Mix them up, but when you create images for social media, find two or three styles you like that you can recreate over and over again with different quotes.
Once again, the idea is to not overwhelm your social media audience!
Other Action Items for Planning out your Instagram feed:
Part of creating a cohesive Instagram feed that fits your brand is staying consistent with one theme in your posts. There is a variety of ways to think about a theme, such as:
The pattern of posts (mixing it up with quotes, product shots, wine glasses, Instagram Reels, behind-the-scenes, how-to videos, etc.; I go into detail on mixing up your content in my twelve-month social media content template on my resources page.)
Picking one consistent color scheme (with pops of the same few brand colors in every picture, or with a focus on the season and going from one color to another)
Using an Instagram filter (either using one filter within the Instagram app on all your content to make it consistent or using a photo editing app like VSCO or A Color Story)
Creating a uniform mood (look at your website and professional product shots and make sure your Instagram Feed matches. All of your Instagram images should be bright and airy, dark and moody, modern, playful, colorful, artistic, etc. If you are not sure what mood your brand should present—seriously, take this quiz! It is fun and super helpful: https://sibilaribeiro.com/quiz.)
Last action item for figuring out your social media marketing brand:
The easiest way to figure out what you might want your social media theme to be is find and screenshot 4-6 Instagram pages from brands you like.
Look at the feed as a whole for each brand, and ask yourself what makes it stand out to you. The point isn’t to find feeds to copy, but rather to pinpoint the characteristics that comprise a “good” Instagram feed, in your opinion.
Then you can start using Canva Pro to create your own consistent Instagram feed and social media brand, bursting with personality and aesthetic alike.
