Have you ever wanted to brand yourself and your art for the world to recognize?
Today we’ll be going over how you can create social media banners for various platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, and even LinkedIn.
It’s important that your banner not only be beautiful, but also functional in leaving your mark and helping you stand out from the crowd.
Why do you need a social media banner?
Before we even get started on creating any kind of graphics, we need to figure the reason why you are spending time on creating a banner for your social media account.
Do you want to make sure anyone who follows you on Twitter also follows your other social media accounts?
Do you want people to immediately recognize you with a single glance?
Do you want to have your profile stand out against the competition in. your industry?
It makes no sense to do anything without a strategy and you need to spend some time to think about this. I’d personally recommend taking 15 minutes to answer the following questions so you can start planning and brainstorming.
What you should ask about your social media banner
What social media platform are you creating a banner for?
Each social media platform is its own universe. A strategy that would work for one platform may not necessarily work for another. If you are creating a banner for Twitter or YouTube, you could create something more casual to connect one-on-one with your audience.
However if your target demographic are potential employers on LinkedIn, you may want to be a bit more conservative and formal.
What do you want your audience to take away from your banner?
Now that you know where you’ll be showcasing your banner, now it’s time to think about what you want on it. People have short attention spans and will give an image 7 seconds (if you are lucky) before looking for the next best thing.
This means you have a short amount of time to leave a big impression.
You need to figure out one (or two) takeaways someone should have after looking at your banner.
Do you want them to know what your email is so they can commission you to create their website?
Do you want people to feel calm and motivated to chase their dreams?
Do you want to be recognized as an expert in your industry?
Do you want your artwork to be the forefront of your brand?
What information do you want on your banner?
Is there a “call-to-action” that you want to add onto your banner? A next action that you’d like your viewers to take if they want to learn more about you? Some examples are:
An email that you want interested parties to send to inquire about your services.
A freebie that you want them to download so they can continue learning about you.
An invitation to your other social media channels so you both can become more connected
Your picture or series of pictures so that they can see the person behind the account who they are following or purchasing services from
These pieces of information are not required, but if you want to make the most out of your banner and have people take action, you should consider what information you want to showcase.
You also want to make sure you don’t put sensitive information on your banner. Some examples are your personal phone number and address unless you are creating a banner for a storefront and want people showing up to your shop.
How to create your social media banner
Know the size of your banner
Due to how frequently websites change the size requirements of their banners, you may want to research on the size you need your banner to be. This is especially true with how many people are using their smartphones instead of traditional computers to browse their favorite sites.
There are plenty of guides out there, all with guidelines with where critical information (such as your name/social media handles/etc) should be so it doesn’t get ‘cut’ due to resizing.
You can either use google to find your banner size by googling, “SOCIAL MEDIA SITE banner size”. You could also try editing your profile on the social media profile and sometimes the website will tell you the ‘ideal’ size for banners when you try to change your banner image.
Gather information and images for your banner
Now that you have a better idea of the size of your banner and what you want on it, you should start compiling all that information together. I highly recommend writing everything out on either a Google Doc or on Microsoft word. This way you can make sure you have no typos.
If you want to add images onto your banner, then feel free to save the image or images in the same folder as your text. This way everything is in one folder that you name “SOCIALMEDIA-Banner-Date”. This makes your assets easy to find if you ever need to make changes or update it.
If you plan on illustrating your banner or parts of your banner, make sure you save your illustration in a separate file before turning it into a JPG or PNG (file formats that merge all your layers together). This way if you need to make changes, you can.
If you use your own photos, make sure that your images reflect your brand well. Otherwise there are plenty of stock image sites that you can use. Just keep in mind that free images can be used by anyone else who finds them, so if being unique is important to your brand, get creative to make your banner stand out.
How to create your social media banner on Canva
For purposes of this guide, I’ll be recommending the free web-based program Canva to put your banner together. However if you have access to other programs such as the Adobe Suite, Gimp, or even Microsoft Paint, then go for it!
What I do like about Canva is that the free version is more than enough to create high-quality social media banners to make a name for yourself. The major downside to Canva’s free version is that you need to be 100% sure of the size of your banner since resizing it requires a premium account.
This is why the step of researching the size of your banner is crucial.
Selecting the size of your social media banner
Once you create your account on Canva (or log-in), you’ll want to click on the ‘Create a design’ button. After that you can either go with one of their suggested sizes/designs or create your banner with “Custom dimensions”. While I’d recommend putting in your own Custom dimensions, you can most certainly try using Canva’s suggested sizes.
Arranging the elements of your banner
After you pick the size of your banner, you’ll find that your window changed. On the right side of the screen you’ll find your plain white canvas. The other side of the screen you’ll find several buttons:
Templates- As the name suggests, here you’ll find suggested templates that Canvas recommends for you to use. If you are new to creating banners, I highly recommend you pick one of the templates and edit it so that it reflects you and your brand.
Photos- Here you can look for photos to use for your social media banner. There are several of free images that you can find here, but they tend to be mixed in with the premium ones that Canva wants you to purchase. If you hover your curser over an image you should see the word ‘Free’ on it to indicate whether or not its safe to use. Otherwise it’ll have the price and an image of a crown to show that it’s a premium image.
Elements- This tab gives you graphics and frames for you to use for your social media banner. Frames are shapes that you can put into you banner. By default these frames have an illustrated image of a landscape with clouds, however if you drag an image over it, the image will fit into the frame. Other graphics in this tab follow the same ‘free’ and ‘premium’ rules as before.
Text- Here is where you can insert text into your banner. There are several “Font combinations” if you’d rather go with what Canva recommends. These are for the most part solid and I highly recommend beginners use these.
Videos- There are free and premium videos that you can insert into your banner. Unless your social media platform specifically allows animated banners, I wouldn’t recommend incorporating these into your graphic.
Background- This tab is similar to the Photos tab, but it is specifically tailored to create backgrounds for your banner. Be mindful of ‘Free’ versus ‘Premium’ backgrounds.
Uploads- Here is where you’d go to upload your images if you have properly compiled the images you wanted to add onto your banner.
Exporting your graphic from Canva to use
Once you have spent time working on your banner, it’s time to export your image so you can use it. On the top right hand corner of the screen, you should find an image of an arrow pointing downward.
Click it to download your graphic, I recommend going with PNG format. However you are more than free to download it as a JPG. If you’d like to export your animated social media banner, know that it’s a premium feature to export it.
Alternatively, you can also click the ‘Publish’ button to download your graphic as well. It’ll also offer a variety of other methods to export your banner, so feel free to experiment later.
You’ll find your download ideally in the Downloads folder of your computer.
What do you do after creating your social media banner?
Once you are done creating your banner, upload it onto your social media site and make tweaks until you are happy with how it looks. I highly recommend you check it out on various web browsers and also on a computer, as well as, a smartphone screen.
After that the sky is the limit! Let me know what other guides you’d like for me to create so that you can stop thinking and start creating today!