“How we do anything is how we do everything.” It is a quote in which the original author is unknown. Some credit it to the life coach of Oprah Winfrey, Martha Beck. Simon Sinek, a popular thought leader, speaker, and author, credits it to Buddhist monks. Others credit the quote to Orson Welles and even to Jesus. While the author is unknown, the quote certainly applies to business and marketing.
How you do the small things in marketing can make a big difference, for the better or for worse. While one small mistake is not a big deal, such as one misspelled word, consistent sloppiness and mistakes is an issue. Whether right or wrong, prospects and customers will associate the quality of your marketing with the quality of service or of the products you provide. One area of marketing in which this is very much true is image sizing and cropping.
Why You Need To Format Photos Correctly On Social Media
We’ve all see it on Facebook or Instagram. A post comes through your feed with a quote or wording in which part of the wording has been cut off. If it is a friend doing this on their personal account, it’s no big deal. However, when it is a business, it has several negative implications.
Reduced Reach
The social networks love it when you feed their algorithm content. Images and videos are especially preferred by Facebook. This is why, according to AdEspresso, over 55% of all posts on Facebook, including brand posts, contain images or videos. However, if you provide low-quality content, they will reduce your reach. This is especially true for images that are not sized correctly. Basically, if you make a social network do more work to display your image or categorize it, they’ll reduce your reach.
Low Engagement
Engagement comes down to human behavior. If you provide content that is interesting, educational, funny, or that ads value in some way, you’re off to a great start. But, if you provide low-quality content, such as an image with text cut off, or even worse, a head chopped off, users are going to keep scrolling on by your content and not engage. If users don’t engage, not only will social networks be less likely to show that users’ future posts, they will start reducing the reach of your future posts.
Your Brand Gets Associated With Poor Quality
The worst outcome of improperly formatted images and content is that users will view your brand as being of low quality. If you’re an insurance agency selling insurance policies, users will see the low-quality content and worry that you might also slack on all the paperwork associated with insurance policies. If you’re a roofing company, users will worry that your lack of quality content might mean you cut corners when fixing or installing roofs. Poor quality content kills sales.
The Solution To Sizing Social Media Content Correctly
You know why properly formatting images in your social media posts is important. But, how do you make sure you correctly size, crop or format your content? Here are three things that will help you.
Know The Correct Image Sizes For Each Social Network
Each social network has its own image size requirements. With a non-text image, this is not usually a concern. Though, if the image contains text, a logo, or elements that you don’t want cropped out, knowing the proper size is important. This guide, “Correct Image Sizes for Business Social Media Pages, Profiles and Accounts,” will help. But, keep in mind that these sizes frequently change on each social network. Make sure to check every few months to see if a social network has changed its suggested content sizes.
Use A Graphic Design Tool Designed for Social Media
There are online graphic design tools that can help you properly format your content. The tool we recommend is Canva. FunnelAmplified actually partnered with Canva and integrated it into our solution. (CLICK HERE to view our press release about the integration). Canva makes it easy to seamlessly format content for each social network. Because we know how important this is, we’ve integrated their software into our solution to ensure our users always use properly formatted images and content. However, the important thing is that you find a tool that works for you and ensure that you are formatting all of your content according to the social media networks’ guidelines.
Hire Professionals
Social Media changes every day. If you are part of any Facebook marketing or social media group, you’ll see posts each day on elements of the social networks that have changed. It is a full-time job just to keep up with it all! If you are a larger business with a full marketing team, consider hiring someone or making it someone’s primary task to create images that conform to each social network. If you’re a small business, consider hiring a third party that specializes in social media and keeps up to date on all the sizing guidelines and social media trends.
Bonus Pro Tip
Post organically on each social network. We designed FunnelAmplified to post organically to each social network because of all the advantages to doing so. One advantage is that you know exactly what the image or content will look like when viewed by users, and you can upload images that were specifically designed and sized for each network.
Remember, how you do anything is how you do everything. Having an image with text cut off might seem like a small thing, but to a prospect whose only exposure to your brand is that post, you’ll likely forever be associated with being a low-quality brand. Do the small things right. Properly format your images and content for each social network.
Question: What tool(s) do you use to format social media content? Let us know in the comments below.
Thanks for reading. I typically write about modern selling, virtual selling, prospecting, sales reps reputation and how content helps all of these with modern buyers. My primary audience includes CEOs, CROs, CMOs, and other executives responsible for increasing bottom line. Post your questions in the comments section below and let’s discuss this!
