How to Achieve a Social Media Aesthetic
Take a look at some of your favorite social media accounts. I’m willing to bet that if you scroll through their feed, story highlights, and reels that there’s some level of aesthetic consistency. This typically means choosing a particular theme and applying that to every post, including those displaying both text and images. The goal of creating a social media aesthetic is to create a page that looks cohesive and intentional, not just thrown together for the heck of it.
Why is a cohesive social media aesthetic important? More than 90% of businesses have social media profiles today. That means there’s a ton of competition out there, and you have to find something that makes your page unlike any other. Your social media aesthetic is kind of like your personality! Or, rather, your brand’s personality.
Research shows that consistent branding can increase revenue by up to 23%! Consistent branding makes you recognizable, and we all love to buy from brands that we’re familiar with, right?
So, let’s get you going with your very own social media aesthetic. Here’s how you can do it!
Step 1: Establish Brand Guidelines
Your brand guidelines are going to determine who you’re marketing to, what they need and want, and how you’re going to solve their problems. Once you’ve figured that out, you can begin to formulate your brand’s personality.
Ask yourself questions like
What kind of personality does my target customer have? Are they fun-loving? Business-orientated? Travel junkies? All three?
What tone of voice would my target audience use?
What does my target audience value?
If you’re having trouble answering these questions, don’t be afraid to check out some of your competitors for inspiration. Pick apart their page to find the things you love and the things you’d do differently, and then adapt them to make them your own.
Step 2: Choose a Color Palette
I think this is one of the most fun parts of creating a social media aesthetic! Colors communicate many feelings and emotions. If you choose a consistent color palette and stick to it, your audience can get a pretty good idea of what your brand is all about right off the bat.
For example, a color scheme that includes different shades of pink might communicate that your brand is geared towards women and people who love femininity. A color scheme made up of soft greens, browns, and yellows might communicate that you have an affinity for nature and things that make you feel calm.
Of course, these aren’t hard and fast rules – you can make a color scheme mean whatever you want it to mean. Pink isn’t just for girls, and people who like soft, natural colors might not own a single houseplant. These are just examples of how colors and emotions can be connected.
If you aren’t sure what color your brand’s tone is, you can use a random palette generator like Coolors.com. Just keep clicking around until you find a color palette that screams your brand’s name.
Step 4: Create or Download Lightroom Preset Filters
I can’t tell you how much easier your life will get once you start using preset filters for your Instagram photos! Not only is this a great way to keep a consistent social media aesthetic, but it pretty much eliminates photo editing (unless you’re going to retouch your photos).
There are a few ways to get Lightroom presets. You can download them from some of your favorite creators, get them right from Adobe, or go through other online resources like Lou & Marks Presets and Pixpa.
Once you’ve chosen your favorite preset, you can use it to edit every image you put on your Instagram feed. This will help make sure all the same colors pop in every picture so they look consistent across the board.
Here’s how to install presets on Lightroom Classic:
Open Lightroom Classic and go to the Develop module at the top right
On the left, you will see a section called Presets. Click on the + icon
Select Import Presets from the dropdown menu
Navigate to the folder that contains the presets
Select either the individual presets or the .ZIP file that contains all of them (this will depend on what you downloaded and how)
Select Import
Your presets will appear in the Presets section!
Final Thoughts
Head over to the resources that are mentioned and linked in this post and play around with color schemes, different fonts, and check out some presets, too. If you’re just getting started with developing your social media aesthetic, I would hold off on paying for too much right off the bat. Find things that communicate your brand’s personality well (and for free) and then upgrade and refine when the time is right! Luckily, there are tons of excellent free tools out there that you can use to give your social media aesthetic that consistent, refined look.
Do you have any questions about social media aesthetics? Looking for some more free tools to use? Let me know! And make sure you stay up to date with my blogs because there’s more great advice on the way.