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5 Questions Authors Need to Ask about Social Media Design

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Getting your social media in order starts with visual appeal. I brought in an expert this week to ask a few questions about why design is important for authors and social media. Paul Biedermann did all my social media design work and I felt he was the perfect person to share his expertise with you. Paul runs re:DESIGNย a branding and design firm in Long Island but lives in the world of social media so he knows how design and social media fit together.
5 Questions Authors Need to Ask About Social Media DesignWhy is design important for authors with their social media?

As an author, you want people to read your books and for them to sell, so you are an entrepreneur as well. That means not only writing the book but promoting it too โ€” soย design becomes a key ally.

Design will help develop a strong brand image for the book as well as a personalย brand for the author, which is crucial for getting recognition and developing influenceย online.ย This is as necessary for authors with publishing contracts as it isย for those who are self-published, as publishers expect their authors to play a role in marketing their books too.ย But if you self-publish, you are also responsible for the design of the book โ€” inside and out.

Design brings all these elements together โ€” branding, marketing and book design โ€”ย into a beautiful whole.

Why should a writer use a professional designer?

Professional, custom design will not only get you a beautiful cover that is on target for your subject matter and market, but will also help establish your personal brand so important for a robust marketing effort when promoting your book.ย A holistic approach becomes particularly important when you try to maintain a consistent presence throughout all the various social media and online channels, including your website.

A good, well-rounded designer will consult with authors on the overall marketing strategy and design beyond just the book cover, bringing their entire presence together into an effective package.ย Thatโ€™s why I think it is important to hire a designer who does more than just book covers โ€” they see the big picture and advise on things along the way you may not have thought of. A comprehensive solution is far better than doing everything piecemeal, which only leads to a disjointed effort that not only looks unprofessional, it wonโ€™t get the results you desire either.

What is the downside to using services like Fiverr?

You mean services that offer designs โ€œstarting at $5?โ€ The problem with things like that is they leave the most important aspect of doing good work out of the equation โ€” the relationship between designer and client and overall design process. Good design is accomplished byย partnering with a designer you trust. Thatโ€™s the only way to produce effective design that pleases the author certainly, but just as important, design that pleases the audience for which the book was intended.ย From my experience, the better designers arenโ€™t signed onto those types of services.ย I would also stay away from things like crowdsourcing, but thatโ€™s a whole other discussion!

Good design is not produced in a vacuum where the designer goes off to his creative dungeon only to surface days later with the perfect design. That may produce a decorative result that is pleasing to the eye, but one which doesnโ€™t necessarily support the content or the market being targeted. Design should be more than just mere surface decoration โ€” good design is about encapsulating and visually communicating the gist of an idea (your book!) in a simple, powerful, compelling way that gets people to take notice and act.ย Yes, custom design will cost more but itโ€™s an investment in something important, likely saving money in the long run while achieving the desired result.

What are the most common mistakes you see with social media design?

The amount of bad, unprofessional, and downright amateurish profiles and pages I see in social media is staggering. People who are otherwise very smart and well-respected with brilliant credentials often present themselves online in a way that belies theirย reputations. I find that mind-boggling.

Everywhere you look there are blurry, low resolution images, bad logos that look muddy when small, and run-of-the-mill or worse โ€” busy, cluttered, indecipherable page designs. I think itโ€™s mostly the result of someone opening a new Facebook or Twitter page one evening, perhaps with well-meaning intentions to make it better someday, but then that day never comes. As an author selling a book, you canโ€™t afford to let that sit โ€” you need to start establishing yourself and developing your presence now โ€” as youโ€™re writing the book if not earlier. And it needs to be buttoned-up to be effective.

Just as you wouldnโ€™t wear a rumpled suit to an important business meeting, your online persona shouldnโ€™t be any different. At the very minimum, start with a professionally photographed portrait โ€” then hire a professional designer to take all of your social media profiles and turn them into a well coordinatedย brand image that is not onlyย eye-catching, but on target with accomplishing your business goals (same as in your book cover and design).

You did a fantastic job on my social media design work. Can you explain how you chose the colors and style for my social media design and blog?

I generally tend to focus more on the overall design and typography more than I do color, which is probably one of the more subjective things you can engage in. Color decisions are usually arrived at during the overall design process and working through the various components.

Color should be a factor of what is appropriate for the project, the audience, and practical considerations such as what will be most legible or reproduce better when printed. It is less about what someoneโ€™s personal preferences are.ย For personal branding, however, color does become as much a function of who the person is and what they are comfortable with as it is what makes sense from a business perspective.

In your case, you already had a bubbly, sparkly reputation, so it was a matter of taking that โ€” maintaining your fun personality โ€” while also presenting yourself as a smart, professional businessperson. A tricky balance for sure, but based on all the positive feedback you received and what youโ€™ve accomplished, I think we achieved that! And yes, we also used your favorite color.

Why is it important for design to be at the front of the branding process and not an afterthought?

Since design is a fundamental component of the brand strategy, itย should be involvedย at the earliest stages. If it is tagged on at the end, then itโ€™s just a layer of decoration on top of an approach that may not be sound or well thought through. Although the strategy informs the design, design is also integral to the process as it is being shaped.

Oftentimes when design is brought in late, issues arise that should have been corrected much earlier, leading to costly fixes or worse, a flawed plan left as is because itโ€™s so late in the game.

What other design tips do you think are important for authors to build their social media platform?

Most people tend to think of designers as decorators who make stuff look good. But good designers take a much broader approach andย if you want to accomplish your business objectives, design is so much more than that.

My single most important piece of advice is to think of designers more as business and marketing strategists, and less as artists. Design is certainly an art, but professional designers are as savvy at business, psychology and communications as they are at being creative.ย Good designers know how to ask the right questions and distill your messaging down to its essence, setting the foundation for an elegant design solution that will meet all your various marketing and communications needs โ€” only then do we also make it look great!

If you donโ€™t know where to start, I suggest hiring someone you trust and listening to them as they guide you through the design process.ย A good designer will listen to you and assist in defining your objectives to get you where you need to go.

If you donโ€™t know any designers, the social channels also provide the tools you need to find them and the social proof to back it up. Ask around โ€” check and see what theyโ€™ve have done, how much experience they have,ย how they engage with people online,ย how responsible they appear and what theyโ€™re recommendations are like. It all adds up to a pretty solid picture of what your experience with themย will be likeย too. And if you like what Iโ€™ve said here, maybe youโ€™ll think of me too!

Thank you Paul for sharing your time and skills with my readers in this Social Media for Writers series. I know this will help people with the decisions. You can find Paul on Google+ and Twitter.

Article by Peg Fitzpatrick

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5 Comments

  1. Peg, These are great reasons why authors should use and follow the advice of a professional designer. I think social media designs should reinforce a person’s unique value proposition or personal brand. People should work these messages out and communicate them to the designer. This is a cost-effective way to get a professional design that you like.

  2. As a graphic designer of many years, become content marketer, I’ve sadly watched the focus shift from great design to essentially content only. Clients seem to want to invest nothing into custom design any more… just grab a nice template and start banging out content. It’s refreshing to hear someone bring the importance of the visual elements back into the content conversation.

  3. Very nice article ๐Ÿ™‚ Thanks for sharing your ideas with us.
    Desings can help to attract the people t your page. A business website’s design should be elegant and simple at the same time. I my self started designing a few months back. Don’t have much experience but I think points given in this article are pretty much correct. I thought that customers will ask me these question while I was doing my first project . But they did not bother to ask much question (I don’t know why? ). But ย I myself explained them everything from layout to color contrast. And I think that is also a good idea for the designers to make their customers relax. I have almost compeleted that project. website is launched but have to made a few changes. Lets see what happens next. If any of you guys want to share your info or experience with me. you are always welcome. and do visit my project to let me know about my work ๐Ÿ™‚ (http://www.avastring.com)

  4. colerwiebeย I think all my stuff is great because of the design, the problem is that most people see the over all picture and don’t realize how big of a piece that design is in what they are seeing.

    I’m glad you liked it.

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