Design tips for social media posts

Social media posting is a challenge for many entrepreneurs. Here are some useful tips to help your social media posts look better and more cohesive.

Dimensions

Each social media platform has its own formats and dimensions. Therefore, it's time-consuming and laborious to design pixel-accurately for each platform. It's best to follow three basic formats:

Rectangular (landscape format)

This is probably the most common format for social media posts on Facebook, Xing or LinkedIn.

Rectangular (portrait format)

Stories on Instagram and Facebook are generally in portrait format. This also applies to IGTVs on Instagram.

(Almost) square

Image posts on Instagram were generally displayed in a square format until spring 2025. Since then, Instagram posts have been automatically cropped to a portrait 4:5 format – whether you like it or not. Therefore, it's generally best not to place important information or important visuals bleeding off toward the edge of the image, but to keep the 4:5 portrait format in mind.

Facebook can also work with this format – (almost) square and square.

In practice, these three basic formats are quite useful. Therefore, laborious pixel-accurate design isn't necessarily a must.

Consistent look and feel

A consistent look and feel, i.e. a design constant, is essential for a professional presence on social media as a company channel.

Color filter

Often, different stock photos are used for social media posts, creating different moods. It looks more professional when everything has a consistent look and feel. Color filters, for example, are useful here, as they always create a certain mood in the image. This ensures that the images fit together nicely.

Fonts

A consistent approach is also important when using fonts on social media posts. Pay attention to the font size and ensure that you place as little text as necessary on an image so that it's still easy to read on a mobile phone – where your social media post is likely to be read.

Secondary style element vs. logo

Secondary style elements are a great tool. They create a visual constant that runs through a brand and subtly reminds you of a specific company without needing to see the logo. After all, the logo isn't necessarily a must-have here; the secondary style element is usually better in this case.

Here are a few examples of social media posts from our clients, all of which score points with their social media audience through harmonious color schemes and the targeted use of secondary style elements:

For Spedination, a black color filter is used, allowing the text to stand out beautifully in the white corporate font. The central message is further emphasized by the rounded yellow corners of the logo. These yellow corners are the secondary style elements in this branding and are used everywhere – with or without text – to create a professional look.

This example shows Spedifort, a provider of online learning for freight forwarders, for whom we developed a new brand at the end of 2020. A color filter is also used here. Across all formats, you'll see the same arrangement of image area, text area, corporate font, logo icon, and, as secondary style elements, the colorful progress bars that symbolize learning progress. The theme of "learning progress" is a central element of this branding, which is reflected in all social media posts.

As you can see, a consistent look and feel is essential. Professional, cross-media branding can be flexibly applied to anything, including social media, and still manages to convey a consistent look and feel.