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
Why 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 — so design becomes a key supporter.
Design will assist in developing a strong
brand image for the book as well as a personal brand for the author, which
is vital for getting recognition and increasing
influence online. This is as essential for authors with publishing
contracts as it is for those who are self-published, as publishers anticipate
their authors to play a role in marketing their books too. But if you
self-publish, you are also accountable for the design of the book — inside and
out.
Design brings all these elements together —
branding, marketing and book design — into an attractive total.
Why should a writer use a professional
designer?
Professional, custom design will not only
get you a striking cover that is on target for your subject matter and market,
but will also help institute your personal brand so significant for a robust
marketing effort when promoting your book. A holistic approach becomes predominantly
imperative when you try to maintain a constant presence throughout all the assorted
social media and online channels, including your website.
A good, well-rounded designer will consult
with authors on the overall marketing plan and design beyond just the book
cover, bringing their entire presence together into an efficient parcel. That’s
why I think it is imperative to hire a designer who does more than just book
covers — someone who looks at the big picture and advises on things along the
way you may not have thought of.
What is the downside to using services
like Fiverr?
You mean services that offer designs
“starting at $5?” The trouble with things like that is they leave the most imperative
feature of doing good quality work out of the equation — the relationship
between designer and client and overall design procedure. Good design is
accomplished by partnering with a designer you trust. That’s the only way
to create efficient design that pleases the author certainly, but just as
important, design that pleases the audience for which the book was
intended.
Good
design is not produced in a void where the designer goes off to his creative
dungeon only to surface days later with the perfect design. That may create an attractive
product that is agreeable to the eye, but one which doesn’t essentially support
the content or the market being targeted. Design should be more than just mere
surface adornment — 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.
What
are the most common mistakes you see with social media design?
People who are otherwise very smart and
well-respected with dazzling credentials often present themselves online in a
way that kills their 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 — busy, cluttered, indecipherable page designs. I think it’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 can’t afford to let that sit — you need
to begin establishing yourself and increasing your presence now — as you’re
writing the book if not earlier. And it needs to be buttoned-up to be
effective.
You did a fantastic job on my social
media design work. Can you explain how you chose the colours and style for my
social media design and blog?
I usually lean to focus more on the on the
whole design and typography more than I do colour, which is most likely one of
the more subjective things you can engage in. Colour decisions are typically
arrived at during the overall design process and working through an assortment
of components.
Colour should be a factor of what is suitable
for the project, the audience, and sensible deliberations such as what will be
most decipherable or reproduce better when printed. It is less about what
someone’s personal preferences are. For personal branding, however, colour
does become as much a purpose of who the person is and what they are
comfortable with as it is what makes sense from a business viewpoint.
A tricky balance for sure, but based on all
the positive feedback you received and what you’ve accomplished, I think we
achieved that! And yes, we also used your favourite colour.
Why is it important for design to be at
the front of the branding process and not an afterthought?
Since design is a primary constituent of
the brand policy, it should be involved at the earliest stages. If it
is tagged on at the end, then it’s just a layer of adornment on top of an
approach that may not be sound or well thought through. Although the policy
informs the design, design is also essential to the procedure as it is being
shaped.
Oftentimes when design is brought in late,
issues occur that should have been corrected much earlier, leading to costly
fixes or worse, a flawed plan left as is because it’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 first-class. But good designers take a much
broader approach and if you want to achieve your business objectives,
design is so much more than that.
My single most significant piece of advice
is to think of designers more as business and marketing strategists, and less
as artists. Design is surely an art, but professional designers are as savvy at
business, psychology and communications as they are at being imaginative. Good
designers know how to ask the right questions and distill your messaging down
to its core, setting the groundwork for a graceful design explanation that will
meet all your different marketing and communications needs — only then do we
also make it look great!
If you don’t know where to begin, I propose
hiring someone you belief and listening to them as they direct you through the
design process. A good designer will listen to you and support in defining
your objectives to get you where you need to go.
If you don’t know any designers, the social
channels also offer the tools you require to find them and the social proof to
back it up. Ask around — check and see what they’ve have done, how much
experience they have, how they engage with people online, how
responsible they appear and what they’re recommendations are like. It all adds
up to a pretty solid picture of what your experience with them will be
like too.
