Strengthen Your Company's Visual Identity on Social Media with Canva:
An Easy-to-Use Design Tool
Corporate visual identity is the showcase of your company, so taking care of it is one of the most important aspects of improving your brand image and reputation. It reflects the values and philosophy of your business. This identity uses graphic and typographic elements to communicate and convey messages that define a company.
If you're looking for an easy and intuitive tool to create amazing and personalized designs for your social media, presentations, stationery, brochures, and more, Canva is the ideal graphic design website for you.
Surely, your company has a presence on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. However, merely creating an account and posting content is not enough to succeed on social media. It's essential to establish a strategic communication plan with specific objectives.
Argentina has a population of 45.40 million people, of which 36 million, or 79.3% of the total, are active social media users, according to the Digital in Argentina study by Datareportal. These statistics highlight the importance for companies to have an organized and well-maintained online presence to ensure success.
The most prominent social network in the country is Instagram, with 21 million users. This means that almost half of the Argentine population (46.26%) uses Instagram. It's important to note that this social network is primarily visual, as a company's profile feed is a part of its corporate image.
One of the goals every company should have for its social media is to maintain visual identity, nurturing the profile with a visual consistency that leaves an impression on users and makes them remember your brand.
Among the key tips that every identity manual should include are:
- Define a specific font: using a unique graphic language will help with brand identification. Ideally, choose a legible, distinctive, and memorable font.
- Use corporate colors: once the colors representing your company are established, include them in images. You can create templates that incorporate shapes or icons in those colors or include elements with those shades in photographs. For example, if your company is characterized by red, you can take a photo of an office with a red wall or a person wearing a red jacket.
- Include the company logo in the images to be uploaded on social media.
- Maintain a similar aesthetic in all posts, avoiding very disparate visual elements.
What possibilities does Canva offer?
If you want to create your own designs for your company's social media, Canva offers a multitude of possibilities to develop your creativity. It is a freemium graphic design website, meaning it can be used for free, with the option to access more advanced services for a monthly or annual fee.
In this intuitive and user-friendly tool, you have access to thousands of pre-designed free templates. Therefore, you don't need graphic design knowledge to create compositions in Canva. In the interface or "workspace," you have a column on your left that gathers all the options and elements to create and modify the design. Simply select the elements you want, and then you can edit them directly on the work surface. If you want to move an element, just drag it around the template and place it where you want.
How to use Canva to create any design
To start, the first step is to create a user account. You have several options: using your Google or Facebook accounts or entering your email and password.
Upon logging in, Canva will offer design suggestions and a search bar to go directly to what you need.
As a practical example, let's create an Instagram Story. First, select the category "Instagram Stories."
Once you click on the desired category, a wide range of different designs will appear that you can choose from.
When you select the template that suits your needs, you can start designing. Here is an overview of Canva's interface, where you only need to move the mouse to modify the composition.
By choosing this template, you can edit all its elements. For example, if you want to change the text, simply click on it and type. You can also configure typography, font size, and other aspects in the top bar. You can change the image either to another one from Canva's image bank or by uploading a photo from your files. To change the photo, drag it to the template. Before releasing it, you can see how the new image looks.
On the other hand, if you want to add icons or illustrations to give a personal touch to your design, you have to click on "elements" in the left sidebar. You'll have thousands of elements that you can search for using the search bar or browse through the categories that Canva shows you:
If you want to place, for example, a flower below the welcome sign, type the word "flower" in the search bar and choose the one you like the most. You just have to select it, and it will be automatically placed in the template. You can change the size and move it by dragging the mouse:
Additionally, you can include multimedia elements and your own files that you can upload. When you finish your design, you can download it in the upper right corner.
As you can see, downloading the file with a transparent background or compressing it to reduce quality are premium options. Also, if you click on "File Type," in this case PNG, a drop-down menu with file options will appear: PNG, JPG, standard PDF, PDF for printing, MP4 video, GIF, and SVG, the latter being a premium option.
However, excessive use of these pre-defined templates can result in very little differentiation from others who also use them. To have a recognizable identity and stand out from the competition, it's ideal to hire the services of graphic design specialists. These professionals will create custom designs that align with the company's visual identity.
At Bakata, we offer the possibility of creating designs suitable for the brand. Moreover, if a company seeks greater autonomy, we take care of designing from scratch and then adapting them to Canva so that they only have to edit, saving time and simplifying the task.
Check out our o design services!