Create a Brilliant Social Media Experience using CRAP

Social Media is primarily a visual medium and the player that has the most visually riveting content has an edge over the others. Therefore, Design plays a crucial and yet an invisible role in making a company to be even considered as a “brand”.

Design usually corresponds to a method / set of rules that make the creative stand-out post after post – thereby resulting in an eventual unified brand experience. Alternatively, we will see how these principles apply to the overall picture.

Principles of Design

• Contrast
• Repetition
• Alignment
• Proportion

Most of the above terms work well across different disciplines. Let’s see how.

Contrast

literally means “Set Apart” / “Stand out”. In a social feed plagued by sameness – Contrast helps you get noticed over other brands/individuals.

Actionables

• Content – Choose colors that are vibrant and complementary in a way so as to make the design pop. More and more brands are using similar looking type / layouts. Just by not using that – you can be sure to stand out.
• Subject – Choose a subject that is in contrast with the competitors. Another way to look at this would be to build an overall content calendar that is in striking contrast to what’s happening in the industry.

Simple way to achieve Contrast in Design / Content – is to look for similarities and make sure your instagram post doesn’t belong to the same family.

Repetition

is intentional use of pattern / method to create an overall layer of trust, dependability and connection with your brand.

Actionables

• Look and Feel – Select a visual style / language and stick to it. This is a constant evolving process that needs to be in check with the current trends and communication techniques.
• Language – How does your brand talk to its followers? What are the kind of words that you can use to connect more deeply with your audience.

Once done right, Repetition will help facilitate an unified experience for your audience that truly understands your message and helps you achieve your goals.

Alignment

makes sure that all of your content / communication follows the same brand purpose. This helps you to take care of ad-hoc situations that always seem to pop-up.

Each and every social media platform requires the same information – when it comes to the Handle Name | Bio | Posts | Captions. However each platform has its own quirks and reasons why people like to hangout there.

Here’s a fun analogy that used to trend way back.

• Twitter – I’m drinking a #coffee
• Facebook – I like coffee
• Instagram – Here’s a vintage photo of my coffee
• YouTube – Watch me drink my coffee
• LinkedIn – My skills include drinking lots of coffee
• Pinterest – Here’s how to make the perfect coffee
• Snapchats – I am having a streak for 200+ days with my friend over coffee
• You can understand how the same content needs to be repurposed based on platforms. Alignment is the single tool that can help you establish your brand across this multi-brand world.

Proximity

This is truly foundational. In design, the rule of proximity states that elements that are closer seem to be related. And those that are distant – become unrelated.

Actionables

Emotions – Imagine using this with the kind of emotions you want to connect with your brand. Quite simply – if i talk about good things and generate good emotions then people will equate Good with my Brand. This totally must be the bedrock of content creation.

People come on social platforms to connect, learn, inspire, entertain. That means our content should serve this purpose.

Conclusion

CRAP facilitates the audience to invest in your brand and that is the game changer that one aspires for. Remember, Content should be created based on who your audience is and how they consume it; rather than who is creating it.

Brand is an experience that the audience enjoys over a period of time and connects with it on a subconscious level. Why you like a brand ? – is a question that can’t be answered easily. Actually it’s very difficult to put in to words as it’s connected to emotions and feeling – rather than actual language.

The simplest of things can’t be worded exactly to convey what was felt. It’s much similar to an age old question that i can’t answer to save my life – Why do you like a particular color.

Me : Which is your Favorite color?

You : (Think of your favorite color)

Me : Why that color?

You : (Comment your perfectly worded answer below) – Trust me – no answer is false. But also no answer is the perfect answer.

Something’s in life are not meant to be explained. They are only meant to be experienced.

Hope this articles helps you in creating a premium experience around your brand that no one can explain 🙂