Creating social media content takes time. And creating great social media content takes even more time. But what if you don’t have time? With the right tools, you can create amazing visuals in few minutes.

1. Creating engaging
visuals in minutes
Val Shapiro, IFRC
Design & Multimedia

2. How we process
information
90%
of information sent
to the brain is visual.
Source: (MIT)
65%
of people are
visual learners.
Source: (Pearson)

3. How we process
information
people retained
10%
of the information
people retained
65%
of the information
days
later×3
Source: Brain Rules

4. Visual content
in social media
+150%
retweets more compared
to tweets without images.
Source: (Buffer)
Tweets with images
receive
+94%
more views than content
without relevant images.
Source: (Quick Sprout)
Content with relevant
images gets
×3 times
more than other any other
type of content.
Source: (NN Group)
Infographics are liked
and shared
×3

5. Infographics
Viewers don’t need
to invest too much time
– visual representations of information
in a clear and concise way
One glance is enough
to understand the main idea
Effective infographics
can tell a great story
Why infographics are so powerful:

6. Infographics
Fundraising
When can be useful:
Social media Comms during
emergencies
Videos and
animations
Where can be used:
Social media
posts (FB, TW,
Instagram, etc.)
Marketing
promotional
materials

7. Infographics
types
Long traditional

8. Infographics
types
Micro
Sometimes a micro
infographic is all you need to
present a single piece of
information in a visual way.
Also, they are much easier
to share on social media
in a square format.

9. Infographics
types
Icon-based

10. Infographics
types
Illustrated

11. Infographics
types
Illustrated

12. Infographics
types
Photographic

13. Infographics
types
Animated

14. Infographics
types
Interactive
These infographics usually
have interactive buttons and
hyperlinks.

15. Check your data.
Show data that
make sense.
Show, not tell your
information. Only
include important text.
Select the right data
visualization that is
easy to understand.
Use colors smartly.
Create one color palette
and follow it.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Infographics:
useful tips

16. Infographics:
useful tips
Choose maximum two
fonts (titles and body
text)
Don’t use too many
filters and effects
Choose one style for
your icons Keep it simple
5.
6.
7.
8.

17. Infographics
example
17 different languages
More than 10 000 shares
Just a single post from the
German Red Cross was shared
6700 times on Facebook!
Why:
• Timely and relevant
• Simple and concise
• Friendly style
• Easy to edit
(Canva template)
https://bit.ly/2kr82pZ

18. Creating social media content takes time.
And creating great social media content
takes even more time.
But what if you don’t have time?
With the right tools, you can create
amazing visuals in few minutes.
Time

19. Amazingly simple online graphic
design software.
Create high-quality graphics quickly
using templates, layouts and design
elements — even on the free plan.
canva.com
Tutorials: designschool.canva.com
Canva

21. Create impactful social graphics, web
pages, and short videos in minutes.
Pick a photo, add text, and apply
design filters or animations to create
social media content easily.
spark.adobe.com
Tutorials: spark.adobe.com/make
Spark

23. Icons, maps,
graphics
The largest database
of free vector icons in
SVG, PSD, PNG, EPS
format or as ICON
FONT.
flaticon.com
More than 3 millions
free vectors, PSD,
photos, free icons and
graphic resources that
you need.
freepik.com
Highly detailed, easily
customisable and
consistent library of
vector maps
for free.
freevectormaps.com

24. Other useful
tools
http://bit.ly/IFRConepagers

25. Instagram
Stories
• Make content relatable to the
audience and link it to your key
messages (example: Climate
Change)
• Ask your viewers questions, make
it a dialogue – not a monologue

26. Instagram
Stories
• Native functionality (quizzes, polls,
emoji sliders, gifs) makes stories
more engaging
• Cute illustrations work extremely
well

27. Instagram
Stories
• Find new ways of explaining
complicated topics
(example: Liquefaction story we
produced after Sulawesi tsunami
and earthquake)

28. Instagram
Stories
• A timely bad-quality video,
showing natural disaster and
people in action, is much more
successful than an amazing
video done by a crew a month
later

29. Instagram
Stories
For the best result use a mix of:
• Illustrations and simple
infographics
• Videos (relevant and timely)
• Photos with quotes
• Native functionality (quizzes, polls,
emoji sliders, gifs)
Suggested length of the story
is no more than 10 slides
Follow our Insta account
for more inspiration:
instagram.com/ifrc

30. Thank you!
For more information,
please contact:
Val Shapiro:
valentina.shapiro@ifrc.org
X-Media Team, Communications
department, IFRC