Last updated on February 2nd, 2023
Facebook is a massive social platform to conduct a brand promotion exercise. Millions of target customers visit brand’s Facebook pages to get an insight into products or services. Therefore, to make a great first impression on them, Facebook cover photos must be unique and enticing as they represent a brand personality.
A potential customer visiting a Facebook page of a brand first sees the cover photo at the top. This is the first dominant visual that captures eyes instantly.
So, the photo becomes an opportunity for a clever marketer to convey a brand message. Such a professionally designed cover photo delivers the message at a glance before the visitor navigates elsewhere.
Remember that the challenge of creating Facebook cover photos with the help of Facebook cover template is to make a lasting impression on potential customers in a second.
That is the time a user takes to form a perception about your brand. Even the visitor’s possibility of staying on the page depends a lot on the cover image.
But the cover photos, known as Facebook banners, serve many other purposes too. Besides being a representative of your brand, the banner also works as a small landing page. It will convert visitors into leads.
A nicely designed such page captures visitors’ details as well by luring them into the desired offer, such as discounts. You can, then, use that data to analyze your customers’ preferences and recreate your marketing strategy. So, the cover photo is useful for converting visitors into leads.
The cover photo also works as a Call-To-Action visual. The CTA, when designed strategically, compels viewers to visit your website to buy, subscribe, or take any other desired action. Similarly, you can use the cover photo to make an event announcement as well.
We can say that with carefully designed Facebook cover photos, your brand can steadily build a solid customer base. After all, Facebook is amongst the biggest global social media platform that businesses can leverage to their benefit.
Statistics also second this claim. According to a study, Facebook is the biggest social media platform, with 2.45 billion monthly active users reported as of the third quarter of 2019.
Create Facebook Cover Photos All By Yourself
Yours may be a small business running on a small budget strictly. Due to financial constraints, hiring an expensive graphic designer is not usually affordable. Still, there are DIY tools you can explore to design your Facebook cover photo without any outside help.
Designhill Facebook cover photo maker is one such easy-to-handle free of cost tool that businesses use to create the covers on their own.
These are drag and drop tools that everyone can manipulate easily. Just pick the right elements from the tool library and drop it into the layout you choose.
The first step to create the cover photos with this software is to start on a fixed dimension. There is a pre-determined dimension embedded with the free online cover maker. So, the right cover photo size is already picked for you.
All you need to do is to choose a frame for your layout. Then, in the layout, add your choice of elements such as images, icons, and texts to customize the cover. It is here that you need to be creative.
Once you are finished creating the cover photo, you can preview and download it if satisfied. You enjoy full copyrights over the design you created using the tool.
However, when using a banner maker to create Facebook cover photos, follow certain Facebook guidelines and rules. Also, consider some basics of creating a unique and impressive cover photo.
Here Are The Basics To Create Impressive Facebook Cover Photos
01. Stick To The guidelines
Facebook has issued its own set of guidelines for those who wish to design cover photos on this platform. Here are the major considerations:
i. Your cover photo should not infringe anyone’s copyright. It should not be misleading and deceptive.
ii. You should not ask people or encourage them to upload your cover photo on their personal timelines.
iii. Refrain from including any third party brands, products or sponsors within your cover photo or profile picture.
02. Know Your Audience
Before you set out to create impressive Facebook cover photos, have some insight into your target audience. Like, who are the potential set of customers you want to sell your products or services to in the market? You must precisely answer that question to know who is your ideal customer. You can also use Facebook insights tools to get a more detailed view into these analytics
A plus point while working on your cover photo is that Facebook business pages and fan pages have some features that help you know your audience. There are some tabs at the top of the screen.
Amongst them, the ‘Insight’ tab is useful in this regard. In this tab, go to the ‘’People’’ option on the ‘Insight’ menu. Then, select the ‘’Your Fans’’ tab. By clicking on this tab helps you search millions of people who come from various backgrounds.
This means that no matter what industry you are in and what your company makes, you can find your target market at Facebook out of its 2 billion active monthly users.
Using the tab you can find people in categories like gender, location, and primary language. With this information, you are able to select the cover photo that is in sync with the audience you picked.
03. Pick A Brand-Oriented Photo
Visuals convey a message much faster than text. Facebook cover photos, therefore, are your potent visuals to send your brand message in an instant to the audience.
The photo is your ultimate opportunity also to engage your potential customers with your business. So, these images on your Facebook cover already have made an impression, even before the viewers move to your page title, buttons, and text.
Considering this power of visuals, pick the photo that represents your brand and what it stands for. Just one image should be sufficient if it speaks about your brand style and has your brand colors, values, and theme.
Think of your target audience when choosing the cover photo. You must have a clear picture in mind of who is your ideal customer. If you are not sure of who your business should be targeting, then do some market research.
Find those people who need your products or services. Know about their social, educational, cultural, and financial backgrounds. Such precise detailing of the customer helps in picking the right photos for your Facebook cover.
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04. Choose The Right Cover Size
Picking the right Facebook cover photos is important. The correct and proper design size is 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall. Make sure that the image file is JPG or PNG that does not weight less than 100 kilobytes.
For the profile picture displays on computers, the correct size is 170 x 170 pixels, while for smartphones, it is 128 x 128 pixels. In order to fit the square, the photo will be cropped.
In case the Facebook banner size requirement for the cover photo does not suit you; still, you can upload it and reposition. In this way, you can chop off the parts that do not fit in the frame. But make it certain that the photo quality is excellent.
05. Optimize For Mobile Screens
Most of your target customers use smartphones and other mobile devices to search and shop. Therefore, your Facebook cover photos should appear perfectly on the small mobile screens as well. Know that when the photo appears on the smartphones, it will look taller, and its sides will not be visible.
Remember that the Facebook cover photo size displays at 820 x 312 pixels on the web while it is just 640 x 360 on smartphones. This difference should guide you through creating the cover photo differently for desktop and mobile screens.
06. Choose A Cover Photo Considering The Page Content
Make sure that the Facebook cover photos are in line with the rest of the text content on your Facebook page. The consistency is important, and any mismatch will distract the visitor due to confusion.
You should avoid creating a photo that misleads a customer. Instead, insert a pleasing image that guides the customer to what you do.
Do not hesitate to showcase your product as Facebook cover photos. But it should be in a proper context. You can even show your company office if it can make an impression on viewers.
How about a photo of your office employees as a team? Many businesses put such photos to show their professional side. Such photos also make customers trust a business.
The product photo must be in a proper context when you think about how to create a banner. For instance, if you are selling coffee, show a shot of people taking breakfast. Consider the style, tone, and aesthetics of the cover photo.
07. Find The Right Stock Images
Since you run a small business, you may not be in a great financial position to hire a professional photographer to have high-quality images. But stock photos are also a good alternative. Stock images are not that bad as they are often described.
Pick a free photo that you think is less used. It should evoke the desired emotions from the customers. Get the photos that express precious moments of your brand.
Such images are capable of telling a brand story. To create Facebook cover photos, use bold photos that have bright colors to catch the attention. But, they should be vivid, simple, and clean photos.
Designhill’s banner maker has thousands of impressive photos. While using the software, go through the massive library of images. You will surely find out a few high-quality images that stand out and convey your brand personality.
08. Include A CTA
Call-To-Action is a part of any commercial graphic design. It is the cause behind creating a design, including Facebook cover photos. But remember that a cover photo itself can be just a powerful CTA.
Just add a relevant CTA and a link to the cover photo description when pondering on how to make banners. The user can click on the link to visit your business website directly from the image. If you create the cover for a seasonal sale, then such a CTA is even more important to take visitors directly to your sales site.
09. Avoid Changing Photo Frequently
When creating Facebook cover photos, many businesses make the mistakes that others commit. Frequently changing the cover image is one mistake that most businesses make. They think that by changing the image, they will be offering new visuals to the viewers to showcase creativity.
But that puts off the customers. As a consequence, the page fails to deliver the desired results. They lose faith in your brand, as changing the image is equal to inconsistency. If you have to replace the image, do it only once in about four to five weeks.
Also, picking any image carelessly – Most brands just do not care to find a relevant and appropriate image as they find it a daunting task. So, avoid this mistake by inspecting your competitors’ pages and see how they picked their images.
10. Keep It Simple
Keep away from overdoing the design. If you incorporate too many elements of images, text, colors, etc., then it makes your cover photo a cluttered space.
That is not a good practice. Do not try to add everything like a headline, a logo, CTA, text, and an image. The user will not be able to get your message quickly.
So, while creating Facebook cover photos, do not overwhelm your consumers and followers, and keep the space clean and free of clutter. Come out with a cover photo that has a clear point of focus.
To find nice examples of simple Facebook cover photos ideas, visit the cover photos of global brands for inspiration. Most brands display just a picture of one of their products. They don’t give many choices of products to viewers, as this creates the paradox of choice phenomenon.
This means that the more choices you give, the lower are your chances of converting a viewer into a customer. Therefore, the simplicity of the cover photo is an essential consideration to make for conversion.
So, follow these proven tips to create remarkable Facebook cover photos. These are the basics. As you practice hard, you will learn a lot more to refine your skills to create covers that bring more customers to your business.
Wrapping Up
Facebook is a huge social platform that businesses use to drive traffic. But for that to happen, the first and foremost condition is to create unique and enticing Facebook cover photos for conversion. This space converts viewers into customers due to a well thought of design. Make sure that the cover photo is free of clutter, and you choose the brand elements to convey your message. Each element in the cover photo space must suit your brand personality.
