Small business social content
A marketing service for small businesses had to prove it could market itself.
Marketing SaaS
Social Media Assets
Role
Visual Designer
Timeline
2 weeks
team
Individual Contributor
platform
Instagram, Facebook
The Real Problem
Zapli is a platform for small businesses to get marketing done: social media posts and strategy delivered as a subscription, with fast delivery, pause and cancel at any time, and plans starting from $99. Its customers are bakeries, salons, real estate agents, fitness studios, jewellers. People who know they should be posting and resent the hours it takes.
The trap for a company like this is obvious. If Zapli's own feed looks generic, the pitch collapses. Every post had to do two jobs at once: explain the service and be the proof that the service is good.
The second problem was range. Zapli needed brand posts, tips content, product updates, a meme style post, pricing stories and launch announcements, and it needed them to look like one company while showing off work made for dozens of very different businesses.
Finding the Fix
I built the system around a single device: a tilted grid of real client posts, the kayaking tour, the new bread loaf, the gold hoop earrings, the zumba workshop, the listing alert, running behind every Zapli message. The work is the background. The message sits on top in a clean card.
That gave three things at once:
Proof without a case study. A visitor sees ten kinds of business in one glance and understands that Zapli can do theirs.
A fixed brand layer. Zapli's indigo and violet, one white or dark message card, the logo in a corner. The card is the constant; the grid behind it can change every week.
Content that scales. Tips posts ("How to post consistent content without feeling overwhelmed"), updates ("What's new at Zapli"), arguments ("4 key reasons to outsource your marketing"), pricing stories and a light meme post all use the same card on the same grid.
What Actually Happened
The first set was the brand statement itself, "The platform for small businesses to get marketing done", in three treatments: white card, dark card and card over a photographic grid. Those three set the rules for everything after.
The second set was the content mix. A tips carousel with tag chips (strategy tips, content hacks, post smarter, grow your brand), a quarterly service update, a persuasion post with a hand drawn pointer, a results post ("More consistency, better results.") and a meme style post that pokes at the small business owner who spends the afternoon making a post instead of running the shop. The tone loosened deliberately in that last one; the audience is people, not brands.
The third set moved to stories, where the grid becomes a vertical wall and the offer gets explicit: social media posts from $99, fast delivery, cancel anytime, pause your subscription, upgrade or downgrade. The story format is where Zapli sells; the feed is where it earns the right to.
What Changed
Zapli came away with:
A social identity where the client work is the brand imagery
A message card system that holds tips, updates, arguments, memes and pricing in one look
Feed and story templates that a small team can refill without a designer
Sales messaging placed in stories, separated from the trust building feed
The feed now does the job the service promises to do for its customers, which is the only proof that matters in this category.
What I Had to Work With
The raw material was client work in dozens of unrelated styles, and it all had to sit together without clashing.
The constraints shaped most of the decisions:
A promise ("get marketing done") that the feed itself had to keep
A subscription offer with five selling points that needed to fit a single story frame
A small team that would produce most future posts without design support
A crowded category where every competitor uses the same purple gradients
Feed and story formats with different crops, safe zones and reading speeds
Reach and conversion belong to the Zapli team.
What I'd Do Differently
If I did it again I would add a before and after format: a real client's feed on day one and after a month with Zapli. The grid implies the transformation; one honest comparison would prove it.
Also worth trying:
Short Reels that scroll through the client grid with the card on top, since the device is made for motion
Industry specific variants (one for restaurants, one for real estate) using the same card and a filtered grid
A customer voice format, a quote card from a real owner, to break up the brand voice
What I Learned
When the service is content, the content is the case study. Design the proof into the background.
One fixed element makes a flexible system. The message card is the brand; everything behind it can move.
Separate earning attention from asking for money. The feed builds trust, the stories make the offer.