When it comes to creating a unique and engaging social media presence, it can be quite overwhelming to maintain consistency as well as create aesthetically pleasing content. These challenges are necessary to convert your followers, but are also particularly time-consuming. But hey, it is going to be okay. I promise! Why? because Canva’s here so that creating beautiful images and graphics is a piece of cake!
Canva is a simple yet practical tool for creating stunning graphics for your social media posts. With the functions they offer, you can create a plethora of basic or advanced visuals for all kinds of brand platforms. But, for social media marketing, this tool knows no limits. Available for desktops and in app stores, you can design and post your social visuals even on the go!
There are three plans Canva offers its users, the first being a free version that boasts; over 250,000 free templates and design types (social media, presentations, etc.), the ability to collaborate with team members in real time and provides 5GB of cloud storage. The other two paid subscriptions include all those benefits and much more, like unlimited storage space, free stock images and hundreds upon thousands of more flexible templates. Regardless of the plan you decide on, there’s no denying that after these 5 tips, you’ll be ready to take the reins on making your social media images pop!
1. Branded Images
Nowadays, reposting content is as easy as a screenshot. Nonetheless, with all the time and effort you put into creating your social media images, it’s painful seeing other’s claim your work as their own. With Canva’s handy drag-and-drop tool, branding your images and maintaining consistency throughout your posts doesn’t have to be so hard and time consuming. With just a few clicks, you can include your brand’s distinct logo, your social media handle, or a hashtag. So, if your post happens to be shared or screenshotted, you will receive credit for your hard work.
Make sure your branding element is non-invasive, seemingly blended in with your creation via Canva’s transparency tool for a sleek design.
I’ve found that one of the most helpful tools Canva offers is the ability to build your very own brand kit. This kit makes navigating your brand’s visual identity simple. You can set your brand’s colour palette, upload specific fonts and store your logo right in Canva to make it easily accessible for your and other members of your team.
2. Facebook Cover Images
You want to utilize every aspect of your social media profiles in a way that will not only increase your brand awareness but also spread the word about your company across the worlds most used platforms. The first thing your audience will notice on your Facebook profile is your cover photo. You can customize your cover photo to take your page to new heights!
Canva provides you with the option to create a Facebook Cover 1640 x 924 px (measurements are provided upon creating design) once you’ve clicked ‘Create a design’ and are ready to get creative. They also offer a seemingly endless amount of professionally crafted templates, easily customizable with just a few clicks.
Changing up your Facebook Cover periodically is a good way to go about maintaining brand personality because you can highlight myriad different elements. Your constantly changing and unique Facebook cover will emphasize your presence and activity on the app.
Since this cover takes up the most real estate on your Facebook page, you want to ensure it does a good job of encompassing your brand without restricting you in a creative box. Don’t be afraid to play with fonts, colours and different designs that highlight your unique brand.
3. Canva Colour Wheel
Ever wondered how designers and artists find the perfect colour combination? They use color theory — a practical combination of art and science used to determine what colours look appealing together. Now, I know that may sound intense and out of your comfort zone, but Canva makes colour theory and deciding on colour combinations a breeze!
With the colour wheel, you can choose from 5 different colour schemes; complementary, monochromatic, analogous, triadic and tetradic, insert a specific HEX code (a six-digit code that is unique to certain colours), or even play around with the colour wheel itself until you are satisfied with the colour combination.
Once you are happy with the colours you’ve chosen, you then have the option to create a graphic using that combo, or export it as a palette to use with future graphics.
4. Meme Generator
With social media, you always want to keep your audience engaged. What consistently performs well on social media? Comic relief, of course! Memes control the internet and people around the world are reliant on that daily release of dopamine in their brains from laughing at clever memes.
Canva can help you take a memorable moment or funny photo and turn it into a viral meme in just a few minutes. They provide users with over 5000 flexible templates, mimicking past viral memes with the use of familiar fonts and specific design elements.
All you have to do is use their drag-and-drop editor to further customize the templates with zero restrictions. This means watermarks or font issues. With thousands of edits you can make, you can also choose from an abundance of fonts, add as many text boxes as you’d like, customize to whatever colour you want, and export the image in the format you desire.
5. Instagram Stories
Reports state that there are over 1.074 billion active Instagram users worldwide in 2021, and over 500 million of them use Instagram stories everyday. Creating consistent and engaging story posts is something I strongly recommend investing your time in, as this tool allows you to get to know and understand your audience. By including quizzes or opportunities for your followers to ask questions, you can further get to know their needs.
As you build your social media presence, you want your followers to view you and your brand as approachable. Instagram stories give the opportunity to show a lighter side of your brand and allow for audience engagement, especially with the use of Canva’s hundreds of thousands of flexible story templates. These are automatically sized to appropriately fit your IG story after a simple download.
To add more depth to your stories, Instagram has enabled a variety of elements you can add to the Canva graphic you created. A few of my favourite features are as follows:
– Question templates your audience can engage with
– Overlaying a song that is appropriate for the story
– Creating polls to understand more of what your followers want
– Fun mini quizzes you’d like your audience to partake in
Conclusion
Well, there you have it! My 5 tips on how to make your social media pop using Canva! I hope that after reading, you find yourself more confident with your approach towards creating an eye-catching social media presence.
To summarize these recommendations here’s a simplified list!
- Make sure all you social posts are branded by including your brands logo or your user’s handle
- Creating eye-catching Facebook Cover photos and occasionally updating them to maintain engagement
- Follow colour theory using Canva’s colour wheel
- Use Canva’s meme generator to create comical posts and spice up your feed
- Stay consistent with creating Instagram Stories
I understand how fast technology is evolving. The need to stay active online is growing exponentially but it doesn’t have to be a challenging thing to adapt to. After seeing how great and simple of a tool Canva is, you should feel a little more comfortable with creating your social media content.
Not interested in doing your own social media content and images? No problem contact us today and learn how we can make your social media POP!