Finding images to use in social media marketing, content marketing, and as images on your personal website can be difficult. You want to be sure that you’re not using images that you shouldn’t be. This gets a little hairy nowadays. Images that you thought were free and available for reuse are often times not. What’s the safest route? Take your own photos or create your own graphics.
This is where programs like Canva come in. Canva allows users to design presentations, social media graphics, advertisements, menus, infographics and lots more with thousands of layouts, photos, and fonts. For free. Yes, there are additional fonts and layouts that you can purchase if you’d like. But there are millions of combination possibilities for free as well.
They have countless images to use to create your graphics. Stock photos, vectors, illustrations, free icons, shapes, and your own uploads. They also have photo filters and more advanced photo editing tools. They have a huge selection of fonts for free as well.
The thing that I love most about Canva is that it’s so easy to use for even the newest beginners. Really anyone can jump in and start creating. They have numerous pre-designed templates that really help you get a vision and get you moving in the right direction. Another great feature is that you can choose from templates that work with Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, blogs and more. They are constantly producing more templates and designs, so you’re not going to run out of fresh looks.
They provide helpful tutorials and great blogs to get you started –especially if you’re still apprehensive about jumping in. Before trying them, I was doubtful about the kind of selection they would have for free. I can honestly say that I’ve not yet found one single design or font that I had to upgrade for. I’ve been very happy with all of my images and designs and it has been completely free.
The ease of use, the free price tag, and the comfort of knowing that the images you’re using and sharing are completely legal has made this program extremely beneficial. Those of us who are writing multiple blog posts a week and publishing countless posts on social media need to be sure that the images we’re using are legal. For me, this takes the guess work out of it.
Which other programs have you used to design graphics? What has your experience been with Canva? What is your favorite feature? What other issues have you run into with images and graphics while social media marketing or content marketing? Comment below!
