Seth certainly knows a lot about the attention shortage, doesn’t he? That is why he has written so much about being remarkable. Do you want to create more interesting visual content? Are you looking for new ways to present your message to gain more attention? Then these graphic design tools should be of interest to you.
We don’t have an information shortage, we have an attention shortage.
Seth Godin
Today’s marketers are using visual content to capture their readers’ interest and attention. We all know that visual content is a big deal on the web today.
It is clearly expressed on social media platforms, plastered on blogs and online articles, and dappled throughout websites. From images, videos, and animation to presentations, infographics, and charts, visual content has become a huge component of online marketing.
What makes visual content such a powerful marketing tool? Part of it has to do with what goes on inside our noggins when we process visual information.
When we take a look at an image, our brains decipher all of its visual elements simultaneously and store them directly into our long-term memory.
How amazing is that? We can instantly interpret and remember what we see. Compare that to how we process text and it becomes clear why imagery has the upper hand in delivering a quick and effective message.
Related: How to Frame Marketing Messages for Optimum Engagement
As we read the text, we process it in a sequential manner and then store the information in our short-term memory. According to Dr. Lynell Burmark, author of Visual Literacy: Learn to See, See to Learn, this process is 60,000 times slower than processing visual information.
In today’s fast-paced, on-the-go world, taking the time to read everything is just not cutting it. The demand for quick and easy information is mounting and visual content is stepping in to satisfy it.
I often get asked about the tools I use to shape up my blog so I’ve decided to list them all here. I’ve been building different kinds of websites for years now and obviously, I’ve tried a ton of tools along the way. Some of them are fantastic, and some of them just plain suck.
To ramp up your social media marketing, you need to be a little more aggressive with your marketing. BUT you can’t do that alone. We all know that it takes a lot of hard work, time and effort to do it well.
So you need to find the right tools to help you get more work done faster while providing quality content for your audience. In this article, I’ll show you 12 of the best free tools you can use to create strong visual content for social media.
Visual content could mean anything from an image, a photo, a meme to a video, or a presentation.
There’s got to be a grain of truth in it to support all the most rapidly growing image platforms like Pinterest and Instagram, to name the most popular. And just after Facebook introduced its timeline design change, Facebook saw a 65% increase in engagement.
And if you have interactive content such as videos on your web page, congratulations, your visitors will now spend 100% more time on your website than before.
With smartphones and tablets becoming more common, this trend is only to continue.
But, I hear you cry – how in the world are you going to accomplish awesome graphic design? Hiring a graphic designer is out of the question for most small to medium businesses. So for those of us that aren’t artistically inclined, this can be a significant challenge.
But not to fret. You simply need to find the right tools to help you get more work done faster while providing quality content for your audience. In this article, I’ll show you x of the best free tools you can use to create strong visual content for social media.
CANVA … graphic design tools
Graphic design tools … Canva
No Adobe Photoshop? A non-graphic designer? Canva’s here to save you! Canva is for creating imagery with few if any design skills required.
Use this tool to make creative graphics for your posts and even cover photos for your social profiles – in minutes!
This is our favorite graphic design tool, hands down. Why may you ask? There are three important reasons in our minds. First and foremost the tool has fantastic capabilities to handle most of your graphic design needs.
Second, it is incredibly easy to use. And finally, they have built 20 or so instruction sets that teach you about graphic design while using the tool. We have found no other tool with these advantages.
Canva lets you upload your own images. It saves your work as you go, so you don’t have to worry about losing your content.
Here is an additional idea to save further time. Create design templates for images and re-use the template.
This tool is for creating inspirational messages and quotes. Although it’s not as versatile as Canva, it serves a purpose and does it quite nicely.
It’s a quick app where you can cut and paste a quote of your choice. It also offers a handful of cool backgrounds you can use. It is perfect for social media graphics.
IconFinder
My #1 go-to resource for free quality icons. You always need something as simple as a useful icon visual.
My favorite tool for taking screenshots and screen videos. It is available for Mac and Windows.
GoAnimate
Video can sometimes be difficult to put together but it’s so worth it. One of my favorite tools for video is GoAnimate which is for video animation. You can easily create video animation videos for a very low cost.
Infographics are in high demand because they’re an easy way to present data or help you persuade customers with more detailed messages.
The best infographics share a lot of data in a digestible format, but creating one can be daunting. Piktochart simplifies the process by offering free and premium templates and graphics and icons you can drag and drop into your infographic.
Creating this kind of visual content is less painful when you can adjust text size, font, and color to create a professional, visually appealing infographic. Lots of cool themes to choose from! In fact, I use them when I need inspiration for my designs.
This tool, formerly Presenter, brings your visual ideas to life. It’s your one-stop-shop for all-things-visual such as infographics, banner ads, call-to-action banners, presentations, mobile and web animations, carousels, etc.
You don’t have to download any software to start – just create an account, log in and start creating awesome designs.
There are millions of free images (Visme is integrated with Flickr) to use along with beautiful Google fonts. You can also upload your own images and experiment with them.
The best part? Visme is based on HTML5, so all your visuals work on mobile platforms.
This tool is ideal for Eye-catching presentations and both infographics and data visualization.
ThingLink ‘s fun, dynamic, visual format draws attention to your updates.
You can add text or multimedia overlays to any of your photos or images, but what makes this tool more interesting than others is that the results are interactive. Viewers hover over icons to watch a video, listen to an audio file, link externally, complete a poll, and more.
A great brand use example is Home Depot. They use ThingLink images to share a room and home décor DIY suggestions and tutorials.
For example, they overlaid a photo of a DIY Sawhorse Table with the prices of all the pieces you’d need to make it and links to a blog detailing the process. The links become visible when you hover over the image.
PicMonkey is great for both beginner & advanced image editing. A lot of social media marketers swear by this one and some even call it a free substitute of Photoshop.
This tool lets you add overlays, effects, and text to your images. It is ideal for touching up photos and creating visuals for social media.
Vine
You certainly cannot leave videos out of the equation when talking visual, can you? Twitter’s Vine app released in January 2013 boasts of 13 million users already. With Vine, you can create 6-second looping videos and put your message across.
The fact that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world says much about video marketing. Every day, 100 million users watch an online video.
Creating videos with Vine is easy and simple – just sign in with your Twitter account and get started. It is an ideal tool for simple how-to’s and brand awareness using looping videos
Use Tagxedo to create a word cloud from your web, social, blog or other content. Word clouds aren’t just a great way to present content in a new way; they offer new insights into that content with a quick visual analysis.
The low-hanging fruit here is blog posts, speech transcriptions, important news articles, etc. Just enter the URL, play with the font, color, and shape, and you’re all set.
You can use word clouds to showcase both personal and business content. Depending on the relevance of the content to your audience, this 5-minute process makes a pretty strong statement.
The bottom line
Social media moves quickly and your content design has to keep up. The demands of a market that’s evolving by the minute heighten expectations for fresh, quality content on a nearly impossible scale.
Take advantage of these free tools to satisfy your audience’s appetite when you share content on social media.
What do you think? Have you used any of these tools?
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of collaborative innovation. And put it to good use in adapting to changes in your business environment.
It’s up to you to keep improving your learning and experience with innovation and creativity efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find him on Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on customers from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Because here’s the reality. If you’re not creating visual content marketing inspiration that captures audience attention, your competition is.
Related post: Social Media Platforms … The Magic Every Content Marketer Needs
Visual marketing.
Graphics can tell your company story, boost awareness, and drive additional traffic to your product or service. So how can you create content that helps you better connect with your fans and followers?
Join me in this look at 15 brands. I find them worthy of repeat visits for visual marketing inspiration.
Nike understands marketing on Instagram as well as the mentality of their target audience, and they use this knowledge to showcase their brand effectively.
The brand loves to post inspirational hashtags and photos showing everyday moments related to sports. The focus is on speaking to everyone who has a dream and encouraging them to ”Just do it!”
Volkswagen claims that all people and all things have a story to tell, and you see this evidenced in each of their Facebook posts.
Across their Page are visual stories about VW automobiles and their customers. Whether you want to learn about VW history, understand the heritage of the Beetle or find your next car, Facebook is the place to do it.
Each image is designed to further the culture and experience around the Volkswagen brand. Watch (and learn) as they highlight important milestones within the company by weaving a powerful story into each post.
Starbucks
Starbucks has a presence on multiple social media platforms, each one successfully expressing what the brand is all about.
Their use of visual marketing is bursting with personality and originality, and although Starbucks often uses posts to advertise products, it’s done creatively and subtly.
This is a lesson many companies have yet to learn: Sometimes less is more… especially when it comes to visual content.
Target uses several boards on Pinterest to market their store and products. Although each board exemplifies a different marketing strategy, all of them use engaging and informative graphics.
Target doesn’t just post photos of their products like many other brands do. They combine images with text to create fun and shareable images.
Visual marketing concepts.
Grammarly Cards
Grammarly is an online proofreading and correction service with an excellent visual marketing strategy.
Their Pinterest page is filled with funny and engaging content that people enjoy and frequently share.
The humor and wit are coupled with attractive pictures the Grammarly Cards audience cannot ignore.
Oreo
Oreo knows how to keep an audience happy and actively engaged.
The visuals the brand posts have it all — including wit, culture, and parodies. They take any popular event or entertainment update and work their cookie right into it.
This makes Oreo posts fun and shareable.
The time it takes Oreo to react to an unforeseen event is phenomenal. The brand’s fast response to the Superbowl (“You can still dunk in the dark”) won widespread recognition.
Home Depot
Home Depot knows their audience, and the brand effectively markets to them.
Their posts are made for homeowners and those who love creating something practical and good looking.
Their Instagram page is full practical, original and creativeideas.
The Disney brand knows better than most how to make their content appealing.
They have a talent for turning their creations into great visuals that are both attractive and fun.
The content they post on their web page and other social channels are proof that design is just as important a factor as written copy.
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola’s content marketing strategy is built on visual marketing. They provide their audience with fun, colorful and quirky visuals that are easy to like and share.
The company concentrates its efforts on interactive content to keep their audience engaged.
Coca-Cola also has uniquely designed animated gifs and plenty of brand memorabilia that reminds the audience whose page they’re on.
Visual marketing examples.
Aeropostale
Aeropostale knows its fashion-savvy audience and effectively caters to their tastes.
The brand posts simple, yet lovely, images featuring an ensemble of clothes and accessories that go together to create one distinct look.
Through this strategy, Aeropostale advertises its clothes (which are at the center of the composition) gives its audience ideas about what goes well with what and creates a definite brand look.
Whole Foods
Besides offering their customers healthy, organic foods, Whole Foods also provides followers with exceptional and informative visual graphics.
This is a brand that knows how to tell a story visually and make it appealing to all.
Although they have some product advertisements, most of their posts include great images combined with valuable advice.
Taco Bell
Taco Bell knows how to grab their audience’s attention and keep it.
The vibrant colors and artistic look of their graphics get their posts noticed.
Although some of the graphics they post on Instagram are advertising their products, most simply show off the product artistically and attractively.
GoPro
The very nature of the GoPro makes it the perfect brand for visual content marketing.
After all, no words are necessary to market their GoPro cameras – their photos say it all.
The quality of the photos and their extreme setting help these graphics get shared like wildfire.
This cereal company has long figured out the secret of visual content marketing through social media.
All of their posts on Facebook are visual, and humor is their best weapon. Honey Bunches of Oats creates funny and memorable visuals that are easy to share.
Most of their graphics have the brand’s logo attached to it, so it continues to remind the users who are for the great photos and the witty humor (even if the graphic is taken out of context).
The bottom line
To be effective in this new era, we as marketers need to see our jobs differently. No more just focusing on metrics like clicks, video views or social media shares. We must successfully integrate our function with other business functions to create entire brand experiences that serve the customer all the way through their experiences throughout the business.
We can do better. Much better. But first, we need to stop seeing ourselves as crafters of clever brand messages and become creators of positive brand experiences.
There can never be enough focus on continuous improvement on brand marketing, independent of how well the business is doing. It seems these exciting brands are looking to take their success to a new level.
This is an excellent time to make a statement with their brand marketing. Changing before you have to is always a good idea.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Are you devoting enough energy improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.
More reading on social media lessons from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
