Business Tools
3 Graphics Tools to Up Your Small Business’s Social Media Game
By now most entrepreneurs understand the importance of having a presence on social media and how providing content on such platforms can help attract customers to their small business. However not as many may realize how much more impactful their message can be when coupled with images as opposed to just text. While this is especially true for image-centric networks like Pinterest and Instagram, graphics on Facebook and Twitter are also becoming increasingly important for grabbing a user’s attention.
Luckily there are now a number of free or inexpensive tools small business owners can use to craft customized images to post on their social network accounts, websites, and elsewhere. Even if you don’t consider yourself an artist, these relatively easy-to-use sites can help you create beautiful images that also get your business’s message across in a creative and powerful way. Let’s take a look at three such platforms that you can use to up your social media game with great graphics:
Stencil
Not only does Stencil allow you to quickly and easily edit images and overlay text but also enables you to tailor your image to the social media outlet you plan on posting to. In fact the platform has a number of templates with ideal image dimensions for sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest as well as banners, ads, and other images found on those sites. As a result you can create multiple custom images that will look great on all of your accounts without spending a ton of time making edits for each platform. Another cool feature Stencil offers is their plugin available for both Chrome and Firefox that makes it simple to import images and text from around the web into the platform.
Stencil offers a number of plans, starting with a free account and going up to $18 a month. Since the basic plan includes up 10 images a month, it’s a great way to get started, try out the platform, and see if it’s ultimately a good investment for your business.
Piktochart
While Piktochart is billed as an infographic tool, the truth is it can do a lot more than that. Personally I’ve used Piktochart (sometimes in combination with Stencil) to create great-looking pins for my Pinterest boards. That said it does offer a number of great tools for creating your own infographics as well. For example they have spreadsheets built in, allowing you to turn “info” into “graphics” on the fly.
Piktochart also offers different levels of service, starting with a free account. If you need access to more templates or want the ability to download higher-quality, printable images there are also Lite accounts for $15 a month (or $150 a year upfront) or Pro accounts for $29 a month ($290 for a year upfront).
Canva
Somewhere in between the two other platforms discussed so far is Canva. In addition to offering helpful templates for social media posts, blog graphics, and presentation images, the site recently also added chart functions similar to the infographic power of Piktochart. Canva also offers templates geared toward specific social media sites however, in order to resize them for multiple platforms easily, you’ll need to pay for their Canva for Work subscription.
As mentioned, Canva does offer a premium account that goes for $12.95 per month ($9.95 per month you but a full year upfront). With their free service you’ll have access to a variety of no-charge items as well as a huge collection of à la carte photos and other images for $1 a piece.
Today social media is all about multimedia. With so much other content to be found, it’s rare that pure text posts will get the same attention from users that well-made images will. For that reason, it’s worth trying your hand at any one of or all of these three tools in order to make a greater impact with your social media posts.
