Need to make a personalized image for your social media, like this, then I've
got a toolset for you. The product I'm showing you today is called canva and
I'm going to show you how to use it
I've got the links in the description below. You do need to set an account up
which you can do for free or get the pro version which has some extra features
Once you have an account you can access it from your desktop or download their
canva app and use it on your iPhone or your iPad. That has been a godsend for me
that anywhere and everywhere I can mock up a quick image as I think of it. It is
extremely flexible and I have to say working on the iPhone or iPad is very
intuitive. It is designed to be easily used without the mouse. What can I
produce well? I can produce simple images, animated images PDFs. business cards
posts and cover images for every social media platform. Thumbnails, posters
anything you want really. My main use is in social media but I have to say I
don't just use it for my business. I do personalized images for people's
birthdays and make up my own memes. As far as social media is concerned the
wonderful part is that you can choose what style of posts you need the image
for and you don't have to think about dimensions for example an Instagram post
or a Facebook post But if you've grabbed my cheat sheet on being able to do just
one social media image that works on all platforms then you might need to use the
custom dimensions and put them in there. But the main point is that you have
quick templates that you can customize as you need you'll notice an arrow at
the side that you can go to for more options it might be that you're trying
to do the thumbnail for your YouTube video that you're just putting up or you
might be doing a LinkedIn banner and so on Let's say I'm doing a Facebook post I
choose the dimension template that I want it brings up a blank page I could
just go and design my own one but the other great functionality in it is that
it has design templates as well for you to choose and use. Scroll through and
choose the template that you like. We'll choose one now. Don't panic if the colors
or photos aren't exactly what you want. We can adjust it all to change an
item we choose it by clicking on it, in this case
I'm choosing the photo. Let's say I'm doing a post for a hairdressers and it
isn't exactly what I want I can click on the photos area and choose something
symbolic of what I'm after and I drag it over and put it into that box
now the photos may be bigger than the box and you can actually rearrange the
photo to sit exactly how you want it. To do that I double click on it you'll see
that it brings up the rest of the image and I can decide that I might actually
want to drag it over maybe I just want the fingers and the tap
I can't shrink it because I want the whole height to be there so maybe I'm
going to choose another photo
if the photo doesn't suit you can just drag another one in instead I can then
go and change the text by just clicking on it and changing
Now it isn't quite right because that's a bit too wide for the word Facebook I
can either change the font style entirely into a different font
or change the size so that it fits
I can also change the size by dragging the textbox so you don't have to
actually be changing it up in that top section all the time. I used this more on
the iPhone maybe I want the background image to be a different color so I click
on the box and you can see that the box is highlighted and that means I can get
to this color palette option. I'm going to make it Orange
and that's my image done. The image name will show up here and will default in
any text that was on the image but you can override it make it a helpful image
name. I didn't do it here but in a lot of mine I add the dimensions or the social
media size I've chosen as I might do the same image but in a couple of different
size versions. And then you just choose to publish you might link to your
Facebook or other social media immediately or you can just choose to
download. A download will appear at the bottom of your screen and you can open
it in your downloads folder. You'll notice that this one didn't cost me
anything and that's because I used a free image. The same would apply if you
were using your own photos. You can choose to go for premium images but they
will cost you. You'll see them here, they've got the dollar sign and they
show that they're a premium image basically you sign up for a certain
amount of credits on your account and use them when you download a design with
a premium image. You can limit your search to only show free ones.
We had text on there but what if I needed to add a bit more text? Well I can
choose the text option. I choose the different types of fonts and styles that
it has. Once again design templates of fonts. But I'm just going to grab a bit
of text and click on it and it will appear in the middle of the page
One of the helpful features is it has guidelines in place so you can pull
design elements into alignment. As you pull it over you'll see those guidelines
in pink so that you can put it in the right spot it also puts a line in when
you're centering items in a box as well. If you're putting text between other
text it will also show you equal width gridlines as well
You can always change the alignment it just changes as you click through I will
make it larger bold and colored orange as well
There is a whole section on elements you can add lines shapes frames. charts.
gradients and illustrations. They give you examples and you can search, for
example I might want a facebook illustration. Of course be careful with
Facebook images. It is fine if you're putting it through as a post for just
normal organic reach but if you're putting it through as an ad and then
Facebook has guidelines with their trademark on how it is being displayed
In this case I'm just doing a post with a special for the Facebook clients so I
want the image on there.
Most importantly you can upload your images logos and branding for your
company
To add an image just press the upload an image button and you can go to your
computer folders and find your image. If you're using this on your iPhone the app
will take you to your camera roll to choose the photo to upload.If you start
using canva a lot, yes you will get hooked. then you may want to set up your
own folders to group your images and designs. You can add a folder with this
create new button. The more section is for other apps that you can link to
including linking to your Facebook photos and Instagram photos so you can
pull them in easily or you can add more images from Paxil and gifts from giffy
And it's great if you want to do your own memes. The home button will save the
image and take you back to your dashboard with the template designs and
all your saved designs. You want to edit one of your designs? Just click on it and
choose edit
or click on the three dots in the corner and let's say I want to make a copy of
and the copy will appear. I can edit it. And this one was sized for Instagram. I'm
going to change it to be a Facebook size post by going to the resize button and
choosing Facebook post and no there is a custom dimension option at the top
and I just adjust my images and boxes around to fit this shape
That's now my Facebook version and I can download it
It's a very friendly tool and now that we've done the basics I'll be getting
out some quick tips in the future on things like doing watermarks, animations,
PDFs, creating transparent files, uploading branding, inserting hyperlinks,
color overlays on photos or shadow effect text. Keep your eye out for those
wonderful tips that are coming. Thanks for watching the video, please like or
share it and subscribe to make sure you get future tips