This blog post was published on Sunlight Social, a social media marketing business I work for.
So you want to start taking your social media more seriously. Regardless of the reasoning behind your change in perspective, there are thousands upon thousands of social media marketing accounts that could give you different hacks or tips and tricks, but researching through these different accounts can give you conflicting information and become stressful. Let’s avoid all of that! I want to give you my top ten resources that are a necessity for content creation and turning your social media followers into connections and clients!
Pinterest is a major starting point for me when it comes to content creation and overall envisioning the vibe and tone for an account. I typically just scroll through my usual Pinterest Feed which puts me in a creative mood, then I begin the real hunting for specific aesthetics. I’ll begin to curate a board with different folders for fonts, color palettes, filler photo examples and more. Even though this is work (I can’t believe this is my job; I’m so grateful), it’s also like a form of self-care for me. I love using it to almost manifest similar branding for a client or new campaign. Try this out next time before diving into a project!
Micro-influencer course and worksheets
Now that you’ve started getting a vague idea of what interests you and what kind of content you like to see, it’s time to start prepping and planning your own dream content! Something that helped inspire me to start taking my own social media seriously was Paola Ochoa’s “Become a MicroInfluencer in Only Five Steps” crash course! Paola is a micro influencer on the rise who goes to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. Her course includes personal insight on her influencing experience as well as multiple Canva templates to get you thinking about ALLLL of the necessary tasks to creating effective and engaging content.
I can attest that this course will put you in the right headspace to make something that is not only meaningful to you but feels cohesive and exciting for a brand, company, or customers to see. Despite this being a “Micro Influencer” course, I think many aspects can be applicable to a business. For example, one of the Canva templates, “Finding the Best…” is for making note of cool places to create content, as well as the best times, angles and more. For more information on the course, follow @paola.ochoaa on Instagram.
Canva
Personal Sidebar: I also use Canva to make new Mac Backgrounds every month… There is so much creative freedom and options to explore on Canva!
Canva is a perfect resource for you to actually get started on creating the content! I typically use Canva for creating graphics because it has dimension templates already set up for you. Want to do a story sale for your products? Canva likely already has a template for it, but you can also start from scratch using your own photos, stock photos, or some of their funky, free graphic elements!
Sunlight Social uses Canva Pro just because all of the different properties are so useful, but their free account option is just as beneficial if you’re a student or just starting out! The features on Canva are basically a user-friendly Adobe Suite program, with a focus on social media and physical advertisements!
My biggest tip for new Canva users: to separate and organize your files by Folder and name. For example, I create a folder for, “Brand X” and then each file that goes into that folder I label it according to its medium (another example would be, “Story Sale - Brand X”). This is a small but significant difference in staying organized or becoming overwhelmed by your work, past designs, and current projects.
Picsart
Picsart is another great tool for actually getting down to business and creating content! This app is more so used for editing photos you’ve taken or to add extra filters or overlays to graphics you may have made or found. This app is especially useful if you’re looking to create your own personal branding, or begin the process of becoming an influencer! Picsart has the typical photo editing tools such as adjustments to brightness, exposure, hue, saturation, highlights, shadows, etc., but it also has premade filters, text abilities, and overlays! You can also choose to upgrade your account on this app, but I have personally never found it necessary, because put simply, Picsart isn’t THAT important to the everyday user. Everyday users who have social media to interact with close friends and stay connected won’t need an app like this, let alone need to pay for it. However as a major perfectionist who creates content for clients and my own page, I think Picsart is that small but necessary detail to make your entire feed look cohesive.
Let’s say you had a small content photoshoot, but you want the photo to have a more ‘vintage film’ feel to it. Through the app, you can easily add a film filter to it, or adjust your photo settings and add something a little more subtle like noise to give it that same effect. Long story short: This app is perfect for those that care about attention to detail on their posts.
Adobe Creative Suite
Adobe Suite is a bittersweet luxury for me - I’m so grateful for it, but it’ll be gone soon enough. If you have any sort of University email, you should be able to gain free access to the software, but upon graduating, you unfortunately have to pay to use the applications. I currently have Adobe Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator downloaded on my laptop and I use them more often than you’d think. I use Photoshop mostly to alter photos, warp text and create PNG files. I use Illustrator to create shapes and graphics, and I use InDesign if I want to make a flier, newspaper or magazine format. I think that these programs have SO much to offer creatives of any capacity, not just content creators however it’s worth noting that these applications are not as user-friendly as Canva or Picsart. To put it into perspective, I have been using Photoshop and Indesign for over five years and I still have to look up tutorials on how to use certain tools or how to create certain effects.
My advice? Start out with the easier mobile-friendly apps like Canva, Picsart or Lightroom, then once you feel you’ve mastered those, upgrade to a trial version of Adobe Suite.
Feed Preview
I have only two words for this next resource: MAJORLY UNDERRATED! With this app, you can see how your Instagram profile feed would look with new photos and content being posted. Move around photos, see what would look best as the first photo of a carousel, determine a color palette or aesthetic, and try deleting photos to see if anything doesn’t really belong.
ContentCal
This is where things really start happening baby! First you plan your content, make the content, preview and decide on the best of the best, then you schedule it! Granted, yes you could just post content whenever you’re free and want to post it manually, but scheduling it through ContentCal is beneficial because you can pick the most optimized times to post. Content Cal can also be used for analytics and much more!
LIFE HACK: Let’s say you don’t have enough storage on your phone to download yet ANOTHER app. This same process of scheduling content to post can be done through a tad bit of a lengthier process as follows:
Create a photo album specifically for Instagram Content
In your notes app, write out the captions and links and whatever you need for each post.
Schedule a reminder or calendar event for the days and times you want to post
8. Slack
Oh, Slack. Good ‘ole reliable Slack is where we get down to the nitty gritty of content creating and overall social media marketing. If you haven’t used it before, Slack is a website and mobile app that allows you to create “channels” with different people, primarily for the purpose of work or school related communications. Channels on Slack are basically like group chats, but as a major clean freak/needs-everything-to-be-organized Virgo that I am, I love that Channels can be made for different topics. For example, your company could have channels for each avenue it focuses in i.e. Finances, Marketing, Social Media, Website, Merchandising, etc.
Now this one may come as a bit of a shock to someone looking to get into content creation, but it’s worth at the very least creating an account and updating every month! Linkedin is a social media platform used for job networking and employment opportunities. As a Journalism major, I use Linkedin to connect with editors, reporters, and PR professionals in my future field, but the same can be done for social media marketing and social media influencing! For example, let’s say you are a new clothing brand just starting out, it’s worth connecting with Brand Ambassadors, Brand Reps, Public Relations Specialists, or Managers of brands similar to help build a strong reputation. In the same vein, you can post your social media content here and more long-form text posts here for those in the same field to see and interact with.
Sunlight Social’s Account-Specific Engagement Strategy
We all knew this one was coming…now that you know the best resources and some of our secrets for creating a strong social media presence, it’s time to put it to use! However, when you’re managing an entire business, running multiple social media platforms is another full time job on its own… that’s why we’re here! It’s extremely helpful to know some of the tools we use and how it all works, but allowing us to make your social media shine is what we excel at! We’re able to learn and research your brand to implement a creative, customized social strategy to inspire consumers to become customers and create meaningful industry connections. To book a call and learn more about Sunlight Social, visit our website or follow us on Instagram.
Comments