Create Amazing Social Media Posts with Canva
Readers respond to social media posts with good visuals and precise words. Even if you don’t have a graphic designer background, you can create attractive social media posts quickly. You can use a pre-made flyer, or create your post graphic with any photo editing program like Photoshop or Pic Monkey. I use Canva.com for its simplicity, pre-designed flyers, and great ideas.
There are several plans. One is free and I used that for about a year. I chose a Canva Pro plan billed on a yearly basis. There is also an Enterprise plan for large companies.
How to Use Canva.com
- Upload your picture if you are using your own.
- Choose the type of media you are creating.
- Canva has pre-created templates. The berry mode below is one of them. All I changed was the wording, so it took about 2-3 minutes to create several social media posts.
- You will see a blank screen. Name your design. Canva automatically names it using the heading text you write. Make sure that is the name you want because it is hard to search for a design if you forget what it is called.
- Pick your background color.
- Insert your uploaded picture or choose one from Canva’s choices or choose a template with a picture you like.
- Size the image until you are satisfied with the look.
- Download. There are several options. I use jpeg for blogging because it says it is optimized to take less space.
- Then upload to the social media page.
You can use any photo editing program you wish, but Canva comes out clean, the right size and the print is not blurred. If you do not have the automatic resize that comes with the paid version of Canva you can still easily resize images yourself. Below are samples of posts in different sizes.
Features of Canva
Canva is more intuitive than Photoshop and performs many of the same functions. So join me and jump right in – hands-on learning works with Canva. If you run into a problem, they have a solution – school.
This was one feature I overlooked until I started teaching Canva classes to students are their courses and tutorials. My students and I clicked on the tutorials and learned together. Each lesson offers a short video (less than 2 minutes) that saves you a ton of time.
Courses are free and each video has an outline.
Reference Written Instructions
- Design Icons: On the upper right under the menu bar are some icons that change as you click each element of the design. For example, in the background mode, you can change color and transparency.
- The Text function has many options: font, size, bold, case, alignment, copy, transparency, and a link. So it is easy to add a bold heading or a faint watermark. I don’t think the link option is available in the free version. Most of the frequently-used options you have in Word or Google Docs are available in Canva, but the computer shortcuts don’t work. If you want to copy, you have to press the Canva “copy” button.
- Elements like shapes, lines, charts, grids, pictures, illustrations have three design options: copy, arrange, transparency, and link. You can also group items that overlap.
- Images & Templates: Two of the most useful elements in Canva are the assortment of images and templates they have. Many are free. The most you pay is $1 for a picture you can use without the worry of copyright infringement.
- Editing Options: Pictures have several more editing options. You can filter, crop or flip. Some of these might not be available with the free program.
- Filtering gives you a simplified version of changes you can make in Photoshop. In the Pro version of Canva, you find 13 ways to alter the picture in addition to changing contrast and brightness. It is so much easier to use for simple changes than Photoshop. Major changes like erasing wrinkles, changing eye color, moving objects from one picture into another work on Photoshop, but not Canva.
- Cropping is easy.
- Flipping is available in the Pro version.
- Copy, arrange and the link features are available for pictures, too.
Making Size Changes
Sometimes it is easier to make a new design than it is to resize.
When it is complicated you might rather choose to resize your great design.
Facebook Post 940 x 788 px
Steps to Change Sizes Manually in the Free Canva Program
With Canva Pro, you can instantly resize your graphic to fit different social media. Otherwise, you can note the size here and recreate it yourself. It is not hard to do this.
Social media sometimes make changes in their requirements. For the most part, I choose the templates which Canva aligns with current social media requirements.
Remember – Sometimes it is easier to make a new design than it is to resize.
- To make size changes yourself, go to the File menu. Make a copy. VERY IMPORTANT if you are using the free version, not the Magic Resize.
- Name your copy for easy reference later.
- Enlarge the image to see all your details clearly. You can enlarge it by clicking the % button in the lower right corner of the screen.
- After you resize, rearrange the items in the image to fill the spaces attractively.
- Extend elements like the rectangles you see in these templates to completely cover the background.
Warnings!
- One of the problems that I sometimes have is that the rectangle elements do not always come out to the edge of the background. Then you have an unwanted halo around your graphic detail. To solve this extend your element past the edge of the graphic.
- A mistake that I make is forgetting a minor detail in the text like I did in the picture below. You have to go back and fix it in Canva, which takes time, download it again, reload it into your post. Bummer! It is best not to put text on a photo that you use in Canva. If you do, then you have to alter two programs if it is wrong.
Instagram Post 1080 x 1080 px
If you forget, you can find the size for the design in the file menu where you can click to change the dimensions. Expect everything in the design to look out of place after you resize.
Twitter Post 1024 x 512 px
Tumblr 540 x810 px
Pinterest Graphic 735 x 1102
Conclusion
Visual social media posts take 15-30 minutes to create and even less if you use a template. Canva has free templates and stock photos you can purchase for $1 each. Below is a Facebook post I made out of a quote that had no illustration. It took less than five minutes to create. I hope you enjoy creating with Canva. Always Write is not an affiliate of Canva.
Related Posts
- How Canva.com Turned Me into a Graphic Artist
- Where to Find a Fabulous Offer for Free Photos
- How Much Is Too Much Retweeting and Post Sharing?
Marsha Ingrao - Always Write 
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