Canva vs Adobe Spark: Which is the Best in 2021? A Comparison of Image Creation Tools For Social Media

/

Are you an individual or business trying to decide whether Adobe Spark or Canva is best as an easy way to create stunning graphics for social media?

In this blog post, I will be taking an in-depth look at both tools to help you decide which you should be using to build your brand's graphics in 2021.

Plus, I’ll end with my personal opinion on which is the top pick between the two!

Note: Both Canva and Adobe Spark have free plans, but this post will be a review of the features of both tools’ individual paid plans.

Read More

3 Ways to Increase Brand Loyalty And Sales on Social Media (Post-COVID-19)

/

Are you looking to increase brand loyalty and sales through social media?

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only fundamentally changed the way people shop, but also tested brand loyalty like never before.

People's preference of where they shop means more to them than it did in the past - it’s based on a lot more than on price alone brands - and to succeed on social media in a post-COVID-19 world, businesses must rise to the occasion.

In this blog post, I'll share with you 3 considerations that are influencing purchase decisions and brand loyalty, and what you can do on social media to align your strategy with what customers want.

Read More

3 FREE Social Media Marketing Tools Every Business Needs in 2021

/
3 FREE Social Media Marketing Tools Every Business Needs in 2021

3 FREE Social Media Marketing Tools Every Business Needs in 2021

Are you looking for free social media tools to boost your social media marketing in 2021?

In this blog post, I’m going to share three of my favourite (and in my opinion, some of the best) FREE social media marketing tools that are perfect for streamlining your workflow and creating great content for any social media platform in 2021. Let’s get going!

1. FREE Social Media Tool For Screen Recording: Loom

Free Social Media Tool For Screen Recording #1: Loom

Free Social Media Tool For Screen Recording #1: Loom

Customer support has become a huge element of successful social media marketing, and that trend is likely to continue in 2021. Loom is a free desktop or iOS app, or Chrome extension that allows you to screen record and share video clips with ease. Loom can be used in tons of different ways for business and social media, including:

Customer support: Customers having trouble with your website? Need to make a quick “How-to” video? Record and share a clip of you talking through a solution to the problem in seconds, and share a link straight to it.

Product marketing: Record your website or service to share information on new features, or to onboard new sign ups. Alternatively, you could record a video to encourage customers to share testimonials that you can publish to your social media profiles.

Sales: Capture a prospect's attention with a personalised video recorded over your website and your face chatting away on-screen. Share the video direct with your prospect to build a personal connection from the off, and share a link to your calendar/pitch deck too.

Other things I really like about Loom include:

  • Letting you add a CTA button at the end of your videos.

  • Simple editing tools to make your video more engaging to watch.

  • The ability to add password protection to your videos.

  • Engagement metrics to see who’s been watching your videos and how well they’re performing.

Find Loom at www.loom.com

2. FREE Social Media Tool for Keyword Research: Ubersuggest

FREE Social Media Tool for Keyword Research: Ubersuggest

FREE Social Media Tool for Keyword Research: Ubersuggest

Need inspiration for blog post ideas? Ubersuggest has a ton of different features, but my favourite is its keyword suggestion tool. Whack a keyword into Ubersuggest and it will return a bunch of suggestions, questions, related ideas and more, ranked by popularity.

For the top 30 results, you'll be able to click through to see which website ranks highest for that particular keyword and check the page/article out for yourself.

Ubersuggest's free version gives you 3 free searches per day, which you can copy to your clipboard or export to a CSV file.

If you're looking for a mega deep-dive into blogging data and strategy, you won't get it without upgrading. But as a starting point for keyword research, Ubersuggest's free version is a great place to start.

Find Ubersuggest at www.ubersuggest.com

3. FREE Social Media Tool for Graphic Creation: Canva

free-social-media-tools-2021.PNG

Creating consistently eye-catching social media graphics can be a challenge, but Canva makes the job so much easier! Most social media managers will be pretty familiar with Canva already, but as a quick and easy tool to create professional graphics for social media, I’ve yet to come across one that I like as much. It’s so easy to create still images, videos with animated text, and more.

Canva’s generous free plan gets you access to features including:

  • 250,000+ free templates

  • 100+ design types (social media posts, presentations, and more)

  • Hundreds of thousands of photos and graphics

  • Real-time collaboration and commenting tools

  • 5GB cloud storage

Full disclosure: I use a paid Canva plan which gives me access to (amongst other things) premium stock graphics and instant re-sizing tools, so I can turn a square piece of content for, say, Instagram, into a long and tall image for Pinterest, instantly. So handy!

Find Canva at www.canva.com


FREE Social Media Tools for 2021 Conclusion

So there you have it, my top 3 FREE social media tools for 2021. If you’d like to me suggest more ideas for free tools, including scheduling and link sharing, do let me know in the comments below!

How to Instantly Turn Blog Posts And Articles Into Engaging Videos For Social Media

/

Have you ever wondered how your favourite brands and news sites turn their blog posts and news articles into stylish video for social media, and wondered how they did it? It's probably a combination of:

  • Dedicated writers
  • Video editors
  • Professional software
  • And lots of time and money!

If you're short of any of those but still want to get in on the ever-growing social video game, here's a walkthrough a tool called Lumen5. It helps you to turn any blog post or news article into a video for social media in just a few quick steps.

Read More

19 Unmissable Takeaways From Social Media Experts at Ragan Disney 2016 (Day 1)

/
19 Unmissable Takeaways From Social Media Experts at Ragan Disney 2016 (Day 1)

19 Unmissable Takeaways From Social Media Experts at Ragan Disney 2016 (Day 1)

This week sees the 3rd Annual Social Media for PR and Corporate Communications Conference at Disney World, organised by Ragan. Two days of presentations are packed with social media advice and strategy for business. Here are X of the best takeaways from Day 1, as tweeted by its attendees using the hashtag #RaganDisney.

First to speak was Danielle Brigada on ways to measure social media ROI...

Danielle Brigada (@starfocus) is the head of social media for the US Fish and Wildlife Service (@USFWS), and environmental comparisons played big in her presentation, bringing to life some really helpful social media strategies for measurement and report-building:

A super handy analogy to think about the way social media works.

No good going into social media with a singular focus; communication and measuring is just as important as content creation.

An easy way to break down and measure soial media ROI...

Want to impress your bosses? Here's a sample quarterly report to mirror.

There are so many variables in a social media strategy. To make sense of it all, isolate the elements that matter most to you, and align with your goals; measure the progress against them.

Video for Social on a Budget (Why Your Smartphone is All You Really Need

Hosted by Justin Allen (@Allen_Justin), social media storyteller and CEO of Ruckus Factory. He shared some great ideas for producing compelling social video using just your smartphone. Here are some of the highlights:

On preparing to get the best footage and audio...

Never zoom with a camera that doesn't have an optical lens, else you'll ruin the output.

On embracing the limitations of mobile video production...

If you're blessed with "sausage fingers", editing on mobile for long periods could get frustrating...

On producing compelling video content...

Think of a viral video you've seen recently. That's your benchmark and competition!

Depending on the platform, viewers will switch off if the content is too long. For a "catch all" solution, 30-45 seconds is a good length.

Preparation and planning video will result in the best results possible.

Closing Day 1 was Mark Ragan, CEO of Ragan Communications, who focused on brand journalism on social media

Mark's (@MarkRaganCEO) presentation aimed to make us change the way we approach our thinking towards the very essence of social media marketing, particularly those stuck to using the tactics of traditional media.

On creating a basis for a sound social media strategy

Rather than thinking like a broadcaster, think like a journalist... make your own stories. Mark said that it isn't about creating more stories, just better ones... quality over quantity.

On optimising social media content for your audience...

The content you create should be riveting, Mark said, encouraging us to be the "Buzzfeed" for your niche.

Stop thinking about what your audience could do for you, and start thinking about what you can do for your audience.

Upon delivery of content, your voice should match your brand personality, Mark said. If you don't have a defined brand voice, just make sure to be authentic and human.

Over to you

What are your thoughts about the ideas shared by speakers on day one of the social media conference at Disney? Let me know in the comments below and check back tomorrow for day two and more words of wisdom!

Andrew Macarthy is a social media consultant and the author of the #1 Amazon Web Marketing Bestseller, 500 Social Media Marketing Tips.

Buy 500 Social Media Marketing Tips
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007L50HE6
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007L50HE6

Follow Me:

www.facebook.com/500socialmediatips
www.twitter.com/500socialmediatips
www.instagram.com/500socialmedia
www.pinterest.com/500socialmedia
www.youtube.com/500socialmediatips