5 Social Media Tools for Social Translators

5 Social Media Tools for Social Translators

So in my last article, 5 Steps to a Social Media Strategy for a Social Translator, I talked about the importance of having a strategy on social media. In this article, I will look closer at 5 social media tools that can save you time when creating your visuals to use social media successfully. Some of you are probably already using all or most of these tools, but for those of you who still are a bit unsure about it all, I hope you can find this article useful. Often it is not as difficult as it might look, it is all about selecting the right tools. Then if you like the article and would like to read more, feel free to sign up for my newsletter to the right here.

Canva, a visual tool that just saves your day…

Probably most of you already know about or are using Canva. This is such a great tool for creating your own visual designs that you then can use for your social media posts, your blog images, as well as for designing covers for your different social media profiles. Furthermore, you can create and design freebies, e-books, presentations, letterheads, and so much more. Then Canva for Work is really something I can recommend, it is a good investment, and from there you can set up your logo, the colours of your personal brand, your fonts, and your templates and always have them there easy at hand. The small monthly cost is well worth it to be able to have everything in one place. Then, in Canva for Work you also have the Magic resize function, which means that you with just a click can resize your designs to fit all the different social media channels.

Relaythat, and that’s that…

Relaythat is another great tool with a long list of ready templates, so called layouts, that fits the different social media platforms, blogs and so forth. I am only using this tool since recently, so step by step I am discovering all their cool features. They have a good set of training videos you can watch too, in order to figure out how to do something that you might not understand while you are preparing your layouts. Below you see an example of how it can look like when you work on a layout:

As you can see you have everything on the screen here to modify your layout in real time, from choosing font (when you write the text it automatically resizes itself), to adding or taking away layers, choosing colors, adding a logo, etc. Here I only did a very simple visual with a coffee cup, adding some fun text and some suitable colour to the background…and voilá…you have a design you can use for any channel you choose to post on. Relaythat has a free trial period, for 15 days I think, and then it there is a small monthly fee which is a reasonable cost for having a good design tool for your visuals.

Snappa, faster than snapping a pic

Snappa.io is yet another cool tool with ready made templates or layouts that you then can use for adding your own photos and touch to them, or you can design your own from scratch. It is easy to use, and the free version has a limited set of functions. As in Canva, there are many free stock photos to choose among for your designs if you do not want to use any of your own photos. This can be good for blogs or social media posts you are creating where you need a nice general photo or image to build on. As in all the other tools, you can add shapes, frames, icons, other graphics, change the colours and the fonts, add logos and much more. Below I just added the most simple shape and text to a photo.

Pic Monkey, no monkey business there

This is another very much used photo editing tool. It offers less in the choice of ready templates, but generally, I use it to retouch photos on the desktop, such as cropping the photo, adjusting brightness, color, contrast, only to name a few. So I definitely often use PicMonkey in combination with Canva, or any of the other tools, in order to edit my photos first and then create a design ready for my blog or social media.

Phonto, for adding a quick text overlay

Phonto is an app that you can install in order to add text overlays to your photos or create plain black or white images adding text to them. This is a tool I discovered via Sue B. Zimmerman, who is a great source of information on how to use Instagram in a successful way. It is great for when you want to write something on your photos or just create an image with a quote that you then can post on Instagram or any other social media channel. The app is downloadable both for iOS and Android users.

Some concluding remarks…

So this was a short list of some useful tools for creating visuals. Many of you are writing blogs and it is therefore always good to think about easily creating nice images in your articles. It is also a good way to get the right size on your visuals, i.e. sort of custom made for your different social media channels in order to optimize your posts. There are some good articles to read also regarding the optimal image size for the different social media channels, for example, The Ideal Image Sizes for Your Social Media Posts: Guidelines for All 6 Major Social Networks on the Buffer blog. As you see it does not need to cost much and it can be easy and fun. So start creating and share your visuals. Feel free to add a comment below about any other good visual tools.

Written by Katarina Andersson.

L'articolo 5 Social Media Tools for Social Translators sembra essere il primo su katarina-andersson.com.