Tools to

Create Social
Media Content
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Table of Contents
Capture people’s attention 2
with your visuals

Edit photos and videos 6

using Instagram

Use these apps to enhance 8

your photos and videos
Capture people’s attention
with your visuals
A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes. This is
especially true when it comes to social media. Using relevant images on
social media helps you to get attention, build loyalty, communicate vital
information, and increase engagement.

Customers want to know more about a company than its products and
services. They are more likely to purchase from a business whose story,
mission, and personality they are familiar with. By creating relevant
images of what your business does and videos of how your offerings can
fit into someone’s life, you can establish your business’ personality and
develop a relationship with your customers.

All statistics point to the value of using images on social media to drive
results for your business. According to Brain Rules, people will remember
10% of what they hear three days later, but 65% if there’s an image
accompanying the same information.1

And best of all, you don’t need to be an artist to create effective images
and videos for your social posts. There are plenty of online tools that
make it easy and many are available for little to no cost.
1
Medina, John. Brain Rules, 2018.

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Take pictures with your phone
You don’t need an expensive camera to create high quality photos
and videos. With just a few tools, you can create a do-it-yourself
at-home studio to elevate the quality of the photos and videos you
capture with your phone. Try using some foam core, decorative
contact paper, or a mini tripod to make your photos and videos
feel more professional.

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Photography Tips and Tricks
To create captivating videos and images for your social
media account, it’s important to have a clear focus and
align visuals to the message of your post. Here are some
tips you can use to create videos and images for your
feed:

1. Use the rule of thirds. Look at the elements

that are the most important in your shot. When
you shoot or crop a photo:

● Apply or imagine guide lines with intersecting points.

● Consider what elements are the most important.

● Position them at or near the intersections of the

guidelines.

● You don’t have to line them up perfectly.

1.
2. Use space to spotlight your
subject. To highlight the subject
of your post, clear clutter and use
negative space.

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 1.
2.
3. Use leading lines in your
photos. People’s eyes follow
lines in your photos. Create
photos where the lines draw
the eye to the subject you
want to highlight.

1.
2.
3.
4. Experiment with light at
different times of day. Capture
the soft light at sunset or create
stark shadows at midday with
harsh light. You can also take
nighttime photos with neon lights
or a colorful filter help set a mood
and contrast your photos.

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Edit photos and
videos using Instagram
After you’ve shot your photos and videos,
you can edit them to achieve the look
and feel you want. Instagram offers
several in-app tools to help you enhance
your photos:

● Crop to get your ideal image. Play

around with different zoom levels
and angles for your shots. You can
also share the same shot multiple
times by cropping it differently
each time.

● Use Lux to enhance. When you’re

editing your photos, try tapping
Lux, the magic wand on the top of
your screen that appears when you
take a photo using your in-app
camera. Using Lux, you can
immediately enhance your photos
and videos by lightening shadows,
darkening highlights and increasing
contrast.

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● Use different filters for different
moods. Overlay the filters on your
photos and think about the mood they
convey. For example, you can try
Amaro for a vintage feel or Moon if you
want classic a black and white look.

● Make your colors pop. Experiment

with contrast and saturation to adjust
the intensity of your colors. You can
bump them up to show off bold colors
in your photos, or tone them down to
achieve a more muted look.

● Make your subject the center of

attention. If the subject of your photo
is set in the center, you can direct
people’s attention to it by adding a
vignette to darken your photo’s edges.
Or, if you want to blur your
background to focus on the subject in
your foreground, try using Tilt Shift.

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Use these apps to
enhance your photos and
videos
Let’s take a closer look at other apps you can also use to
edit your visuals:

Canva 9 Quik 14

Stencil 10 Inshot 15

VSCO 11 Type Loop 16

Lively 12 Seen: Stories Maker 17

Videoshop 13 Clipomatic 18

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 Canva

Canva is an easy-to-use design tool that you can use to create social
media graphics. Use its drag and drop feature and large variety of fully
customizable templates to create graphics of all sizes. You can also add
text, edit your photos with filters, use icons, and more.

Visit https://www.canva.com or download Canva in the App Store or on

Google Play to get started.

Source: Canva

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 Stencil

Stencil is a graphic design tool available for free on any browser.

You can upload photos, logos, and fonts, or use those offered in
Stencil’s archive to design posts quickly and easily. Stencil
allows you to overlay these elements on photos, resize images,
add filters, and save images to collections.

Head to getstencil.com to get started.

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 VSCO

VSCO is an app that allows users to

add color and depth to photos with
standard editing tools or presets. Users
can add filters or adjust contrast,
saturation, grain, and more. In addition,
VSCO also has a social component
where people can discover other
people’s work they created on the app.

Download VSCO from the App Store

or Google Play to start creating and
sharing.

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 Lively

Lively is a great tool to use if you want to

animate photos for your Story or feed. It
converts Live Photos into GIFs or movies
and allows you to edit playback order and
speed. Note that you will need an iPhone
6/6S or a later model to capture Live Photos,
but this is a great way to share those
animated moments with non-iPhone users.

iOS users can download Lively in the App

Store.

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 Videoshop

Videoshop is one of the top mobile

video-editing apps available. It lets you
trim, combine, and edit the speed of video
clips. You can also add logos, subtitles,
sound effects, and overlay clips with music.

Get it on the App Store or Google Play to

begin.

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 Quik

Quik is a multiplatform shooting and editing

software that allows you to cut and create
videos from more than 15 different file
formats—from MP4s to DVR-MSs. It allows
you to adjust a clip’s frame, speed,
orientation, and volume in addition to
trimming and combining clips. Quik will
select the best clips from your videos and
splice them automatically, but you can also
make manual edits to your video. Try
selecting a theme for your video and adding
text overlays, title slides, music, and even a
speedometer if your video is recorded with a
GoPro with GPS.

If you want to dig deep into frame-by-frame

edits of your video ads, download Quik from
the Apple App Store or Google Play.

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 InShot

InShot is a helpful tool for posting to

Stories, which require vertical content.
Users should be able to watch your post
without turning their phones, so if you have
a clip in landscape mode, you can use
InShot to adjust its aspect ratio or add it to
a background. You can choose from a color
background on the app or from an image
on your phone. InShot can also help you
adjust contrast, saturation, and brightness,
and add text, transitions, music, and more.

Get started with InShot in the Apple App

Store or on Google Play.

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 Type Loop

With Type Loop, you can add typographic

motion presets to your photos. It’s a great
way to make dynamic ads for Instagram in a
pinch. You can select photos, add text
to them, adjust how your text will appear
and move with templates, and set your text’s
duration. It’s perfect for Facebook and
Instagram Stories, TikTok ads, and more.

Get started with Type Loop in the Apple App

Store.

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 Seen: Stories Maker

Seen: Stories Maker is another photo editing

software primed for creating Instagram
Stories. Using Seen, you can choose a
template, stitch photos together, and add
text and dynamic stickers. Then, you can
add smooth transitions between each
15-second slide of your Story to keep
viewers engaged. Seen allows you to work on
multiple pages in one project so you can see
all slides of a Story in one place and save
your projects as you go. Get inspired by
exploring templates by category, such as
Food and Drink, Travel, Beauty, Fitness, and
more. When you’re done, save your story or
share it directly from the app to Instagram.

Download Seen from the Apple App Store

to start.

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 Clipomatic

Clipomatic is a smart app that allows you to

add captions to videos. Speak into the
recorder and the app will transcribe your
words into a caption. Clipomatic works with
over 30 languages and allows you to manually
edit any errors in transcription. This is a great
tool to use if you want to share how-to videos
or make your posts accessible to wider
audiences.

Get started with Clipomatic from the Apple

App Store or Android APK.

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Sources
Medina, J. (2018). Brain Rules. http://www.brainrules.net/vision.

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 ™

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