I get a lot of questions from people searching for the perfect media creation tool. There are so many options out there, and the most expensive ones aren’t always the best. Also, what works for one person might not work for you, so not only am I going to tell you about some great tools, I’ll also help you find your own gems! This list is best for social media managers and content creators, who probably aren’t experts at image or film production. I’m also sticking with freemium options so that you can explore these tools before making a purchase.
Figure Out What You Need
The first thing you’ll want to do is decide what your goals are for the content. There are SO many free and cheap apps out there for creating images and videos. Unless you nail down what you want to do, you’ll feel overwhelmed. To find something that works for you, you’ll need to know which features you want. If you’re making a video, is will it contain all still photos, or is it really just a slideshow? Do you want to be able to add a particular piece of music in the background? Will you be able to download the video in some form, or does the app just let you use a web version shared through a link?
If you will be downloading a file, are you advanced enough to manipulate it if needed? For example, you could add your own effects if the app didn’t quite have everything you wanted if you’re experienced and have the right software. However, if you need the download to be the final product, you might need a more robust solution. Make sure to check out the features of any media creation tool before wasting your time getting started. You don’t want to pay money for it or get all the way to the end of a project only to discover that you can’t do what you want.
Image Media Creation Tool Options
Canva
If you are creating posts for social media, you simply must know about Canva. Create a free account, and you’ll have access to an amazing tool that helps you create graphics quickly. You can use it in a browser on a computer, or as an app on a mobile device. I’ve recorded a couple of tutorials on how to use Canva. There are lots of preloaded templates for the design-challenged, and you can reuse your own creations as templates too. Canva makes it so easy for you to stay on brand.
For only $9.99 per month, you can upgrade your account, which gives you more access to images, lets you upload your own fonts, makes it easier to work with other paid users on teams, and much more. This subscription is more than worth it if you are a social media manager.
Adobe Spark
This app does a little bit of everything. You can create social graphics or videos, or even simple web pages. You don’t need an Adobe subscription to use it, although you will need to upgrade if you want to use premium templates and options such as replacing the Spark logo with your own. (You can remove the Adobe Spark logo for free.) This is a good place to get fresh templates and is a good companion
Pablo
Pablo is a more specialized tool and it won’t be a one-stop shop for image design, but it’s so easy to use, you’ll probably find a way to add it to your media creation tool suite. Pablo is preloaded with inspirational quotes and background images so that you can create a motivational graphic in seconds. You can even add your company logo. You have to try it out! Go ahead and see how fast you can create a beautiful post, and you’ll be hooked!
Pixlr
If you ever need to do anything more complicated, this is a sophisticated browser version of PhotoShop. It’s not always fast and easy to use, but if you don’t have a subscription to a powerful photo or graphics editor, Pixlr will come through on a pinch. I’ve never used this much except for when I needed to do something quick and was on a computer that didn’t have access to something better.
Video Creation Tool Options
Lumen 5
Have you ever wanted to create a video from a blog post with a few clicks? Lumen 5 can do that. All you have to do is enter a URL and after that, it is SUPER simple to create a social media friendly (read: can be watched with the sound off) video. Click on the sentences you wish to include and the web app automatically chooses background pictures and video clips. How cool is that? This makes it super easy to multiply your content. That is – start out with a long-form blog post and quickly have a video that is ready to share from your social media accounts.
Now, things don’t always go perfectly. Sometimes the technology isn’t exact, but that’s okay because you can manually edit your video as well. Can you believe this site is free??? Plus you can add a soundtrack to your video. If you want to ditch the Lumen 5 watermark at the end, you’ll need to get a paid account. Still, so worth it, don’t you think?
Magisto
Magisto another tool that works hard for you with AI-powered technology. Currently, there’s no free plan but you do get a 7 day I trial, and I strongly recommend trying it just to see if you think it’d be helpful. I was really impressed by some of the image detection aspects that added animated elements around faces. You can tell the software is advanced and this tool is simple to use, although it can get a little pricey if you want the full version. Give yourself a few days to try it, and cancel without obligation if you’re not seeing the benefits.
Adobe Spark
Adobe Spark is worth a mention again, because it’s freemium and a good tool. There are social media ready premade templates, which makes this a simple little tool for creating quick videos.
iMovie
If you happen to have an iPhone, you can use iMovie for free to make some simple edits to videos. The beauty of using iMovie is that if you want to do some more heavy duty editing, you can airdrop the movie to your MacBook or iMac to finish the job.
Hardware
You really can do a lot with a good smartphone when it comes to capturing pictures and videos. When recording video, audio is very important. If you supplement your phone with one piece of equipment, make it a decent microphone so that the speaker can easily be heard with little background noise.
As far as other equipment goes, you can also get a lot of work done from a phone or tablet. I definitely like working on a Retina or similar screen so that it’s easier to see what I’m doing. The images are sharper and it can cut down on eye strain or missing mistakes in image editing.
Well, that’s about it! If you’ve come across media creation tool you love, be sure and tell me about it in the comments. Also, if you found this helpful, would you please do me a favor and Tweet @colleen_shiff to tell me what you liked best? It would mean the world to me! 🙂
A recent home improvement store commercial encouraged viewers to “do more” instead of merely looking at and saving projects online. This got me thinking about how much time I waste looking at ideas for “someday.” We all do it. I have a wall full of recipes on Facebook that I haven’t gotten around to making, let alone eating. It’s fun to fantasize about a Pinterest-perfect life, but it’s time to stop wasting time online.
Now that we all carry around mini-computers in our pockets and have access to a thousand lifetimes worth of information, it’s easy to get caught up in exploring, learning, and dreaming. These are things you have to do though, right? You have to plan and learn in order to grow.
The key is to find a balance in your time spent on and offline to make real progress and growth. It is easy to learn how to do anything online, but if you don’t know how to create something with the knowledge, you’ll have nothing to show for it. Here are some ways to balance consuming and creating in your daily life:
1. Paint the furniture, bake the cookies, make the craft
Okay, well this one’s obvious. If you see something you really like, get off your phone and go make it happen. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Better yet, call a friend and make it a date. After you’re done you can post about it and your creation can inspire others.
2. What do you find yourself repeatedly having to teach people?
Do people constantly ask you for fitness advice? Write out sample workout and nutrition plans in Google Docs and email them to save yourself time. Better yet, start a blog or YouTube channel to see if your knowledge can help a broader audience. Not only are you able to assist more people this way, but you can learn how to launch your own website if you want and add more skills to your virtual toolbox. Use affiliate links in your blogging and social media to get money for product recommendations.
3. Skip school
If you’re serious about learning something new, you might feel like you have to get a degree, but that’s not always the case. You can stop wasting time online and teach yourself a lot watching videos online and reading free blog posts and eBooks. This will only work if you are super motivated and dedicated to creating useful projects.
As you learn, begin creating as you go. Figure out a way to incorporate this practice work into your current lifestyle. If you are in school, choose topics for assignments that truly interest you and take the time to make the projects be standalone stellar examples of your work. This might mean you go above and beyond and don’t necessarily turn in everything you did to the professor. It also might look like editing the project after it’s been graded to make it a better product that doesn’t have to conform to the assignment’s limitations. Either way, it’s much easier to expand the scope while the work is fresh in your mind than after the fact.
4. Get Paid to Stop Wasting Time Online
If you want to be a web designer, find a friend or family member who needs a site and help them out. Volunteer for a small business. Check out a site like Flexjobs.com that posts legitimate work at home opportunities and apply for part-time work. Or, turn your Pinterest-worthy crafts into an Etsy store or check out your local cottage food laws and start selling your famous brownies at the Farmer’s Market.
By creating more and consuming less, you’ll be trading mindless browsing for extra income. You can use this to start a new direction in your career or have some extra fun in your hobbies.
Recently, I made the decision to begin dedicating a good portion of my free time to learning more about analyzing data so that I can pivot my career in a different direction. (Yes, I’m a wife, mother of tinies, and proud owner of a full-time job who still has what I consider to be a fair amount of “free time” – more on that in another post.) To understand how I’m going about this, it’s best that I explain what my background is and how this all came about.
The Musical Years
I’ve been making music since I was 5, and although I enjoyed math and science in school, I also found success as a trumpet player. In 2003 I graduated with a degree in Music Education from Texas Tech University. I spent the rest of that year and much of the next living in England selling sheet music at a little shop, and when I returned landed a fantastic middle school band director job in McKinney, Texas. I taught for 3 years and performed with local wind ensembles the Metropolitan Winds and the Lone Star Wind Orchestra before shipping out to join the Navy as a musician at the beginning of 2008.
“In the Navy…”
I joined the Navy – I saw the world. Well, much of Southeast Asia, at least. I had two children and worked my way through the ranks. As I gained more experience, I was put in charge of managing an extra duty. I ran the public affairs office for Navy Band Northeast in Newport Rhode Island. By my 7th year in I was starting to feel the strain of being a mother in the military. I enjoyed all of the new stuff I was learning like social media management, Photoshop, and photography, and I wanted to broaden my horizons.
You see, when you’re in the military, you’re often so limited that you feel like you can’t work anywhere else. And that’s really the way it is if you don’t make an effort to supplement your own professional development. Even though the Navy keeps transcripts of all the “courses” you complete and you even get some college credits for boot camp, these often go unrecognized in civilian life. I knew that outside of the military, I was not marketable, and I wanted to fix that.
My Escape Plan
Over the next few months, I came up with a plan. I wanted to be able to leave within 3 years if I wanted to. Now at this point, I could have learned what I needed to without getting a degree. YouTube University is an amazing place to learn about digital marketing. However, I knew it would take a lot of discipline for me to gain the knowledge I needed while working full time with a toddler and a baby. I could get a Masters degree at no cost through the Navy’s Tuition Assistance program and my G.I. Bill, so that’s what I decided to do.
After researching a lot of programs, I decided to apply for the Master’s of Science in Information Technology degree at Florida State University. I chose this school because:
It’s one of the oldest information schools and online programs in the country
The coursework is the same online as it is on campus
The classes met live online every week
Who wants to just by a McDegree? I didn’t. But my heart sank when I read the application requirements. Twelve hours of technology courses or 2 hours of work experience. Before quitting the application process, I emailed the admissions office to ask if I could count some things I’d done as work experience. Namely:
As a teacher, I used HTML and Dreamweaver to develop the band’s website
I was familiar with WordPress and had a blog at one point
I had developed digital media and managed social media accounts in the Navy
Someone got back to me and said that would be acceptable. The next hurdle was cramming for the GRE. I bought a couple of books (pretty sure one of them was called “Cramming for the GRE”) and prepared to take my first standardized test in a good 15 years. There had been no math class in my life since I was 16. In college, I clepped out of everything that was required.
I did fine, got accepted, and in January of 2016 I started my coursework. It was a bit of an adjustment and there were obvious gaps in knowledge. I didn’t know what Google Docs was, but it quickly became my friend as I had a group project to collaborate on almost every semester. I finished my degree in 2 years while my children slept. It was not easy.
As the end of my next Navy enlistment approached I had a decision to make. I was finishing up that last year of school, and if I wanted, I could get out of the Navy right after I graduated and go to the civilian workforce. After a lot of hemming and hawing, and a surprise promotion, I decided to go forward with that plan.
Back to Civilian Life
During my last years in the Navy, I had continued to manage public affairs duties which involved community relations, journalism, and digital production and engagement. For my very first gig afterward, I was a part-time social media manager. As the end of that contract approached, I took a job as a marketing apprentice contracting for another company and my hourly rate doubled.
For that assignment, I was thrust into the world of digital marketing full on. Although I’m not an expert I learned SEO, strengthened my WordPress skills, learned how marketing automation works, developed campaigns, designed landing pages, and marketing material, and most importantly, tracked all of the leads we got for my project to see where they were coming from and analyze the best way to increase sales.
This is when I started really learning about Excel and the power of pivot tables. The CEO taught me how to visualize data in a way that was clear and complete, and I greatly appreciate his insistence that the data be complete and flawlessly presented. There were times though when I brought everything I thought we needed to a meeting and he’d ask for a metric he hadn’t prepared. Ugh. There was always something.
That’s when I started being more interested in how I could get the answers faster. Knowing what I’ve begun to learn, if I’d had my data ready in a Jupyter notebook I could have answered just about any question on the spot. Also, I loved poring over and analyzing it. Wondering how much of it was flawed, imagining better tools and ways to collect it in the first place – it was fun.
I have since moved on to another job where I have to make recommendations based on marketing data, and I’ve decided that I want my next job title to be Data Analyst. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s been great learning everything there is to know, but I’m under no delusion that I can be an awesome writer, designer, photographer, search engine optimizer, UI/UX expert, etc. all at once. I do want to specialize and I’m excited about the opportunities that a career in data science can bring.
Moving Forward
As I start my upcoming projects, I’ll be posting to share exactly what I did to complete my career pivot and start a journey toward something bigger. I did want to give some background because I don’t want anyone who has never written code before to think I’m starting from scratch. If you want to follow along, there may be some extra studying to do, but if you’re like me, you’re in the right place.
In this video, I explain how to create your own custom Canva collage without being limited by the templates they provide. This can help if you want a variety of photos of different orientations and sizes. You can later use your new design as a template for future collages.
2024 Update: This is an older post that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the skills I have now.
Why is it still here?
I want to be transparent about where I started.
Canva was and still is an amazing tool, and I use it frequently. It is a terrific platform to learn if you want to get into marketing.
I hope that by keeping this here it might help folks on the beginning of their career pivot journey.
Canva is one of my FAVORITE resources for creating attractive graphics quickly. Today I’m going to share with you the simplest FREE way to create an attractive collage for printing. Canva.com is an amazing web tool that can help you design just about anything you need for graphics and social media. If you have limited resources, are far from being a Photoshop expert, and don’t want to spend a lot of time on your next collage project, this video is for you. Watch it if you want to:
Aren’t familiar with Canva.
Like to do things the lazy way!
Create a professional looking collage today.
Tips before you watch:
Set up an account at www.canva.com
Select 8-10 photos you want to use. (You probably won’t use them all.)
Create your project with me, pause the video for a minute to upload all of the photos to your account.
It’s that simple.
Drawbacks to using Canva
There are some noted drawbacks to using Canva. There is a little less flexibility, especially if you are using the predesigned layouts. It can be a little frustrating getting everything to fit right. However, you will be able to achieve great results so fast, you will find it worth it.
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