In our fast paced world, we need all the help we can get to stand out and get noticed. One surefire way is to create awesome visuals for use in your content marketing strategy.

Did you know that visual communication is the quickest and most successful form of communication. It only takes 13 milliseconds for us to process an image, which is 60,000 times faster than reading text.

90% of the information we retain is conveyed visually. We are also 44% more likely to engage with visuals than text. This is why it is so important to use visuals.

Visual content helps convey a message quickly (which entices people to read the associated text). It’s also a great way to make content easily shareable which increases engagement and drives traffic to your website.

Visual content can be in the form of photos, quotes, checklists, tips, short videos and info-graphics.

This may be all well and good, but if you’re not a graphic designer you may feel that creating a marketing strategy around visual content is beyond you.

Well fortunately, there are heaps of online tools available to help those of you who are creatively challenged (or just don’t have a clue about using photoshop).

 

Eight clever tools to create awesome visuals:

Canva.com

Canva describes itself as ‘amazingly simple graphic design software’. It allows you to easily create visuals for print or social media and provides an array of pre-designed templates to make the design process as easy as possible. You simply choose your template layout and images, add some text, tweak the colour and font, and you’re done.

 

 

Relaythat.com

Relaythat.com is possibly the fastest and easiest way to make engaging social graphics. You add in your text, choose your image(s), theme and colours and in one click it will create a variety of images using predesigned templates that are suitable for all social media platforms. You can also schedule and post directly from Relaythat.com to your preferred social media channels . This is productivity at its best.

 

Prisma-ai.com

This is a phone app that will turn your photos into works of art using the styles of famous artists such as Van Gogh and Picasso. If you need visual content that is a little bit quirky, this could be the tool for you.

 

Spark.Adobe.com

Adobe Spark is a versatile tool that creates a variety of media. Spark Post lets you easily create graphics for social media really easily. But if you want to take it to the next level, you can also create short animated videos with Spark Video.

 

Easil.com

Easil is ‘graphic design without the designer’. It has thousands of customisable templates which you can use for social media or print mediums such as posters and brochures. It’s a bit trickier to use than some of the others on this list, but it gives you more control and flexibility. They also include exclusive styled stock photography in their premium edition.

 

Ripl.com

Described as ‘an app to easily create eye-catching posts that help you or your business stand out on social media’, Ripl can not be ignored. They have specifically built an app that is designed to create animated visuals in just a few simple steps. The thought process behind the app is that animated visuals will capture the attention of your audience, so your audience will want to share the content. This is also known as the ripple (or Ripl) effect.

 

Fotojet.com

Fotojet is a few tools all rolled into one. It’s a photo editor plus it allows you to create collages, print and digital designs. It has over 600 collage templates to put in the graphic design element for non-graphic designers. The other great thing about this tool is that it is free.

 

WordSwag.co

Wordswag is not so much an image creation tool, as it is a tool to add creative text to your images. It’s an app that creates custom text layouts (so the text fits well). If you can’t think of the right words to add to your image they have lots of inspiration available in the form of quotes, thoughts and jokes. You’ll never be lost for words again with Wordswag.

 

Your turn!

So now you have the tools to create awesome visuals in your pocket, you’ll have no excuse but to have some fun being creative and coming up with all sorts of goodies to share on social media and blog.

Of course, if you don’t have the time or the inclination, we can create a content marketing strategy and design heaps of awesome visuals for you.