5 Ways to Ignite Your Creativity: Social Siren Staff Favorites Part II
Social Siren Staff Favorites Part II – 5 Ways to Ignite Your Creativity
Some of us are creative geniuses while others of us…aren’t. If you fall firmly in the latter camp, don’t worry, friend – you’re in good company.
Fortunately for us, modern-day marvels in the form of free or inexpensive tools can help us unlock our creative potential. We, too, can soon be dragging and dropping our way to beautiful and eye-catching designs.
If posting anything more than a photo directly from your phone causes you to break out in hives, give one of these simple design programs a try. With a little effort and practice, you’ll unlock your inner creativity (or simply edit one of the millions of templates available, limited creativity required).
Without further ado, here are Five Apps to Ignite Your Creativity:
- Canva – Everyone on the Social Siren team loves this free graphic design software. It will make your designs SPARKLE! We’re talking social media posts, flyers, videos, presentations, Zoom backgrounds…basically anything you need to design, Canva has a template for it. Especially great for small businesses, you can set up your brand colors, import your logo, and easily drag-and-drop elements to make all your designs look cohesive and professional.
- Agorapulse – It’s the tool our whole team swears by- with an easy to use calendar to help you manage your posting schedules, ALL your comments from all your social channels all in one place, and team access, it is essential over here at Social Siren. Take it from us- we have tried a lot of 3rd party posting tools. This one takes the cake. Karla, our creative copy specialist, loves this tool and recommends it for small businesses with a social presence.
- Pixlr – An alternative to Adobe Photoshop, this powerful FREE website lets you edit photos and create gorgeous designs on your phone or browser. Coolest part: remove busy or ugly backgrounds and place the image you want over a more appropriate background.
- Epidemic Sound – If you’re going to make promo videos in house, you need music! Kristin, our videographer, highly recommends Epidemic Sound for its huge library of music and sound effects. This is a subscription service, but comes with a 30-day free trial during which you can download as many tracks as you want.
- YouTube Audio Library (housed within YouTube Studio) – for a FREE music service, YouTube has its own library of music and sound effects. This service is automatically connected to your Google account, and it’s super straightforward. Simply search for music or sound, download it, and add to your next video project.
In summary – to tackle your creative tasks and make them easier, faster and/or better, try one of these great resources:
- Easily design all marketing materials with Canva
- Schedule social posts across multiple channels with Agorapulse
- Edit beautiful photos with Pixlr
- Download music for your next video with Epidemic Sound
- Find free sound effects and music within the YouTube Audio Library
Have you tried any of these before? What do you think?! Let us know in the comments!
Missed Part I of Our Favorite Things? Catch up on 5 Ways to Improve Your Marketing here.
Stay tuned for Part III of Our Favorite Things: 5 Resources to Streamline Your Bottom Line.