As much as you think you know about social media, think again. It’s always evolving, and there are always more ways for an investor to put it to good use
by Erica Sikoski
A picture is worth a thousand words—but what happens when all the pictures look the same?
Social media is one of the most commonly utilized mediums to market your company online, so it’s imperative to know how to maximize your social media content and engage with your audience.
Since the average person can only recall 20% of text but can recall 80% of images, it’s important to curate creative and unique images that will grab potential and current customers attention immediately.
The bottom line is: if you’re going to stay ahead of your competition in the marketing game, you need to use visual content marketing. You’ll want to make social graphics that will catch your audiences’ eye, something that will make them click, share and want to learn more. You also don’t want to spend a lot of time or money creating these images as their life span is very short.
Below are examples of free content creation tools you can use to make engaging images and videos for your company’s social media pages.
Social Media Graphic Maker Tools
Canva.com: Canva is a great design tool for both beginners and professionals. It’s a good stand-in for those who do not have extensive Photoshop skills. The free version of Canva allows you to choose from dozens of templates, stock images, and icons. All the templates are easily customizable with different fonts, colors, and images.
Crello.com: Crello is similar to Canva, plus it also allows you to create animated visual posts. They have dozens of templates to choose from for both the animated and static images where you can also customize the posts with different fonts and colors.
Photo Editor Tool
BeFunky Graphic Designer: Simple photo editor tool, for those who do not have Photoshop. The tool allows you to edit, resize, make collages, and other designs such as invitations, business cards, and graphics.
Movie Maker Tools
Animaker.com: With Animaker you can create different video types including explainer videos, whiteboard videos, infographic videos and more. You can also include a voice-over narration or just have text in the video.
Kizoa.com: Kizoa gives you all the tools to create promotional videos for any type of business to showcase your products and/or services. There are simple video templates to choose from, or you can create your own, including adding music and image transitions.
Free Stock Photo Sites
Pixabay.com, Stockvault.net, Unsplash.com, Pexels.com: These free stock image sites allow you to try different images for your post without having to purchase multiple image from Shutterstock.
Overall, creating content on social media comes down to a couple of simple items; having an informative and captivating message, and a call to action. Plus, the key is to create content on a regularly, so your audience keeps coming back for more.
Bridge Loan Network is a leading online marketplace that was founded by leading industry experts with decades of experience in both real estate and online marketplaces. Our asset-based marketplace includes a unique loan origination system and web applications that are specifically built for the private lending industry. Additionally, the marketplace greatly increases the efficiency and lowers the cost of the lending process giving users the ability to order credit reports and property valuations within the platform.
Erica Sikoski is the marketing coordinator at Bridge Loan Network, responsible for maintaining and evolving the presence of the company. Since 2016, Erica’s focus has been on creating informative and thought-provoking content to strengthen Bridge Loan Network’s marketing and tradeshow initiatives. Erica manages Bridge Loan Network’s social media channels, email campaigns and digital and print campaigns. Erica graduated from Eastern Connecticut State University, with an honors degree in Communications with a concentration in Advertising.
