Tools for Creating Graphics for Your Blog and Social Media
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There are plenty of options for creating graphics for your blog and social media, from simple tools for adding text to photos to full-featured design platforms. Most have preset image dimensions for social media and other formats, templates, and access to free high-res photos.
The problem isn’t finding a tool that will work, but choosing the one that will work best for you!
Canva seems to be the most popular, but I’ve never found it intuitive to use and wasted a lot of time starting over.
Snappa is the app I’ve been using most often for formatting photos for my blog and social media for many years. Here’s what I really like about it:
- The templates are super easy to work with. You can easily change backgrounds, colors, fonts, and even the position of various elements without messing everything up – and switch back, if you change your mind. Maybe it’s just me, but I find this very difficult in Canva.
- It does a great job of resizing graphics. For example, you can start by creating one for Facebook. When you click the Resize button and choose Instagram or Pinterest, it not only resizes it, but repositions everything nicely so you only need to do minor edits, if any.
- Once you’ve created a graphic, you can save it in your account and download it in your choice of format, including web-optimized JPG for use on your website.
Adobe Express is an alternative to Canva and Snappa for creating social media graphics, with templates, image editing, and more.
All three apps offer free plans with paid plans available for additional features.
If you just want to quickly turn a quotation into an image, QuotesCover is a good option. You can easily change the canvas size, background, fonts and other design elements, and even add your logo. And not only is it free, you don’t even have to create an account to use it!
The biggest downside to all of these apps is that they’re so fun to use, you’ll want to play with them all day!
What’s your favorite way to create graphics?
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I’m a Canva user… fascinating to see that stat about 93% of human communication is non-verbal. I think I get the most comments and shares from my humor posts, which almost always have an image.
I remember learning about non-verbal communication in psychology and customer service courses. It’s why it’s harder to read someone when talking to them on the phone, and even harder by email or online – we don’t have those visual cues that let us know whether they’re truly angry or just making a joke.
I still see some blogs where they NEVER add images to their posts, and I wonder if they realize what they might be missing?
Agreed! Visuals are VERY effective, and Pinterest is one of my biggest traffic sources. I personally use PicMonkey to create my graphics, and I absolutely love it. It’s easy to use, has a free version, a really inexpensive paid version and is always adding new stuff.
I’ll have to try out PicMonkey – thanks for sharing!
This is so great Janet!! So many great tools and so little time to play. I would really like to spend some time playing 🙂
There’s a long weekend coming up… 😉
Initially reading this I was feeling a little discouraged thinking of my marketing budget by having to hire a graphic designer. So thanks for stating that it wasn’t necessary and then posting the media that the average layman can use themselves. I am a Canva user and find it very user friendly. Thanks.
Canva has the most features of any of the free tools I’ve tried! I’ll be interested in comparing it to Pic Monkey, which Nealey recommended.
I’ve only recently started using Canva. Plan to use it lots more! I take my own photos, and subscribe to Dreamstime, but will check out the $1 Canva photos and your other recommendations. Thanks, Janet!
Have fun with it, Hazel! I’ll be watching for your creations. 🙂
This is incredibly helpful–thanks so much. It’s great to know there are so many options for a lay person like me. I will definitely be checking out Canva.
It’s very easy – and they will email you a bunch of tutorials too, so you can learn how to do things you might not have even thought to try!
I have been using picmonkey from the beginning of my business and I love it. I am going to upgrade this year to a paid account this, for the price I think it will be well worth it. I also use Quozio for quotes, but the backgrounds are limited.
What kind of upgrades do you get with the paid account, Jill?
Quozio… I’ll have to check that one out too.
I use picmonkey, Photoshop, and I love the Word Swag app on my iphone! I have yet to try Canva for the very reason you mention~that I won’t be able to stop myself! 🙂
Word Swag… another one to check out! Maybe I’ll need to do a Part 2 to this post once I’ve tried everyone’s suggestions.
Thanks for this detailed post and the list of resources! I like Canva and I also like the stock photos at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
FreeDigitalPhotos offers a great selection, but I don’t find it as easy to search as some of the paid sites. Thanks for stopping by!
Thanks for all the great ideas, Janet! I appreciate how you find the best options!!
Thanks for your kind words, Olive. You motivate me to keep my eyes open for more great stuff!
I’m a fan of PicMonkey – it’s nice and easy.
Another PicMonkey user! I am definitely going to have to check it out.
You are definitely correct about visuals being key to success! We are a VERY visual society and I have to remember that since I tend to be wordy. Having great pictures and infographics makes a huge difference when it comes to engaging your audience and gaining more followers!
Brooke, I just had a peek at your blog, and I think you’re doing a fabulous job of balancing visuals and text.
Images are good for attracting visitors, but it’s still important to have enough text to supply valuable information and to be found by the search engines.
Photoshop is definitely my favorite visual tool, but nowadays there are many different options according to the look of our ideas. I totally agree that there are variety of quick and easy tools like canva that will help everyone in need.
Lately I have found myself moving away from Canva, because I find it hard to position things exactly the way I want, and the time I spend fighting with it negates the time I save using their layouts. Maybe it’s time to give PicMonkey a try!
I wasn’t aware of the QuotesCover before. Great tool indeed. Great post too 🙂
Of these, it’s the one I use the least but it’s pretty nifty!
QuoteImageMaker is a fantastic tool for creating engaging quote images for social media. The AI-powered design features make it easy to transform quotes and affirmations into professional-looking visuals perfect for Pinterest and Instagram. The bulk creation tools and pre-built sizes save so much time.
Thanks for stopping by! I just tried the features I could use without creating an account, and it’s pretty easy to use.