How can you save time while still making everything look great on your social media platforms? Dahlsens share our top app recommendations to help make your social media stand out from the crowd.
Canva
Canva is a free graphic design platform for creating social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents and other visual content. The app includes handy templates for users.
If you’re going to deep dive into one app, Canva would be a great asset to your social media arsenal because it is super easy to use and gives you great, eye-catching results.
The platform offers paid subscriptions like Canva Pro for additional functionality.
Canva Pro allows you to:
- Create a ‘brand kit’ with your own logo, font and colours stored for quick access
- Create something like a meme for an Instagram post and then resize it to use on other platforms like Facebook or Instagram Stories
- Add animations to your creations and even produce videos
How does Dahlsens use Canva?
We use it for our memes on Instagram and for some of our video animation.
Animoto
Video is king. You will consistently get better reach and engagement when posting video on Facebook and Instagram.
Animoto does have a free version but to get the full benefits, try their professional package.
Animoto allows you to:
- Combine video and photos in one video, with editing features to give your video a specific run time (the shorter, the better)
- Add text overlays and royalty-free music
- Add images more easily with drag and drop functions
How does Dahlsens use Animoto?
We put together videos you may have seen on our social media for RUOK Day, Footy Finals and Christmas.
Scheduling apps
If you post to social media on the run it might be time to sit down and dedicate a couple of hours to mapping out a plan and scheduling your posts in advance, using an app.Review your content for the week ahead, make a plan and schedule. Set and forget, but remember to check in
on your posts and answer any questions or acknowledge any comments.
For Facebook, always schedule within the app. From a desktop computer:
- Go to your home page
- Go to the menu on the left-hand side, click on ‘publishing tools’
- Use ‘scheduled posts’ and ‘drafts’. Scheduled posts will post automatically for you.
For Instagram, consider the apps ‘Later’ or ‘Iconosquare’. The more you pay for your plan, the better functionality you will have. These apps will automatically post single image posts but will send alerts to post carousels and videos at the time scheduled.