Using Canva to Stand Out

Gone are the days where every business needs to enlist the help of a graphic designer to create all of their content for them. Many business owners are taking on more of the graphic design roles themselves using user-friendly tools like Canva.

What is Canva?

Canva is a free to use graphic design tool where you can create branded social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos and basically anything you could ever imagine. Not only can you create and download your creations for free, but Canva also allows you to order prints of any of your designs!

As you can tell, I get a little excited when talking about Canva…

This is because the benefits of Canva are extensive. Not only does Canva help me in my day to day, but so many of my clients use it for themselves. If you aren’t already using this platform, I urge you to check it out.

Why Canva is the Best

Here’s why I believe Canva is the best content creation platform for small businesses:

• Incredibly easy to use

• You have the ability to create visually appealing images and content from thousands of templates; Images, video, audio & more

• Simply scrolling through the templates can spark inspiration for current or future designs

• You do not need ANY graphic design experience.

• You walk away with high quality downloads for free

• have the ability to go from design to print with your partners within the editing platform

• And did I mention it's FREE?

There are a few things that you should keep in mind while getting crafty in Canva, because not everyone uses this platform in a way that will maximize design impact.

Here are few ways that you can use Canva to make your brand STAND OUT:

• Create a lot of content: If you are going to start incorporating graphic design in your social media, on your blog, or anywhere that your brand is present, make sure that you do it consistently! One piece of graphic design can look a little out of place by itself. This means creating a lot of content, but luckily Canva makes this easy to do..

• Maintain brand continuity: Make sure that your logo, fonts, and colors remain consistent among the content that you’re creating and displaying on multiple platforms. You want to be easily identifiable wherever you are. It can be fun to play around with colors and designs, but trust me—keep it simple, keep it consistent with your brand. AND because you can create video, audio, images & more – you can do ANYTHING graphically which allows you to bring brand consistency across every element of your brand!

• Create novel content: Make sure the designs you are producing are different from the templates. Because so many people are now using Canva, it can be apparent when a brand hasn’t altered the template enough. Get creative!

Is Canva Pro worth it?

Like most free tools, Canva offers an upgraded version for a fee. I love any way to keep your business expenses low, but if you are going to be cranking out a lot of content on Canva, I definitely recommend upgrading to Pro, if you’re able.

Here is a complete list of Canva Pro features! And here is why I think the upgrade is worth the price:

• You get access to their ENTIRE library -- this means more images, templates, elements, audio…more everything

• You get the background remover – removes the background of images (I use this feature constantly)

• You have the ability to animate graphics – this feature really makes you look like a pro

• You can also create team templates – let your entire team create from templates that are already curated to meet your brand standards

• You have full access to the brand kit which lets you save your brand fonts, colors, logos and images all in one place – This really helps you crank out content quickly!

If you want to try Canva Pro out, they offer a free 30-day trial... check it out here!