Quick Cost Effective Ways To Produce Content: Our Top Content Creation Tools
The ability to turn around quality content quickly is paramount to advertising on social media channels. However, brands may not always have access to a full production house and creative resources on every single project.
We always recommend a brand having their own original video footage that can be repurposed for ads. So having a foundation of original content - whether its photography or video footage - gives you a leg up from the get-go. But even if you just have product shots, you can still easily and swiftly turn around beautiful ads with the content creation tools we’ve laid out below - and you won’t have to break the bank to do so.
Canva
Free - $120 a year
We absolutely love Canva. Many of the brands we work with (and we use it personally, too) use it for everything from social media posts, to banners and video editing. It has a very easy to use interface and on the pro version, you have access to over 100+ million stock photos, videos, audio and graphics.
It also offers over 610,000 templates for you to more easily conceptualize your ideas and have a base to work off of. You can also easily upload your brand colors and fonts and logos to add to any of your designs. On the pro version, up to five of your teammates can log into the account and collaborate on all your designs.
Another feature we love is that you can easily resize your content using their “magic resize tool” to fit any format you need. Canva also integrates with Planoly so you can easily schedule and post your designs for social.
Visme
Free - $29/month
Like Canva, Visme offers a plethora of templates to help you get started on your designs. You can find templates on everything from menus to press releases. They also offer an in-program video editing service, to easily trim and crop your content before exporting. While it does have a decent database of stock images and videos, where Visme really shines is in it’s ability to visualize data. It has an excel feature to input your data which then you can turn into beautiful infographics. Also, it’s selection of graphics to accompany your data is more robust than what you would find on Canva. If data visualization is more of what you’re looking for, we would highly suggest Visme.
Envato Elements
$16.50/month
While you can’t video or photo edit within the app, Envato Elements provides the foundation of all that you would need to put together stunning creative to export and finalize on your own video/photo editing software. It is a much more affordable alternative to creative subscriptions like Adobe Stock or Shutterstock. Not only does it have millions of stock imagery, it’s also connected to a more “authentic” looking stock image sister site called Twenty20. There you can find artistic and creative images that don’t have that “stock feel.” Envato also has thousands of downloadable video templates/effects that are incorporated into Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, or Final Cut. On top of that you can download thousands of sound effects and sound files to help give your creative even more life!
Crello
$10/month
Crello markets itself as a “Design Maker for Non-Designers.” Crello might be the closest contender to Canva we have in this list, and they are roughly the same annual price. Like Canva, Crello offers access to a database of 50+million images and offers thousands of templates to get you started on your designs. It also hosts a similar interface to Canva, so if you’ve used Canva before and want to try something new, you’ll easily be able to maneuver around the platform. However, with Crello you don’t have as many customization options on their various templates, and their infographics are limited, so if you need some data visualization, you may want to look elsewhere.
When it comes to content creation, all of these platforms provide beautiful templates and imagery to help you design beautiful creative for your brand at an affordable price. Some may be better suited to your particular needs, so feel free to explore the platforms (they all offer free trials) before committing - you may find one fits all your needs, or maybe even a combination of the services would be best for your brand. Just remember that making good content doesn’t have to be a huge expense. Have fun and happy creating!
