Graphics or memes have become an easy way to make any subject matter or content viral. What are they? Simply they are an image overlaid with text that engages people to learn more or to share them. As an author you want to have these in your arsenal. Facebook photos have an 87% interaction rate!
Think about this. When you are scrolling through your social media feeds don’t you take a moment to read the writing on the images even if you don’t mean to? Simply put, humans are visual creatures. The Facebook graphic is one tool that will be useful for a long time to come.
With Facebook’s news feed restrictions the graphic or meme is one way that you can get creative and get around the diminished page views. Photos are not part of the promotional restriction nor are blog content posts since the algorithm cannot read the writing on the images. What does this mean for the Christian author market? This is an excellent way to expand your reader base and get your content seen.
That said, as an author who may not have the resources to hire a design team to build some great graphics how are you to compete? There are several free websites that cater to photo design software intended for use for these type of products. Today I will be talking about two of these products that I use nearly every day.
First there is Picmonkey.com. Picmonkey is a simple and easy to use website that can allow you to make graphics with very few limits on what you can do. This is the first I recommend learning for authors that want to be able to be as creative as they would like. Here are some of the pros and cons of this specific website.
Pros:
- Free version
- Allows editing of any kind of image
- Automatically gives dimensions for project based on style of project.
Cons:
- You provide the images
- Very limited designs for premade items
- Learning curve
Second there is Canva.com. This site is visually stunning and has many more options than Picmonkey. This site gives you previews of how you can set up your images to look and then allows you to change nearly any element in it. They also have stock images with licensing for $1 each. (This is definitely better than some of the sites out there like Shutterstock.) Even the free elements are top quality and crisp.
Pros:
- Free image options
- Previews of how it can look
- High quality output and sizing for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google +
Cons:
- More of a learning curve
- Cannot embed an image overtop of another image
Here are some examples from each site for you to get the feel of what the sites are capable of. If you are not interested in creating your own graphics there are many people willing to do this for nominal fees. You are welcome to contact me and I will put you in contact with a match for your budget and content. Click on the images to see them full size.
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- Canva Example
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- Canva Example w/Picmonkey for cover overlay
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- Canva Example
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- Picmonkey Example
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- Picmonkey Example
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- Picmonkey Example
