How to post engaging social media videos and animations
You've seen them. Those high contrast shots, with animated text, or those Instagram stories with movement, animations, text that has a mind of its own or filters applied to photos that you simply can't get anywhere on your native photo editor. I'm here to help. The first option is from Adobe, and I wish more people spoke about this app. It's free, it's customisable and it REALLY works. It's ADOBE SPARK www.spark.adobe.com
Simply visit the site link, then sign in with facebook or email, click on the plus symbol on the top of the screen, select "adobe post" and you'll be presented with a wide variety of templates to use, for ANY social media you can think of, including YouTube, and then click one you like. Adobe will guide you through the rest, and there's SO many styling options available free that it's mind blowing. You can even turn these posts into animations for free, and there's so much more to the app than just social posting. I've been using this Spark app for years for video stories, promos, web pages, portfolios AND youtube thumbnails. The designs are modern and stylish, and there's plenty of reviews and tutorials available on this program online. I REALLY want you to try this and let me know if you have any questions in the comments about it! It's the bomb.
#adobespark #adobepages #adobeproducts #adobereview #adobeforfree #adoberocks
OPTION 2: Crello. www.crello.com
This Canva rival has some exceptional templates available for free once you signup. You simply visit the link above, create an account, then simply choose your format for social posting that you're looking for, then click it. There's an editing pane on the left, and free image database available, and you can upload your own images to this media bin. It's a simple drag and drop interface, and it's a matter of selecting fonts well, matching images with filters, and then selecting the "download" button on the top right. This lets you download in a TONNE of formats, even with a clear background if you wish (which canva doesn't let you do) and then you can upload that file wherever you need to. Crello is extraordinary, and if you pair them with www.pixabay.com images then you're on your way to better social media posting instantly.
OPTION 3: Microsoft Sway www.sway.office.com
THIS is a game changer. For me, I had no idea that Microsoft offered this brilliant free app until a few days ago, and it has been sitting in my Office 365 subscription forever. All you need is a hotmail or live email address and this is yours. It's a free slideshow/visual story creator like PowerPoint, but without the painful creation of individual slides with awful fonts and cumbersome design choices. Once you log in, there's a screen with templates on it, and you can select one of them to start with something looking good already, or you can start from scratch. The system here is working with "cards" which are just design blocks that are fully editable to insert whatever media you wish into them, including videos, free images, text, headings, audio and even office documents and graphs. The cool thing is that ANIMATIONS are applied automatically to every single transition, and scrolling occurs between slides, and you can change the layout from horizontal to vertical and like a web page, to a slideshow a la powerpoint, but because it's ONLINE it means you don't have to worry about embedded videos not playing, font choices looking horrible because you dont have them in every PC, AND it eliminates the video compatibility issues that go along with PPT every single day. It's shareable, and other team members can edit them along with you in real time. Sway even lets you upload photo slideshows, grids, comparison sliders and can be used for any presentation you can imagine. Right now I'm working on using it for sermons and my entire portfolio for my business. It's that good. It saves automatically and can even be embedded into ANY html document as code with one click. Also, with the design and styles buttons, you can change the entire document's look and feel and size with simple selections. The end results are amazing, and I cannot believe I hadn't found this Microsoft product until recently because it really is that good. No more boring presentations, no more font selection issues, no more embedded video jitters and gasping for air every time you open your presentation only to find it running differently on someone else's PC. It's a teachers dream, a marketers dream, a social influencers dream, and a dream come true for public speakers. All you need is a wifi hotspot on a phone, and you'll have instantly brilliant presentations every time. For free. Anywhere.
#microsoftsway #sway #swaymyway #microsoftfree #powerpoint #deathbypowerpoint #nomoreboringslides #slideshowmaker #slideshows #slidecreator #freeslideshows
If you know of any more free social posting apps, comment below, and for more tech and design news subscribe to the blog with the button below. Thanks guys.