7 Free Visual Tools to Pump Up Your Social Media Marketing
Published on July 25, 2018
Words are great. We love words here at Geek Chicago. And we believe that text is always going to be an essential part of the digital ecosystem. But you can’t forget the images!
You may have heard of the following statistics before: 65% of us are visual learners and 90% of the information transmitted in our brains is visual. These numbers don’t lie... and they have a great deal to do with creating successful social media marketing campaigns!
Visual tools can help to bump up your reach for your ideal audience. And adding amazing images to your social media marketing campaign is easier than you might think! Even for those of us without design backgrounds, there are apps and tools that make creating visually focused content approachable and effective.
While there are many paid programs and tools out there, oftentimes the free tools can help your brand just as well. These can take the form of online and desktop sites, or in app form for your phone.
Here are a few of the best and most user-friendly options, which may just help your brand add a dynamic, visual wrinkle to your social media marketing efforts:
1.) Venngage
Venngage is an online tool that can help you to create quick and visually appealing infographics, charts, newsletters, and more. The website offers both free and paid plans depending on how much you want to spend. The basic plan (unpaid) gives you access to a wide range of stock photos, graphics, and templates to choose from when creating your own infographic.
2.) PiktoChart
PiktoChart is another tool that makes creating infographics easy and free! And you can’t underestimate the power of infographics! After all, they are “liked and shared on social media 3X more than other any other type of content,” according to Infogram.
This free program has over 100 different themes availabl, with a graphics library that’s updated weekly. PiktoChart is a great option for creating complex graphics such as banners and reports.
3.) Google Fonts
One aspect of visual marketing has to do with the text you display. It’s not enough to have great content if it’s lacking in the aesthetics department.
Google Fonts allows you to access hundreds of open source fonts, meaning that customization is allowed and encouraged! Once you customize a unique font, you can share it with others within the program or keep it for your own brand’s use.
There’s more to life than Times New Roman and Helvetica. Use Google Fonts to find distinctive options to display across your business’s blog posts, infographics, images, and more.
4.) The Noun Project
If you’re struggling to find free and creative icons to display with content and graphics, The Noun Project has got you covered. There are over a million different royalty-free icons available for download on their site.
Once you find an icon, you can customize the color to find the right hue and tone for your marketing needs, and ensure that everything is in line with your distinct branding. Whether you’re looking for a social media site icon to upload to your website or a simple icon to add to an infographic, The Noun Project is a great place to start searching.
5.) Evernote Skitch
Evernote Skitch is an online, desktop, and app program that allows you to edit images and files with new text, shapes, and other graphics to help your images stand out. Beyond editing images to cater them to your marketing needs, the program allows for easy commenting on PDF files and web pages.
6.) Vidzor
For visual marketing, videos can be a huge part of what makes consumers intrigued about your brand and business. In fact, consumers are 64% more likely to purchase a product after viewing an online video, according to one study.
With this in mind, Vidzor is an accessible alternative to expensive video creation sites and apps. The site offers an expansive free program to help you create interactive videos, without a need for coding skills. When using Vizdor, users can share and upload videos to multiple social media platforms and customize the size to mobile viewing standards.
Though there are paid plans with Vizdor, the free starter version of this program has ample tools to help you generate enticing videos.
7.) The Stocks
If you’re looking for free new visuals and stock photos, The Stocks is a compilation of various royalty free photo sites in one place.
Because the photos are royalty free, you can use each find for both commercial and editorial purposes. Beyond photos, The Stocks has a variety of icons, fonts, audio clips, and videos to choose from for social media marketing purposes.
Finding What Works for You
Visual tools can help your brand stand out on social media platforms and increase awareness of your business. Whether you need help finding new fonts or simple ways to create eye catching infographics, the tools listed above are free ways to accomplish new marketing skills. Need some more inspiration? We’ve highlighted some other video and photo tools here and here.
Of course, one of the easiest ways to step up your media marketing game? Ask the pros for help! That’s where Geek Chicago comes in! From content creation to original images to paid social advertising, we have the expertise it takes to take your social presence to the next level. Drop us a line today to get the conversation started!