Creating social media content can seem like a daunting task - but it doesn’t have to be

This week on Making It Real, I video-interviewed Jenni from Social Wellness Co. and she visually walked us through some of her favourite apps that she uses herself when working with her social media clients and across her content management company. Jenni was the absolute perfect person to dive into this topic on our behalf, as she is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist, turned blogger, turned digital marketer and social media manager. After successfully co-running an online platform called Naughty Nutrition and building a digital footprint in the wellness she decided to bring her knowledge of digital marketing mainstream with a social media and content management company - Social Wellness Co.

If you err more on the side of nutritionist or health coach - but definitely wouldn’t consider yourself a “content creator” (especially in the digital world!) to any capacity, read on because this article is for you. Jenni is open in sharing her own journey, which includes her learnings over the years. “If there’s something that needs to be done (especially in terms of content creation), there’s most likely an app to help streamline the task’ she explains. In fact, there are so many great resources out there to help make creating a beautiful social media presence easy. Hence, despite any insecurities you may have when it comes to design, esthetics, or even just figuring out how to product this sort of content in the first place - rest assured that there are valuable (yet often totally free or incredibly financially accessible) tools at your fingertips to have you content creating like a pro in no time.

First things first and before we jump into our list of apps, it’s important to keep in mind the following key features to creating easy content:

Branding colours & font

It could be as simple as a single wordmark logo with ideally a couple colours and a couple of fonts. This doesn’t need to be a huge make-work project and you can likely do it yourself to save costs on hiring a designer. For example, for my business Kiki Naturals, I made the “logo” simply utilizing one of my two fonts, and I also have a set of 6 pastel colours that are in my “style guide”. A brand style guide is essential to any company seeking cohesive, consistent, and recognizable marketing - for more specific examples check out this post.

Mood and tone of social designs

Create a mood board! This is not only super fun, it’s helpful to visualize key elements of your brand’s personality as well as diagram what your brand would look like if it were a real person (or “thing”). Is your brand light, bright, and “happy”, or is it on the darker - perhaps more faded, cosmic side? These are all questions you should be asking yourself and thinking through before you commit to a visual theme.

What’s trending

Check out “what’s hot” - i.e. what sort of posts (relevant to you) are getting traction in terms of likes, comments, and shares. You can also easily go to the homepage of a free stock photography site (more on this later) to see what sort of images are coming up. In order to be “current” (assuming that’s your strategy), it’s necessary to know what’s out there today, and what seems to be resonating with most people. Another helpful tip is to check out the IGTV homepage and see which videos are trending for inspiration around how to produce and promote this sort of content.

Captivating captions & hooks

Again, looking to see what the “pros” (i.e. those with a large and engaged following/community) is a great place to start. You’ll notice that the way they title their content & posts is incredibly enticing and genuinely makes you want to click through. If you want more guidance on how to write stellar Instagram captions (one of my personal favourite platforms!), this article has some great how-to’s. For a deeper dive into copywriting best practices, tune into the podcast I hosted with Rebecca from the Creative Content Shop here [LINK].

Entertainment Value

Consumers (and that refers to your potential clients!) are savvy. They don’t want to be marketed to. They want to be entertained. A great question to ask yourself is: How can you blend a mix of well produced and authentic content to create a relatable brand? More on this topic here.

Clarity

Business is an ongoing battle between clarity vs. confusion. Regardless of what method of communication you’re engaging in — from an Instagram caption or a long-form blog post — you need to be clear about what you’re trying to say. This same concept holds perfectly true for things like brand name too - if you want traction for your new business, make sure the name of your practice is clear. The last thing you need is to constantly be asked to explain your name.

Without further ado, here are the 5 apps Jenni recommends for creating effortless social media content.

1. Ready Made Templates

Canva & PicMonkey are 2 graphic design/photo editing platforms that make it easy to produce “professional” looking content - from animated social media posts to ebooks and everything in between, you no longer need to start from “scratch”. For a comprehensive analysis of one tool over the other, you can read this post.

2. Free Stock Photos  

Some of Jenni’s favourites include Pexels, Unsplash (both free) & she also mentioned some really awesome affordable ones like the Wellness Stock Shop (WSS). This last one is particularly relevant if you’re pushing out “health” imagery (from recipes to crystals to “self-care” photography) and may very likely be worth investing in.

3. Templated Designs for Purchase

If you’re envisioning a more specific project design and need more than what some of the free apps offer to get you started, you might want to consider setting aside a small budget to buy the exact format you need. Some of Jenni’s top recommendations for this pursuit include envato, Creative Market, and 99 designs. They’re also great platforms for hiring a designer if you’re looking to get your logo made professionally (not necessary, but might be a worthwhile expense later on!).

4. Grammarly

For those of you producing long-form content (namely, blogging!), then taking advantage of a free writing app to make your messages, documents, and posts clear, mistake-free, and effective is definitely suggested! Grammarly is one of the most popular ones these days, and is the personal choice on our team too!

5. Online photo editor

The already handy in-app Instagram filters are a great place to start when it comes to fine-tuning the aesthetics of your pictures. If you want to take things a bit further, Pixlr and Lightroom are great tools for really enhancing the quality and consistency of the imagery you’re sharing across your social media channels.

*BONUS: Meal Garden

How could we forget Meal Garden? Not just a meal planning platform, its a great app for recipe curation and development. Jenni has been using it for year across her various businesses for recipes, and then she takes and edits her own photos for the purposes of sharing on various social channels so that it fits her brand identity.

Ready to give one of these a go for yourself? If you’re a wellness practitioner, there’s no better place to start than on Meal Garden and there’s no commitment or upfront expenses required with our simple free trial - test it out for yourself here.

Great Tools, Getting Started, Going Digital, growing your business, Client Engagement

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