Images can drive up to double the engagement of social media posts. That’s why you should include images (photos or graphics) in your social media content! If you are not used to Photoshop or don’t want to hire a graphic designer, you have to look for quick-and-easy-to-use tools that will help you to create social media graphics. Here is a list of my favorite tools I use very often (beside Photoshop). All of them are free or have a free plan: [click to tweet]

Table of Contents

#1 Canva

Canva is my favorite design tool to create images for social media and more. It’s perfect for everybody who has no experience with but who wants to create great design the very easy way. The Canva tools will help you to create amazing designs.

Choose from a big list of presets with the perfect image sizes for social media, documents, eBooks, presentations, marketing materials, postcards, invitations, posters, ads, infographics and more. Change backgrounds, colours, fonts, icons, shapes, illustrations, grids and frames just by drag-and-dop. Compose and enhance your images for greater visual impact. It’s so easy – and free (!) [click to tweet]

Choose from a list of perfect sized presets for all purposes or create your own custom dimensions:
Change elements easily:

Create a cover for your next eBook…

…or a collage for your Twitter post:

Related: Canva released the Photo Editor as a stand-allone (click to read)

#2 Pixlr

Pixlr is a wonderful and easy to use photo editing tool that gives you two main options to “tune” your images: You can use Pixlr Editor to have the opportunity to work with layers, replace color, transform objects, and more. It comes with a customizable user interface that may remind you to Photoshop. And you can use Pixlr Express to apply a quick fix or add a personal touch with creative effects, overlays and borders to your images or collages. There is a third option called “Pixlr O-Matic” that is more a fun photo editing tool to add retro effects and transform photos into cool vintage images. [click to tweet]

Let’s have a look at Pixlr Express:
You can browse images from your library, open an image from any URL (!), or get it from your webcam. And you can choose to create a collage.

Just one example how you can use Pixlr: Choose a collage and some images, change proportions, spacing, roundness… Then download or send.

#3 Pablo (by Buffer)

Pablo is a pretty simple way to create beautiful images that fit every social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest perfectly. You can create the visuals, share them across all platforms and then analyze them with Buffer’s analytics to know how well they’re performing.

Open your Buffer account and click at “create images with pablo” (top right under “settings” or go to https://buffer.com/pablo to sign in there and you’ll get here:

->

Choose one of the free images that are provided by Pablo or upload your own photo, select a quote (or write your own), change fonts, effects (contrast, blur, black & white), find the perfect image size for Pinterest (tall), Instagram (square), Facebook or Twitter (wide) and finally add the image to your buffer queue, send immediately or download it. It’s that easy. [click to tweet]

Video: This is Pablo

#4 Tagxedo

Tagxedo is a “word cloud” and I’m sure you have seen word clouds like this already (ok, this one is not a “cloud” but a star, but it shows what I mean):

Tagxedo turns words – speeches, news articles, blog posts, slogans, quotes – into visually stunning word clouds. Individually sized appropriately to highlight the frequencies of occurrence within the body of text. [click to tweet]

#5 Infogr.am

Infogr.am is a free data visualization cloud app that helps you to visualize data through infographics or graphs. It offers a variety of ways to visualize your data with over 30 charts and hundreds of maps, bar graphs and pictoral tables to make your data look its best. Infogr.am can automatically translates your spreadsheets into charts and images. The infographics and charts are quick to use, fast to share, and easy on the eye:

Log in, create a project, enter your data, finish with your final touch. Embed your charts & graphs responsively, or share directly from Infogr.am. Have a look at the video below to learn how to do it. [click to tweet]

Video: How to get startet:

Here is an example how your infographic could look like:

There are – of course – a lot of other tools you can use to create images and graphis for social media. But if you don’t use those I’ve mentiones yet, just give them a try! [click to tweet]