Digital content creation tools continue to emerge, but many still exist just to test their viability. Creating digital content isn’t always easy. Often, it is time consuming and labor intensive and I really don’t have time for that! Luckily, there are tools out there making the process much more straightforward and efficient.
In this post, we look at a number of these tools, including examples of their use. We also touch on what types of tools exist and where you can find them!
Snappa
Not everyone has the luxury of hiring a graphic designer. And often, even if they do have one or two dedicated staff members, the constant necessity for fresh content as an inbound tactic day in and day out can still create barriers to production.
Thankfully, tools like Snappa.io allow regular old marketers like you and me to create high-quality visual content without having to rely on design.
With a bevy of pre-designed templates in a variety of formats, start cranking out fresh content for your blog, social media, newsletter, paid media initiatives, and more. All your in-house design team has to do is make sure that everything matches brand guidelines.
Wideo
Not a spelling error, Wideo has been simplifying video animation since 2013. As an incredibly effective marketing tactic, many businesses have pined over having the ability to produce video content on a regular basis.
With ready made templates and its easy drag and drop interface, upload images and original creative to turn weeks or months of dedicated resources into a wheelhouse of daily marketing, promo, and explainer videos.
This video, which we used Wideo to create, has received upwards of 27K views on YouTube.
Venngage
Far from dead, the almighty infographic lives on to help content marketers — new and old — turn complex stories into aesthetically beautiful and comprehensible experiences.
With a sea of templates based on a variety of different layouts and constantly updated categories to suit your specific needs (think statistical, geographic, timeline, and charts), Venngage takes the cake in this department, leaving your graphic designer with more time free of grey hair.
Meme Generator
Meme Generator stays.
When we created our original list of awesome digital content creation tools back in 2014, Meme Generator was poised for greatness, but little did we know it would remain a reigning champ.
It remains one ofthe simplest and most popular tools a marketer could employ. It is safe to say that sometimes the fewer frills, the better.
Word to the wise, though, the meme game has stepped up since we last wrote of it — so be prepared to do your research and hit the Reddit forums to ensure memes are properly vetted and up to snuff.
Otherwise, you might get eaten by the internet sharks!
Gamefroot
Years ago, gamification was at the peak of inflated expectations on what Gartner would consider it’s 7 Step Hype Cycle. Nearly impossible to implement unless serious developer work went into creating an experience, today, companies like Gamefroot allow common laymen to develop, test, and publish games.
A handful of templates make it easy to test the waters. A marketplace of free assets will have your audiences engaged, having fun, and even educated about important information.
NoNotes.com
Used for recording, transcribing, and video captioning, NoNotes.com is a triple threat in among audiences thirsty for podcast, interviews, and video content.
The only problem is, most marketers don’t have the equipment to properly conduct a podcast fast enough… or hands to jot down notes during comprehensive interviews… or the time to transcribe all of the above for the purpose of providing transcripts or even captioning videos.
NoNotes.com is free to try and cheap to add to your fulltime toolkit, allowing you to do all of the above with ease.
Checklist
Checklist posts continue to perform really well across industries. They not only offer utility, they also force us to think about things we may not have previously considered.
Harder to translate into a blog post without the help of the design team and developers,
Checklist aims to solve the problem that many single content creators face — creating a blog post without the help of a design team or developers.
Create a checklist for any occasion, upload images, add a description, tag it, and then embed it right on your site or within a post. Forget about numbered bullet points. We’re not cavemen.
Designspiration
So, you’ve been left to your own devices but you don’t exactly consider yourself the most aesthetically inclined.
That’s okay, Designspiration has you colored, I mean, covered…
Select their handy paintbrush, select up to five colors, and get ready for a host of visual ideas and concepts to help bolster your creativity. Okay, so they’ve got you colored.
Canva
Canva is perhaps the most well-known content creation tool among digital marketers, content creators, and bloggers alike.
It offers plenty of content templates for various social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. If you’re looking to diversify your blog content, it even offers blog cover templates for you to use.
What’s more, it allows users to create slideshows, PowerPoint presentations, videos, posters, and cards for all sorts of occasions. Alternatively, you can customize your dimensions if necessary.
One reason why marketers love Canva is because of its intuitive interface, which leads to an amazing user experience even for first-time users.
Most importantly, Canva offers free stock photos targeting varied industries, from digital signage and healthcare to logistics and manufacturers. Simply type in the search term and grids of related images will show up.
Digital marketers can easily create well-designed images or videos with the help of Canva.
👉🏼 Check out our list of Canva alternatives.
Pablo
Pablo is a content design tool by Buffer, a social media scheduling platform. That being said, Pablo is a great tool for creating attractive social media images.
It offers 25 different fonts and over 600 beautiful stock images to choose from while allowing for plenty of customization.
One of the greatest features of Pablo is its minimalistic design principle.
Users can simply follow an easy workflow and share the content directly on social media platforms or schedule it on Buffer once they finish the design.
Also, unlike other content creation tools that sometimes require users to log in, Pablo allows you to create an on-screen project directly.
PiktoChart
If you’re looking to create eye-catching, high-quality infographics or presentations, give PiktoChart a try. PiktoChart is a web-based content creation tool that doesn’t require users to have extensive design experience.
Like most content creation tools, PiktoChart also offers more than 600 themed templates for users to choose from.
As digital marketing requires some data analysis work, PiktoChart can conveniently help convert your numeric data into visual charts that provide a more engaging story of your marketing efforts.
According to Google’s Search report in 2015, there’s already been an 800% growth in infographic searches. And the numbers are continuing to grow. Infographics will undoubtedly become another way for people to consume information in our fast-paced society.
Adobe Spark
Adobe Spark, designed by Adobe Systems, is an all-in-one graphic design suite that allows digital marketers to design social posts, web pages, and videos.
Vectr
If you’re looking to design logos or icons for your business or clients, Vectr could be the tool you’re looking for.
It’s a web and desktop cross-platform tool that helps marketers create zero-frustration and amazing designs for all social media platforms.
Most importantly, Vectr allows its users to save photos in SVG format (Scalable Vector Graphics), indicating that resolution won’t change when you zoom in or out of the design.
And since it’s a professional SVG creating tool, many users also use it when making web mockups.
BeFunky
BeFunky is another easy-to-use content creation tool praised by many digital marketers.
It offers features such as batch photo editing, collage creation, background removal, and more. It also offers templates for various purposes such as events, blogs, and social media marketing.
If you’d like to double-check for minor details on your image, BeFunky provides a scroll bar that you can drag and adjust the size of your design for more meticulous examination before publishing it officially.
It also lets you edit screenshots directly while using the tool.
BeFunky also offers a Chrome extension, allowing you to see a list of dropdown images on the upper left toolbar.
Once you click on the extension icon, it takes you straight to BeFunky photo editor.
In terms of pricing, it’s also very affordable if you’re running your own business and striving for visually attractive images for your content marketing.
Conclusion
Digital content is the backbone of social media today, which has necessitated a host of new tools for creating content online. Creators now use online videos, images, status updates, blogs, feeds and many other types of content to drive engagement on their digital channels. In this article I’ve outlined what each type of tool is, as well as listed popular examples and a summary of their key features. In future posts I’ll focus more on specific features that may be useful to you in your efforts to create better digital content.