Ever wonder how social media images look so polished and vibrant? Marketers can choose from numerous graphic design tools on the market to bring their brand to life on social media. But with so many tools out there how do you know which is right for you? Let’s take a dive into three major platforms that marketers should consider using for designing those images.  

Canva 

Canva has been around since 2012 and was founded in Australia. Its user base has a diverse background from freelancers and entrepreneurs to small business owners.  

Canva’s user-friendly interface is a major benefit for people who do not have a graphic design background. The program also includes a vast educational library chock full of courses and videos ranging from “Canva for beginners” to short video tutorials. This platform even hosts different events such as “Print: Making your Brand Pop in Every Situation” to “Branding Your Business.”  

Canva does offer a free version, however, it does not offer all the same features available to users with paid accounts. For busy business owners who need to design social media images on the go, one potential drawback to consider is that the mobile version has significantly fewer features compared to the desktop version. 

Adobe Spark 

Adobe Spark was established back in 2016 and it’s just one of the many design tools offered under Adobe’s Creative Cloud umbrella.  

Made for the average person, such as a business owner or lifestyle blogger without a graphic design background, Adobe Spark is another user-friendly option. As a result, it has little to no learning curve for users looking to experiment with designing social media images. Like Canva, Adobe Spark has a library full of short video tutorials for beginners to explore, however, it’s not as easy to find and navigate as Canva’s. 

While Adobe Spark has both free and paid versions available, one setback that the free version users will encounter is Adobe Spark’s branding on all your work. To remove the watermark, you will need to upgrade to the paid version. Another consideration? If you plan to use Adobe Spark on mobile devices you may be in for a surprise! All Adobe Spark’s capabilities are split into three separate, standalone apps.  

Adobe Photoshop 

Adobe Photoshop is one of the premier, go-to, editing and design tools for photographers, graphic designers, and marketing teams.  

One major advantage of Adobe Photoshop? It offers an enormous array of top-notch graphic design tools and capabilities, even beyond designing images for social media. While even beginners can use Photoshop to crop images and repair flaws within photos, this is just the beginning of Photoshop’s capabilities. With this software, you can easily manipulate and correct photos as well as edit videos and animations 

Adobe Photoshop is geared toward a user with some graphic design experience, so it may take time to get comfortable and understand how the program works. This program has a high learning curve for professional graphic designers so, naturally, it can be a bit overwhelming for newcomers.  

Before you choose any tool to help your social media images shine, you must weigh the pros and cons of each platform. Look at your business goals and objectives and see which tool aligns with those goals. Do you need a platform that is simple to use? Or do you need something more robust that may come with a higher learning curve? Once you answer those important questions then you can proceed to choose which platform best suits you and your business.