5 Go-To Apps for Social Media Marketing
By Hallee Nguyen, Design Director
In hopes of decluttering my life, I went straight to the source of my messiest possession this year: my iPhone. Can you relate? I figured if I started off 2019 with a cleanse of my many many many apps, I could save time for essential things... like cuddling with my corgis and lollygagging in Trader Joe’s. I used one guiding philosophy to do so: “out with the unused and in with a clean interface.” After deleting more pointless apps (wait, when did I download Rap Horn?) than I care to admit here, I realized what was left were (no surprise) my go-to design apps.
These five apps offer “freemium” services to help you create the most striking social media graphics on a limited (or no) budget. You may want to download all five or just one that will help you step up your social media visual marketing game. You decide. All five can be downloaded on the iTunes App Store and Google Play Store.
Pantone Studio - I love using this app to explore the Pantone Colors all around me. It’s especially helpful when creating palettes. Call me color-obsessed but I’ve been using this app to document the Pantone shades in the rich Albuquerque sunset - even the not-so brilliant ones!
Price range: Free + in-app subscription purchase options
Best for: creating color palettes from your environment
Gif Maker by Denial Polo - *prepare yourself for a shameless plug...* I have a photography series called Tinyscapes ABQ where I create tiny art installations around town and share them on my website, Instagram and Facebook. I’ve found the most successful social media posts have been short GIFs I’ve created to tell a short story of the installation. There are A LOT of GIF apps out there but most of them produce too low-res images for free accounts. This one is the best I’ve found for free if you don’t mind the ads.
Price range: Free
Best for: creating short (5-6 image) GIFs from videos or images
Spark Post - Of all the graphics creation apps, this is by far my favorite! Adobe’s skilled designers put together a great selection of stunning templates complete with typography and animation. They even have a nice range in selection of music for your videos.
Price range: Free
Best for: non-designers can use their beautiful pre-made templates
Mojo - Stories Editor - This is my newest favorite for video stories. I even upgraded to mojo Pro to access more typography and animation functions. I love that you can edit their already-gorgeous templates and the selection of typefaces available. I use this one especially for our more visual storyteller clients like SOMOS ABQ.
Price range: Free + in-app purchases
Best for: videos sized for Instagram stories, Facebook and Twitter
SCRL - Have you wondered how to make a beautiful Instagram collage layout? This app makes it so easy! Of all the apps out there, this is the best one I’ve seen for lining up your images just right for scrolling. This app also offers a pretty good selection of unique templates to choose from.
Price range: Free + in-app purchases
Best for: Instagram layout and collages