Let’s find out how to improve your Pinterest strategy just by using free tools to create better images. Pinterest is all about visual impact. If the text content you pin is not pair together with some jaw-dropping, eye-catching, incredible, “I must click on that!” images, then even the most interesting content goes unnoticed and the furry kittens are the ones being shared. There are several ways to ensure that the images and graphics you put on your website engage your visitors and increase your Pinterest influence by sharing your content.
You can hire freelancers to create images and graphics for you. This approach can get expensive really fast, and time-consuming. You have to talk back-and-forth with your graphic designer multiple times before a single image is good enough to be shared or display on your website. Then of course, you may not approve of the final product. Your designer has to go back to the drawing board, and the process starts all over.
You can also handle the task yourself.
You can spend endless hours surfing the web for imagery that is copyright-free. Most entrepreneurs, business owners and bloggers don’t have the time available for this graphical task. Since experts recommend you should be pinning 5 to 30 times a day, each and every day, you could literally go without sleep, and use up every minute of the day collecting engaging images for your Pinterest account.
Or, if you’re smart, you can simply use one of the following 5 free tools for creating Pinterest images that are guaranteed to drive engagement, boost your followers and traffic, and get repinned over and over.
1 – Canva (https://www.canva.com/)
Canva is often noted as the premier image creation and design software suite. Canva boasts a large crowd of users (10 million+), and it is easy to sign up through Google, Facebook, or with your email.
Honestly, once you start using Canva, especially if you have tried other pieces of image creation software, you will see why it is hands down the easiest to use and most adaptable graphic design tool you can find on the web.
Some of the templates they offer do require a small investment, usually $1 (small price to pay for using this wonderful application). However, the majority of the tools and templates on the site are free.
You have literally thousands of options and a super simple and easy to use interface, which will help you create presentations, graphics for social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, visual content for your blog and much more.
2 – PicMonkey (https://www.picmonkey.com/)
This is a great tool for editing any existing photos you have. You can also create images and graphics from scratch. Design templates are provided, and all you have to do to get started is hover over the “Design” button atop the PicMonkey homepage and pick from one of 6 blank canvas size options.
Then you simply follow the on-screen prompts, and in a couple of minutes, voilà, your image is created.
3 – WordSwag (http://wordswag.co/)
This is a really unique image creator. It turns text into photos and graphics. This means you can add marketing messages, tips, short how-to lists and other text-based messages to your graphics. The process is simple and quick. First write out a short piece of text. Make it catchy and memorable. Then choose from several different fonts and formatting choices.
That’s it. That’s all it takes to create text-based graphics, inspirational quotes and memorable messages that people will love to re-pin on Pinterest. You can also combine standard graphics and photographs with text.
Currently, WordSwag works only with Android and iPhone smartphones. If you want to use the images from your Pinterest automation and scheduling tools, then you will need to spend some time to move the image around.
4 – Pinstamatic
This image creator is easy to use and can create a lot of simple, basic images pretty quickly. Pinstamatic has an easy to understand interface, and after only a few minutes on the site for the first time, you will be able to create an image you will be proud to use with your Pinterest or other social content. By the way, Pinstamatic markets itself as “The Pinterest Tool” (as the name implies), and it is hard to argue with that assertion. For ease of use, number of options and integration with Pinterest and other social media networks, this is a great image and graphics creating tool.
In the little time that happened between creating and posting, Pinstamatic is now redirecting to Canva.
5 – Quozio (http://quozio.com/)
Quozio users mention words like “fun” and “easy” when referring to this text-based image creator. Go to Quozio.com and enter your text. Then press “Go”. It is that simple to create a text-based image, and if you don’t like the result, you can browse other templates.
Conclusion
If you want your content to be shared and become viral you must put some time on creating an engaging image. There is no reason to start big, buying specialized applications to create graphics and images for social content, in the beginning you can start with these free tools that while limited, offer enough of what you need during the first phases of your learning process. Once you are ready to move, you will find excellent graphic tools that do more, are faster and have more features that will help your social presence.
