If you’re new to content marketing, it can be easy to get overwhelmed. Where do you start? What tools are out there? How do you find the right ones for your business?
The good news is that there are tons of free content creation tools available online. You don’t have to spend a fortune on fancy software or hire an expensive team of writers—you just need to know where to look.
Here are a few of our favorite free content creation tools:
Free Content Creation Tools
To the outside world, creating posts for social media may seem easy. But, marketers and brands know there’s a lot more to social media content creation and editing than meets the eye, particularly in today’s social media landscape.
From choosing the perfect image to representing your point of view, to creating the perfect Twitter hashtag to making a video for TikTok, here are some great content creation tools to help you along the way.
- Canva
11 Social Media Tools Every Content Creator Needs
A social media tools list wouldn’t be complete without Canva. One of the most popular tools for creating social media graphics, Canva allows users to create high-quality images quickly using layouts, templates and design elements.
The free version of the tool is extremely comprehensive, but those who want more can invest €11.99 per month (up to 5 people) or go with pro or enterprise pricing if it’s the best fit for the business. It is free for education and non-profits.
How to Create Beautiful Graphics with Canva:
Search Canva’s amazing library of templates and choose to use them as-is or to customize for your needs. There is a section dedicated to social media graphics for an array of content formats across platforms.
Choose your unique elements to make the graphic your own.
Share your new visual on any social media platform!
- Crello
11 Social Media Tools Every Content Creator Needs
Similar to Canva, Crello is a graphic design tool that makes it easy for certified social media marketers to create stunning graphics without a lot of design knowledge.
Crello’s advantage over Canva is that it offers more than 30,000 free design templates, 180 million photos, 32,000 videos and 15,000 illustrations. You can also design as a team by inviting members (up to 10), animate your designs and choose from a music library. Like Canva, a variety of different image types are offered, including templates specifically for social media. Crello is free for users, with limited usage, and pro plan starts at $9.99 a month.
How to Build Graphics Quickly with Crello:
Use Crello’s ‘Create’ tab to find a free design template or templates that work for your brand.
Simply click on a design template you love, and customize it using the Crello editor.
Save your finished product, and/or share it across your social media sites.
3 Hashtagify.me
11 Social Media Tools Every Content Creator Needs
Hashtagify.me is a free tool (with paid add-on features) that allows you to search for hashtags. Once you’ve searched for a hashtag, you can determine its popularity and how it’s used. The tool is simple to use: in the search box, type in a hashtag you are curious about, and search to find out its performance and related hashtags on Twitter and Instagram. You’ll also see the top influencers for that hashtag, as well as recent tweets using that hashtag and other demographics. Paid users can sign up for alerts on particular hashtags, track influencers and usage patterns, and more.
- Prezi and Flipsnack
11 Social Media Tools Every Content Creator Needs
Prezi allows you to create stand-alone presentations, appear alongside a presentation, and design awesome interactive graphics and charts. Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, presenting and collaborating from home has become hugely important and the platform has capitalized on its technology to make it seamless while looking good!
Check out this Coronavirus handbook for social media managers to get more insight.
Prezi can be integrated with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Webdex and has an ‘Inspiration’ section where you can see what other brands have done to engage their audiences. You can also get reusable designs and templates so you don’t need to start from scratch. An individual subscription starts at $3 a month.
11 Social Media Tools Every Content Creator Needs
If you’re looking to take your PDFs or ebooks to the next level, look no further than Flipsnack (previously known as SlideSnack. This tool has a flip book maker that allows you to create, share and embed online flip page formats.
For your mobile visitors, you can convert PDFs to HTML5 to make a book that’s fully mobile responsive and create mobile friendly content that engages.
- Grammarly
11 Social Media Tools Every Content Creator Needs
Grammarly is an all-in-one spellcheck and grammar tool. It helps users write error-free copy on Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and almost anywhere else on the web.
Grammarly works by using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to scan your text for common and complex grammatical mistakes, including everything from subject-verb agreement to article use and modifier placement. It also goes beyond regular checking to provide users with explanations and helps them improve their writing skills. The plugin is free for individual users, with premium and business plans also available.
- Typeform
11 Social Media Tools Every Content Creator Needs
Asking questions is a great way to prompt engagement on social media. But sometimes asking one question isn’t enough to get the response you want from your audience. That’s where Typeform comes in.
Typeform is a user-friendly quiz, form and survey builder that allows you to ask your audience questions in different formats, including image-based, multiple choice, short answer, yes or no, and more.
Once you have your quiz in place, you can share it across multiple social media networks in the formats that work best for your audience. 10 questions and 10 responses per month are free, and Basic, Plus, and Business versions with additional features are also available.
- Anchor
11 Social Media Tools Every Content Creator Needs
Anchor is one of the most popular platforms for creating, distributing and monetizing your podcast. All for free! It integrates with all key podcasting outlets and free social media platforms for audio. Its easy distribution with Spotify – the great audio disruptor allows you to analyze podcast performance through analytics through engagement insights. We use it at the DMI for distributing our own digital marketing podcast, Ahead of the Game.
With the Anchor app, users can easily create videos and audio recordings that are perfect for sharing on social media.
- CapCut
11 Social Media Tools Every Content Creator Needs
There are many free graphics tools that allow users to easily create beautiful images for social media, but most of them aren’t available (or aren’t very intuitive) on your smartphone.
CapCut (previously known as ViaMaker) is a free all-in-one editing app for iOs and Android developed by the creators of TikTok, ByteDance. What makes it popular is the ease of use and a big music library. Like TikTok, the app has advanced filters along with stickers and fonts along with a range of magical effects.
CapCut recently topped the U.S app store so it must be doing something right. Best of all, CapCut is free to use so get editing and sharing!
- PowToon
11 Social Media Tools Every Content Creator Needs
Video is the most popular medium on social media networks. The problem is, many companies rely on expensive external agencies to create these videos. The finished product can look too contrived, miss the message mark, and really drain the budget.
A tool like PowToon means you don’t have to be a video master to create engaging videos, especially for presentation purposes. The platform allows you to choose from several templates and customize them according to your business. You can simply plug and play your content and share across your social media networks. Free and paid versions are available from $19 to $99 per month.
Interested in learning more about video? Check out this guide to video marketing on social media.
- Animoto
11 Social Media Tools Every Content Creator Needs
Animoto is another great video platform that allows non-experts to create captivating multimedia. Animoto allows you to turn existing video clips and images into video slideshows with little effort. You can either use one of their existing storyboard templates or build a video from scratch depending on how much time you have and your ambition!
Animoto does offer a free version, if you don’t mind having their branding on your videos. Other plans are at €28 or €69 per month based on your business’s needs. Annual subscriptions offer significant discounts.
How to Create Quick Videos with Animoto:
Use one of the many storyboards provided by Animoto to speed up your video creation process. Each comes with a song, a style, and a particular structure.
Replace the existing template content with your own text, video clips, and photos.
After you create your video, you can download it in various formats and levels of quality and upload it directly to your social media platforms. There are many ways to use video in your social media marketing, so make sure you do some research to find out the best route for you.
Knowing how to create a great video is one thing but understanding how to create good marketing videos is another. Consider a social media and marketing course to use video to its full potential!
- Placeit
11 Social Media Tools Every Content Creator Needs
One more video tool in this list is PlaceIt. This image and video tool allows brands to showcase their products and digital designs in realistic web/video environments. It can save hundreds or even thousands of dollars on externally sourced product videos and images.
A one-time purchase on the platform costs a few dollars, or you can choose to pay $14.95 per month, or $89.69 yearly, depending on your brand’s needs.
How to Create Video mock-ups with Placeit:
Search for your desired environment. Tip: include your preferred device (e.g. iPhone or Mac) and background (e.g. office or cafe).
Upload your image or enter a URL to grab a screenshot. Placeit will automatically place your image in your selected environment.
Once you have your product images, you have the tools you need to promote your products on social media via organic or paid posts.
Looking for a social media and marketing course that ups your game?
Whatever social media content you want to create, these 11 tools will prove invaluable. With DMI’s Social Media Marketing course you will learn how to share, tweet and pin your way to success using engaging content that sets your brand above the competition. Plus you’ll learn how to research, plan and strategize along the way!
best content creation tools
If you’re a content creator, you know that there is a lot of content out there. What makes the most effective and engaging content? Here we listed the top 10 content creation tools you’ll want to start using today. This list doesn’t apply to just marketers. Professionals working in sales, training, and proposal teams also create unique and large amounts of content.
In the end, all content creators share one goal: creating relevant and helpful content for the right audience.
These content creation tools will help you to determine what is relevant to your attentive audience, how to best package it, and the easiest way to provide editorial reviews.
Content Creation Tools for Creating Relevant Content
- Google Trends Google Trends
Google Trends helps to keep you in the loop. Google Trends reveals insight into today’s relevant content. Not yesterday’s. Google Trends is ideal for those who frequently create content. This includes those who blog, have a heavy social presence, develop content for specific groups of people, or work in marketing.
The Content Marketing Institute recommends using Google Trends to research keywords, discover content ideas, and monitor your brand.
Simply enter in a topic or explore trending stories and featured insights. Google Trends displays the frequency of search terms in consideration of its total volume across geographic regions. Additionally, Google Trends shows search interest over time. Depending on the flux of query volumes, you may choose one topic over another to discuss in whatever content you create.
- Moz Keyword Explorer Moz
You wouldn’t want to create awesome content and not get noticed. Easily check what keyword to use for blog posts and site pages with Moz’s Keyword Explorer. You can enter terms or phrases into Moz Keyword Explorer. Moz will provide you with keyword suggestions and a SERP analysis reflective of the keyword’s search volume, difficulty, opportunity, and potential.
Once you start exploring, you can export CSV files and save them for later. This includes the top ranking sites containing your keyword or phrase. Moz Keyword Explorer allows for two free searches a day. If you require more searching, you can upgrade to a paid subscription starting at $50 a month.
- Sigstr Sigstr
Sigstr is an email signature banner. Email banners are added and changed from one admin console with changes immediately reflected in employees’ email signatures. Sigstr banners are a great way to intertwine visual content and compelling copy.
You can create unique signatures for departments, teams, executives, and customer service. Swap out Sigstr signatures to engage email recipients with company news, upcoming events, and relevant content.
Top 10 Content Creation Tools to Use Now from Mimeo
Content Creation Tools for Designing Visual Content
- Giphy Giphy
If you blog or even just read a lot of blogs, you know how easy it is to get lost in a sea of words. GIFs are a really easy way to grab the audience’s attention. Sometimes animation shows more than just still images. But where is everyone finding GIFs? Giphy is a free visual content creation tool. You can contextually search for GIFs, or you can create your own.
Have one team member who can answer your chats and emails at lightning speed with an animated GIF suited for the context? In addition to sparring in chat messages, use Giphy in blog posts.
- Canva Canva
Need to develop striking visual content? Don’t have a lot of time? Check out Canva. Canva is an easy-to-use tool to create graphics and documents ready to print or to publish online. Features include photos, photo filters, icons, shapes, and hundreds of fonts. Outbrain listed Canva as an awesome digital content creation tool because of its drag and drop design feature.
New users can sign up for a free Canva account and start designing with ready to use design layouts. Canva comes ready with pre-sized social media templates in addition to templates for flyers, posters, and email headers.
Mimeo uses Canva for our Instagram account (@_mimeo). Canva’s capability to share designs and templates makes it easy for our content creators to collaborate together.
- Pixlr Pixlr
Pixlr delivers the capabilities of PhotoShop for free. There’s tons of value in the free version. For those requiring more editing capabilities, Pixlr Pro comes with more design tools and features at a price of $14.99 a year.
Pixlr comes in handy when creating graphics for presentations and social media. Use Pixlr to resize images, apply quick fixes, and remove the image background.
Content Creation Tools for Editorial Use
- Grammarly Grammarly
Write, write, write… Sound like an average workday? But as any content creator knows, editing is just as important as the writing process. This content creation tool also made HubSpot’s Ultimate List of Free Content Creation Tools & Resources. Grammarly is an automated proofreading platform. It corrects over 250 types of spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.
Copy and paste content directly into a Grammarly document to check for grammar and spelling mistakes. It helps to check sections of content as you write. For example, upload answers to an RFP before handing it over to the review team. Or check sections of training courses before handing them over to be designed.
- Hemingway Editor Hemingway Editor
Affect the editorial skills of Ernest Hemingway with this content creation tool. The Hemingway Editor is a proofreading tool for readers. It details the revisions you can’t see in Grammarly without upgrading to Grammarly Pro. Copy your content into Hemingway Editor and it will highlight style suggestions.
Sentences highlighted in yellow or red will flag where writing is too dense. One of its strongest features is its capability to highlight uses of passive voice. Avoid using passive voice in all content — including training materials, marketing collateral, and sales literature. Active voice is critical in creating compelling copy and in winning proposals.
- Microsoft’s Snipping Tool Microsoft Snipping Tool
This content creation tool is one of the most simple but is also maximizes the amount of time spent editing. Microsoft’s Snipping Tool is simple and straightforward: capture screenshots. But, it’s more than that. You can cross out content, highlight sections, insert arrows, and add your own suggestions in type.
Once you’ve created a snip, you can save or copy and paste into emails and chat windows. The Snipping Tool comes in handy when providing feedback for web pages and layout design in addition to longer content like business proposals or training materials.
- Trello Trello
Content creators have a lot of content. Trello makes it easy to share, collaborate, set reviews and approvals, and create an editorial calendar for whole teams. Devote one project or one team to a virtual Trello board. Use Trello to organize entire projects and filter for specific team members to check the status of project updates.
Trello saves a lot of time and a lot of emails. Instead of sending status updates, simply move a project’s Trello card to the appropriate user or status.
Free Accountflipping (6)
Mimeo was created to give people back time. Users can upload content to their digital library and organize files by folders. Want a hardcopy printed? Build, proof, and ship in a few minutes. Content can even be shared with varying levels of permissions to other Mimeo users. No order minimums, no commitments, 24/7 support!
Users can place a print order for delivery to hundreds of locations with a single click. Instead of hundreds of emails, easily view and map the status of each shipment. What would have once been a massive undertaking is now organized in one screen.
Conclusion
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