How to Get Started with Canva
We said it before and we'll continue to preach it, Canva is an amazing tool for business owners and social media managers! Posters, cards, posts, photos, brochures, logos; you can create so much on this one platform.
Wondering where to get started?
Step One: Decide whether you'd like to go Pro or Not.
Canva Pro is their paid subscription option, where you can get access to their exclusive photos, elements, fonts, content calendars, brand kits and more. You are creating your perfect design, you found the BEST template that matches your content so well, you planned the caption, changed it to your brand colors, added your logo, you download it and you’re ready to upload it to your scheduling app. Just when you go to put it in your calendar, you notice….the Canva watermark. We’ve all been there, trust me. Canva is such a great tool, but it can be a little irritating when you don’t have the Pro subscription to utilize. Here are some questions to ask yourself when deciding:
Do I have the budget for it? If you’re on a tight business budget while you’re getting started, ~$119/year can seem like a lot.
What features are you most interested in? How would you use them?
Do I have to decide now or should I try it without first?
Step Two: Get Organized!
This is either your favorite step or your least favorite step. Either way, taking the time to organize your account is an essential part of the process. If you are a social media manager and you have multiple clients, it can get really overwhelming to have all your designs and content running all over the place. Utilize Canva’s folder feature! What works best for me is to create a folder for each client and add any content I create to the folder. You can even break it down into subfolders if you need to, which can be helpful for organizing campaigns, months, or projects. That way when you need your client to review it, when they need a copy, or if you just need to reference back to it, I know exactly where to look. Just in case your folders get out of hand, always put the name or an abbreviation in the title followed by a description of what it is. So, if I made a post for our @socialsavvycollective Instagram account, I’d put “SSC: Instagram Post” as the title and put it in the "Social Savvy Collective" folder. This is what works best for me, but definitely find a process that works best with how you organize yourself.
Step Three: Enter your brand information
If you have the Canva Pro account, this step can be a bit easier! Canva’s pro account has a “Brand Kit” where you can enter all your branding guidelines. Enter in your or your client’s brand information and save it for future reference. If you don’t have a Canva Pro account, create a brand guideline sheet where you have all your brand characteristics planned out, such as brand colors (with the HEX#’s), fonts, logos, even your persona, and tone if it helps you! This way you can have a quick reference guide to go to when you get to designing.
Step Four: Start Designing!
The fun part! Take some time to play around with designing and get to know the platform. For a full list of all of Canva's features and editing options, check out our Ultimate Guide to Canva blog!
