The social media landscape is ever changing but engagement continues to be a top key performance indicator for hoteliers. Hospitality is a highly competitive industry and the market is oversaturated, making it hard to capture highly engaged consumers online. The easiest solution to amping up your social media strategy is posting eye-catching visual content. Consistently doing so is absolutely crucial for any hotelier wanting to boost engagement on their social media.
In fact, according to Inc., social media posts containing images create 650 percent higher engagement than text-only posts. The industry is fast-paced and always moving for hoteliers, but spending a little extra time to produce high-quality visuals is worth the investment to increase engagement on social media. Producing high-quality visual content does not need to take a lot of time and does not require hiring a graphic designer or knowledge of advanced design programs. Creating high-quality content is easy and affordable with these three tools.
Canva
One of the most frequently used and favorited tools by design amateurs for creating high quality visual content is Canva. Canva is a start-to-finish design builder that was developed to be used by anyone. Canva is known for its simple drag-and-drop functionality that users can handle with ease. Canva has a lot of great features; for making graphics, its most notable design features are their project selector, premade design layouts, font pairings, and elements.
Canva’s project selector is valuable for creating social media posts because it provides preset dimensions that are ideal for specific types of posts, such as an Instagram square or Twitter rectangle. They also have a generic “Social Graphic” selection which is the best option when creating a post to be shared on multiple platforms.
Canva’s premade layouts and font pairings are very helpful and convenient for hoteliers that do not feel they have the eye or the time to create an original design. It is so easy that you can select a design from their inventory and add your own images and alter the text to whatever you want it to be. When adding text, Canva provides font pairings that go well together and can be altered to fit your needs. Additionally, you can add fun elements to your work suchs as shapes, frames, lines, etc. to spice up your design. For more tips and tricks on using Canva, read our blog about utilziing this site as a toolto make your images pop.
Fotor
Fotor is known for being an excellent online tool for editing photos and provides more features than other free tools online. Fotor has more advanced photo editing tools than Canva, however it is still easy to use and is not nearly as complicated as a professional photo editing software.
Fotor’s most notable photo editing features are its advanced color tools, large selection of filters, clone stamp tool, and beauty tool. Fotor is really valuable for taking an image of good quality and tweaking it to make it exceptional. In addition to its photo editing features, Fotor has the design capabilities similar to Canva such as project selection, text, added elements, and a collage builder.
Over
Over is a mobile application for creating visual content on the go. This is the best tool for hoteliers that do not have time to sit down at a computer but want to make quick graphics for social media about events or celebrations that are constantly happening on property. Over does not necessarily have as many features in comparison to Canva or Fotor, but as a mobile tool it is fantastic for making photo edits and adding text onto photos. Over also provides preset dimensions based on project type and has a variety of fonts. Over is best optimized as a Pro user, which gives full access to all the font selections as well as unlimited access to all features. Hands down the best feature of Over is that it has Unsplash stock photo search integrated into the application that allows Pro users to find a stock photo and use to create a design all within the app.
Final Thoughts
These three tools will help you produce stunning visual content that can be used to increase engagement across social media. Inc. notes that it only takes 50 milliseconds for people to form a first impression. Is your current social media strategy capturing users’ attention in that short amount of time? In addition to increasing engagement on social media, Inc. states that posting visual content also helps increase message association and brand awareness. Using these tools will help you create high quality visual content that can be implemented into your social media strategy.
However, it is important to remember a few tips when it comes to creating attention-grabbing and engaging visual content. Always use large, high resolution photos. Using small and grainy pictures only lead to stretched out and unappealing images once resized. Also, always take advantage of user-generated content (which can easily be found by using Picodash). Lastly, limit your use of stock photos. Originality is key when it comes to engaging visual content, so only use when necessary.
For more tips and tricks on how to improve your social media strategy, check out more articles on our blog or contact us.
