Increase Productivity with Canva (and Have Some Fun!)

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Transcript

Hi it’s Michele with “Bergh Consulting”.  And I wanted to do a quick video for you today, about “Canva”. A lot of you are probably using this tool because it is really widely used, and you may or may not have the paid for version. I have a pay-for version and I know that a couple of the differences that make it really worthwhile for me to spend that extra $13 or so a month, is the option you have more images, more photos available to me for my designs. I think that they’re better quality in the pro version. You also have access to the free ones, but you do have a lot that seems to be upgraded and then also this “Brand Kit”.

So in the Brand Kit, you’re able to pull in custom fonts, you can set up your brand identity so your fonts, sizing, colors and be able to really easily access that for any designs that you make and I think those two things just really for $30 a month I mean, that’s you know, minutes of time for most of us and it’s just well worth it to be able to do some of that automated and have some of that built-in in the backend for you.

But what I really wanted to talk about today is this section called “Apps”. If you’re anything like me, a lot of times when you’re doing graphics or things like that, you’re kind of in a hurry. I’m usually rushed, and I want to get in here and get it done and get back to the task at hand. And that’s kind of bad. I mean it’s really great for productivity. Sometimes I feel like I miss things that are mind blowing because I’m in a rush. So I have in the past, a couple times kind of clicked on this “App” section. That’s cool but I don’t have time right now. Go and do my graphic and then get back to my work and I completely forget about it in the moment.

But all of that changed. I honestly don’t remember what I saw that changed it to begin with. But I decided to do a little more digging and I’m really glad that I did. So I wanted to show you really quickly the first thing that I did. If you’re in “Bitmoji” at all, I have played with that a little bit but not ever used it a lot although I like it. I think it’s kind of fun and it adds a little character to things that you’re doing but I just didn’t really spend the time to learn a lot about it. So, I already had a Bitmoji account and if you don’t, there are directions when you go to make this connection that walk you through that process or tell you where to go to create that account. And that probably took me the creation, you know, in a few minutes maybe five minutes and then to customize my Bitmoji took maybe five or ten minutes. You know, depends on how quickly you kind of scroll through and pick hair the closest to yours and so on and so forth.

So, I linked, I was able to link this my Bitmoji account with Canva. So yesterday in a matter of minutes once that was completed, I was able to create something kind of fun like this. I just wanted something to kind of share on Facebook, connect with people and see how things are going. A lot of us are working from home, for me, I always work from home. So, it’s not really different but I know that there’s a lot of people out there that are experiencing something right now, that is different from their normal routine. They’re not having that interaction with people that they normally would work with. So, I thought this would be just kind of a fun little conversation starter.

So, I made this in just a couple of minutes. Canva also has a way, and some of these things, I don’t know if they’re because I have a pro account or if they would be available regardless, but I do have a pro account. I was able to publish it straight to Facebook. I wanted to publish it to my personal page, and it didn’t have that option. I had to post it to my business page. But you still have the option to download it and post it anywhere you want. But I loved that anything that I want to post to my business page, I think groups might have been in there as well but don’t quote me on that one. I could do it just automatically right from in here. I didn’t have to download it, if that’s where I wanted to send it. So give a few different, different yeah, Facebook groups. So you have a few different options if you want to just be able to post it directly. Also love that you can post directly to “Pinterest”, that there’s a lot of value in that one. You know, so lots of options. But I was able to do that kind of fun little thing here, with just by connecting the Bitmoji app to my Canva account.

And as you can see, I’m just going to touch on a few that I think might be relevant for some of you. You can create forms with “Typeform” and put them right in. Something you’re doing in Canva, you can “Embed” videos or other online media that you find. You can use “Emojis”. If you have images in “Dropbox”, also “Google Drive” is on here. You can link your accounts and pull right from those storage spaces to add things to your camera designs. “YouTube” videos you can add, you can do a “QR code”, “Pixabay” and “Pexels” are both basically free online image resources, that a lot of people use. So you can link those up and be able to access some of those. You can add a “Google Maps” you can add gifs from the “Giphy” website to your camera designs. You can add something from “Facebook”. So, you have a ton of options with these apps and once you do that connection, then it’s just available to you.

This here is the section that talks about you know, there’s some other link-up items here and also sharing like the “Pinterest”. The other thing I wanted to touch on is if you are selling products, or products would include like eBooks or a regular book and you need mock-ups, you can link “Smartmockups” right to your Canva account as well. I haven’t done that one yet. But I plan to play with it a little bit. I’ve been using some built-in tools in Canva to make those. But I’m considering linking these up. I am going to link these up and then I’m going to test it because they have some you know, these are all mock-ups that you would use for basically like a product or sales page. And there are several in here that are free. But I think you do get some better quality ones, if you pay.

And for me, I want to start highlighting more of the websites that I design. So, I would be looking for ones like this, that I can put in website design and easily make a graphic image using and having more flexibility. So, that might be appealing to some of you. Like I said, eBooks, free downloads, showcasing a product those are all things that you can use, and you can just connect them and pull in what you’ve done into camera directly. So, I just love all of these apps and I think that they’re worth considering. I would probably not go down though and link up a bunch of stuff. Because I think sometimes that can cause some issues long term. But I would definitely, if you have an idea coming to your mind right away. Maybe you have a YouTube account, and you want to start embedding videos into your designs here, link that one and play with that one. Because that’s an easy one that makes sense and you’ve already got inspiration flowing of ideas.

So I would get started that way and focus on the ones that you are instantly thinking, “Oh! I could do this” and that you’re feeling excited about. Because that’s just a much better way to learn and explore. So, I hope that this has been helpful for you. Again, if you don’t have Canva, I highly recommend it. If you do have it, but you don’t have the pro account, I highly recommend the pro account or the time savings alone in being able to create this “Brand Kit”, that where you’re always using consistent, fonts, sizes, colors etc. You can upload your logo in there as well. So, definitely, definitely recommend the paid for version and then explore and play these apps. Like you see, there’s just a ton to choose from. These are not apps. I just want to see that quick, they’re just new built-in, their built-in. So, you see them right in the design. You don’t have to do anything with them. But find one that you get excited about and give it a try. And if you get a chance, let me know how I go or let me know which ones out of here that are already kind of peeking your interest and getting you excited about giving it a try.

I love to hear and if you have questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. Thanks for watching!