How to "Cheat" at Visual Content
Visual Content Tips & Resources
for Companies on a Budget
(Without the major quality loss.)By "Cheat" I mean "do it better/cheaper/faster"
Ha. Not Exactly.
You'll have to do some work to create great visuals.
But there are a few ways to make it easier, cheaper or faster to make your point with visuals.
Wait. Can You Really Cheat at Visual Content?
Who's down with OPP?
So much for rap music not being inspirational...I "repurposed" a hip-hop title for this slide
O Is for Other. P is for people
The last P? Well, as Treach would say, that's not that simple.. The last P is for picture or photo of course.
But you can't Always use other people's property.
So look for images that have a Creative Commons License.
O.P.P
You could even set out to take pictures for your post if you plan in advance.
Don't forget pictures you've uploaded.
O.P.P. Resources
Creative Commons Licenses spell out what permissions you have to use someone else's image.
PhotodropperWP PluginCreative common searches. This does something similar from within your WordPress blog, and saves the image
locally. You can go straight to the source too.
Or use Google Images with search tools on.
Foter This tool searches Flickr for images, and gives you cut and paste code to place them on your site that links to the original.
I tried to outsource my homework in grade school. Can you believe I almost got kicked out for this valuable life skill?
If your time is worth $100 an hour, hire people to do your $25 an hour work. Win/win.
How much is your time worth?
Let someone else do it faster, and better.
You don't have to do it all. Concentrate on what you do best, and let someone
on Fiverr or Odesk do the rest.
Outsource
"Thought bubbles."Hold onto this thought for a second
Step one
Quote from your content..
Step two
Type that quote on an image
Try a meme generator when related news is
trending.
You can use Picmonkey to add words to existing
images"Quote."
I'm so Flawless my ideas have ideas.
Actually that idea is why I picked this template. Was it worth it or nah?
Some tools make it as easy as editing a PowerPoint template.
A Visual Skeleton for your idea may already exist.
Powtoon, Google Drive,
Microsoft Templates & Canva are all great resources for visual content prepped for you in editable templates.
Borrow someone else's taste if like me, creating a visual isn't your jam. Thought bubbles are one of the easiest visual templates from Canva, by the way.
Templates
It'll give you families of colors that go together, often with hexadecimal codes.
Palettes Help
I'm one of the rarer types who conceptualizes in words. It's harder for me to visualize how things should look but easy to decide what they should say.
If you share this issue, look in formatting menus in documents for pre-set color palettes. You can also find color families by searching "color picker" in Google.
Colors. Colors. Colors. Colors
It's amazing how much you can jazz up a blog post, document or photo by adding or even removing color.
Try adding a light colored background, changing the color of header titles, or using a colored border in a document. You can also use colors to emphasize a point or as a cue to group concepts.
Try Googling "color palette generator"
Present Data Visually
So many concepts are easier to grasp visually. Try Infographic Tools
Even if you don't want to create a full blown infographic,there are many tools you can use to share data, numbers or stats about a topic.
Here are a few of my favorite data visualization tools.
Some are completely free.http://list.ly/list/2Of-infographic-resources
Think Charts
You can use pie charts, graphs, diagrams or even shapes
You can't please everyone in terms of detail, so do as much or as little as makes sense.People find watching you do it useful
Video your screenShy? Don't feel like prepping for the camera? Capture your screen with SnagIt, or online screen recording tools.
Sketch & shareIf you're good at conveying concepts by drawing, consider capturing your Mind Maps or Whiteboard renderings.
Video yourself
Got a camera that shoots in HD? Go for it.
Remember sound quality counts
too.
Can you show instead
of tell?
How-to information is still some of the most
popular online.
"Show Me."
Add your insight, story, experience - don't just tell them what someone else said.
Curation needs context for best results.
List.ly Lists gone both visual and social - curate with user input if you wish.
Storify Curate multiple sources of a story, in various formats, into one collection.
Thinglink Ever want to annotate a picture? Try it.
More ToolsHere's an article I wrote about this with more tools & details, with links.
5 essential (and free!) content curation tools
Curate.
People LOVE People.
Get those people some
people
People like looking at other people's facesTypically happy, smiling faces, but interesting or funny can work too
No one has ever said "wow that stock photo rocks"
Share real people's faces in real situations whenever you can.
Introduce them to your staff Tell employee stories - or better yet, let them share
Meet Your Customers Let them meet each other too. Enable them to share ideas, photos, videos.
Not just them using your product either.
Don't forget video
Start with the shirt and sweet. Attention spans are at at all time--- SQUIRREL!
Not every joke I made was a good one.
But they made ME laugh. Which made this fun. So thanks for that.
Or marketing for that matter. It might just be fun to say hi.
Your story doesn't have to be about monkeys.
Questions? Comments?
Really interesting story about a monkey?
Tinu Abayomi-Paul
[email protected] 702.508.8468 (cell #)
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