Designing an amazing cover/header for your social media brand (or personal) page can be a bit more involved than it appears. Typically, you’d need to start by researching the correct size and confirming that it’s correct. That usually involves reading a bunch of long articles before even starting to design. It turns out there’s also a lot misinformation when it comes to the correct social media image sizes.

Once you do figure out the proper size, you might realize that your audience can be viewing the cover/header on any wide range of devices such as a desktop computer, a mobile device, a tablet or even a TV. … Yikes … This usually leads to hunting for a template that has all the guides built-in. These are typically only available for software like Photoshop and can be very clunky to use. They include complicated layer groups and don’t even always ensure your image is visible on all devices.

That all changes today with new “Safe Areas” in Stencil! Now you can turn on/off overlays on the canvas that show you exactly where it’s safe to put graphics in your header/cover images, ensuring they won’t be cut off by profile photos or other changes between desktop/mobile/tablet/etc. This is now available for all Stencil plans (even free accounts, yay!) and is automatically enabled for the following cover/header images:

• Facebook Cover
• Twitter Header
• LinkedIn Company Cover
• LinkedIn Personal Cover
• YouTube Channel Art

Just select one of those from the canvas resizer and the “Safe Area” guides will appear. If the overlays ever get in your way, you can always turn the “Safe Area” on or off, using the social media icon to the right of the canvas:

We hope you find this new feature extremely useful and this will make creating header/cover photos a total breeze. Here’s a quick video showing the creation of a Facebook Cover image from start to finish, in less than a couple of minutes:

Let us know in the comments if this was helpful and saved you a ton of time!

The post Create Perfect Social Covers/Headers With New Safe Areas appeared first on Stencil.

Social Media Images That Inspire An Audience Can Be Surprising

When you look at a tweet image you may see it’s been retweeted or commented, however, just by looking at it plainly you’d never guess what’s going on the backend in analytics. Take a look below:

You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.

No big deal, right? It’s a nice quote and the photo is awesome. Plus the #inspiration is generic and can capture people who look for inspiration on a daily basis.

Our number of engagement on this tweet was 54, now that’s quite different from the 3 retweets and comments listed as face-value on the tweet. What’s that mean? That means that it’s a combination of retweets, likes, comments, user profile clicks, URL clicks, and media views (people clicking on the image and checking it out).

Check out the engagement number. You can only find this number in analytics.

A simple “Hello September” tweet had more engagement than expected as well. With 2 retweets and 6 likes, we had a whole lot more hits on engagement than that, which means more people clicked on our image and/or visited our profile.

What I’m trying to say is creating social media images doesn’t have to be something above and beyond creative that belongs in the art museum for people to feel inspired. People want to feel connected. Create a detailed message in the caption or tweet to add substance to the quote image. What does the image or quote remind you of? When followers see the emotional side of a brand they’re reminded that it’s not just a logo they’re chatting with.

Here are some other social media images that did well:

Does that mean these images would work for you? Not necessarily, because it all depends on your audience.

Let’s take a look at some other social media images around Twitter.

Pretty good stuff, eh? Inspiring, motivating, and proper hashtag usage.

Remember quotes and phrases used don’t have to be from anyone prominent to make a point. They can be from you! What has to happen is the emotional connection. However, if you need a quote then pull one from the Stencil library to get the image going. When creating an image you’ll find your creation process. Many times it just takes a quote to get my creative juices flowing and looking for the perfect photo as the background becomes quite easy.

The key point here is to don’t look at a tweet at face-value. Dig in and check into your analytics to see how your social media images are performing. That’s when you’ll know if they’re providing value to your audience. Remember there were only 3 retweets on the first image shown above but lots of clicks going on in the back-end checking out the profile. Looks can be deceiving!

Testing Social Media Images

How can you test your social media images?

On other social media platforms and if you’re tweeting them, tweet them multiple times. If the image didn’t do well in one month, try it again next month. Changing the image sizes into images for each platform is simply a click away with Stencil.

The images above were all on Twitter, so we’ve used some images for Instagram and we’ve gathered some interesting results there too.

These images were both shared on Twitter and Instagram, however, they did better with engagement on Instagram.

Every time you share images on a social media platform take advantage of the insights or analytics that the platform gives you or use another tool. A few favorite tools of ours are listed below for Instagram:

Simply Measured

Socialbakers

Squarelovin

Speaking of Instagram… it’s all about the hashtags that are used as well. Some of the images that you’ve used may not have the same hashtags, so you’ll have another group of individuals to hone in on in terms of audience.

Switch up hashtags and find some new ones with Hashtagify or Tailwind.

Not all platforms are treated equally so you may not want to use the same images. We’ve only used some images for testing on Twitter and Instagram. It doesn’t hurt to test!

Another consideration on testing is timing. If you tried tweeting an image in the morning and it didn’t work well, then try it again later in the month in the afternoon.

Is Your Social Media Image Inspiring?

Is it all about numbers? No.

When you see engagement numbers rise, most likely you’ll see more comments on the posts. Comments are crucial when building your community and that’s when you know your social media image is inspiring. When you have that type of engagement to get to know your audience and ask questions that’s what social media is all about. If they’re commenting, then the image must have resonated with them. Pay attention to the images you create.

What are your thoughts?

What types of social media images inspire you?

The post Social Media Images That Inspire Your Audience (An Analytical View) appeared first on Stencil.

The 80/20 Rule

Whether you’re on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest, the 80/20 rule should be top of mind when deciding what kind of content to post. It’s simple: 80% of your content should be entertaining, engaging and educational, and only 20% should be promotional. People are on social media to catch up with friends, check out entertaining content and to find useful information, they’ll simply ignore your brand’s social media posts if they’re only full of listings.

“Our success on social media has come from providing helpful content. It’s not about self-promotion–it’s about being a useful resource for our clients online as well as in-person. On social media, we provide articles and information that benefits our audience: answers to commonly asked real estate questions, tips about home ownership, and relevant information about our local Seattle community. Like everything we do, we use social media to build a community, one client at a time.”

Visual Social Media Marketing for Real Estate

Real estate is a highly visual market and that’s great news for your social media marketing efforts. Tools like Stencil make it super simple and fun to create images to complement your content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and more! We’ve put together a list of the types of posts you can add to your social media calendar to increase engagement.

12 Types of Posts to Successfully Engage Your Audience

1. Tips for first time homebuyers
Buying a home for the first time is a daunting task. By providing helpful tips and information to first time homebuyers, you become a go-to resource for potential buyers.

Humor goes a long way on social media! One Stencil user, Ray Ciampaglia has definitely got the right idea: “Before coming into Real Estate I was a Managing Partner of an online advertising and marketing agency so I know of the importance of online advertising and how imperative social media is to the creation of any brand on any level. Locally or nationally. In real estate, the agent is the brand. Chances are the general public knows of, or has heard of, the agency I work for, so in order for customers to find me as an agent I must do something to stand out. I use social media for just that.

Stencil has allowed me to become much more creative with my posts.

Sometimes I inject humor or some interesting information about the real estate market and sometimes I create motivational quotes. Whatever the type of posting I am creating the goal is always the same. To get my name out there in the public eye and become synonymous with real estate sales.”

Ray created this hilariously engaging post on Stencil:

 

The post Social Media Marketing Tips for Real Estate Pros appeared first on Stencil.

Inspiring Social Media Posts for Every Business

Local Business Social Media Post Ideas

With local businesses, posting for grand openings, sales, discounts, and special events can really make a difference on social media, especially with terrific photos. A photo background can make or break a post. It should be clear with high resolution. Who wants to see a blurry image?! Most people will just scroll on through if the photo isn’t clear. To be sure it’s not pixelated or blurry, make sure it’s not a small photo. For example, if you have a photo of your product that’s been used as a thumbnail size then blow it up to a Facebook post size then the image will become distorted. You can always use a large photo and bring it down to size.

Ok now that I’ve got off my soapbox about posting blurry photos… onto to some inspiring social media posts that are simple for every business.

If you have a local business such as a restaurant, then take photos of the environment, people, and of course the food! Now that you know you need quality photos, these images can create endless amount of social media posts that can help market the business. Now some people may just take photos of their product only, however they’re really selling themselves short. People want to check out the environment or ambience of a business. Remember social media has that emotional pull.

Check out this great social media post from La Mexicana Express, a restaurant in Chile.

This social media post image is great because it displays the product, it tells you where you can find it with their logo and social media icons, with a one line text to spark interest – “Get the deliciousness you crave on the go.”

So don’t just stop with a photo of a product… optimize it with where people can find you and why.

NOTE: Please do not place your website URL in the middle of the product image. Yikes! You’re defacing your image and will lose potential eyes on your business.

Local Business with Services

Maybe you’re not a product business and you offer services. You may wonder how you can get social media images to work for you. Take a look at Meredith Whole Living Center’s Facebook event image.

They’ve placed their logo, a soft image to match their branding of health with a woman in a yoga pose, and a quote that many people who’d like to start yoga may relate to. These elements are all a great fit for a social media post.

If you’re a coach or offer consultation services that may be hard to find the ‘right’ image for. Using your own photo will work along with simple text to get your message across on social media.

Love this image of Amy Wenslow of Products to Profits where it’s an action shot of her on a call, her logo, and a one line text of why you should call her. Boom! Perfect social media image.

Online Business Social Media Post Ideas

If you sell products online, the best thing besides the product image is a testimonial saying how great it is. Authors, bloggers, and other online creators that have products can use testimonials into their social media images.

Mary Jo Putney, New York Times Bestselling Romance Author, does an amazing job with an image of her book cover and awesome testimonials. Showing authority in her industry with an amazing testimonial along with her website URL on the image. She is letting us know why we should buy the book and where we can find her.

If you have multiple images for a series, collection, or want to show how a product works (without using video) then you can take advantage of the Instagram Gallery option or Facebook post option for a slideshow. People are always intrigued to see more, especially if it’s a behind the scenes look at how a product is created. Although you may not be able to show many details but showing steps to get to the finished product is always interesting.

Here’s an Instagram Gallery post of Artisan Sugars‘ Toasting Sugar in action.

At times a product image isn’t enough to convey how fantastic a product is and if you don’t have time to do a video, still images put into a gallery or slideshow can be an excellent social media post.

Also always keep a link to the product in the caption or post so people will be more enticed to click over.

Are you inspired yet?

Let’s recap the different types of social media posts you can try with your business, online or offline.

First, use high quality photos (there are over 980,000 high resolution royalty-free photos in Stencil).

• Use social media icons along with product images to let people know which platforms to visit you to learn more.
• Leave your watermark, logo, or URL in the corner of the image so people know it’s your image and where to go.
• Use a photo to match your service or brand.
• If you can’t find a photo to match your service, use a professional or high quality photo of yourself along with enticing text.
• Use testimonials or quotes with the image.
• Gather many images to create a gallery or slideshow.

Which social media posts are your favorite?

Let us know in the comments.

Tag us @getstencil with your social media post inspiration with #smpostinspo .

We’d love to see your creations!

The post Inspiring Social Media Posts for Every Business appeared first on Stencil.

To get the highest amount of shares that will also increase clicks and traffic, you need to add the right types of images at the right places. Hence, to ensure you get the best results, I am going to show you how to visually optimize your blog posts for more shares in this post…

#1 Add lots of images:

Buzzsumo conducted another study on 1 million articles and found that blog posts with an image to word ratio between 1:75 and 1:100 (where there is one image for every 75 to 100 words) got more shares than blog posts with higher and lower image to word ratios.

Post with this image to word ratio also got more shares on Facebook as displayed in the below graph.

They also got tweeted more on Twitter…

These graphs show that you need to add plenty of images to your blog posts to get more social media shares, especially if you rely on sites like Facebook and Twitter for traffic.

You don’t have to follow this exact ratio each and every time as the first graph also shows that posts with image to word ratios between 1:125 and 1:150 also get plenty of shares.

The images you use can be a combination of stock photos, graphs, screenshots, infographics, etc.

Neil Patel understands the importance of adding visuals to his blog posts.

Take a look at his post Social Media Marketing Made Simple for example. It has more than 25 images. They are a combination of different types of images. He even included a small infographic.

Using several images is definitely helping him attract more shares as the post got 1,754 Facebook shares and 434 tweets at the time of writing this post. Therefore, while writing your blog post you should try and add several relevant images that compliment it.

#2 Add images optimized for specific social networks:

Different types of images perform well on different social networks, Hence, if you want to attract shares and traffic from a specific social network, you should make sure you include images that perform well on that social network to the blog post.

For example, if you want to drive more traffic from Facebook, you will need to add an image that is at least 560 X 292 pixels, to your blog post.

You will also need to make sure that this image is picked by default when someone shares that post. You can easily do that on a WordPress blog by making the image the featured image of the blog post or by using a plugin like Yoast SEO. Yoast has a feature that lets you pick the default image for Facebook. You can also add a Facebook title and description if you don’t want the meta title and description to appear.

When you do this only the chosen image will be shared on Facebook and it will appear as a big thumbnail, instead of the small one. As the thumbnail occupies more space it will attract more attention and traffic.

You can see this in action on this post on Facebook live broadcasts on Iag.me. As you can see in the above screenshot the image is specially optimized for Facebook. When I share it the big thumbnail appears and it also contains the title of the blog post which persuades people to visit the website. Another benefit of including this image is that it can be shared on other popular networks like Twitter, Linkedin and Google+ where it will perform well.

But this landscape image will not perform well on Pinterest.

To optimize your post for Pinterest you need to create a portrait shaped image. You can see a lot of food blogs take advantage of this like in the above screenshot from Pinterest. These types of tall images get pinned and repinned a lot on Pinterest and this drives back a lot of traffic to the website. Again, set your pin it button to pin that specific image to ensure only that image gets shared on Pinterest.

If you want to go a step further you can create an infographic for your blog post too as infographics get a lot of shares on Pinterest. I do this on a regular basis, like in this post on getting more followers on Pinterest. I summarized the entire post in an infographic. It got me a good amount of repins.

#3 Add image share buttons:

Regular share buttons can increase shares by nearly 7 times as found by this study, but as you are looking to get more shares through your images, just adding regular share buttons won’t be sufficient. Along with them you should be adding image share buttons. These are the share buttons that appear when someone scrolls over your image. They remind the person that the image can be shared and this leads to more shares.

Hence, go ahead and add some image share buttons to your blog posts.

Summary:

To sum up this post you get started with visually optimizing your blog posts for more shares by simply adding more images. You can then add images that are specifically optimized for your most important social networks. To get further more shares don’t forget to add image share buttons to remind and encourage people to share your post.

How do you visually optimize your blog posts for more social media shares? Which techniques have worked best for you? Please leave your comments below.

The post 3 Ways to Visually Optimize Your Blog Posts for More Shares appeared first on Stencil.

Social Media Cover Ideas to Revive Your Online Presence

There are several ways to create a social media cover to drive in leads and potential customers. It all depends on the type of business you have and what your main goal is to achieve. The great thing about social media covers is that it can be easily changed when there’s a special promotion, holiday, or simply keeping the online presence fresh.

Decide what type of look you want to display and keep it relevant to business. Show your personality, your enticing offer, or inspire your audience to click on like or follow with a design that gives a bit of a story about your business.

Here are a few types of inspirational ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

Show your personality

I suppose a restaurant can show stacks of gooey pancakes with syrup spilling over them and people will flock to eat at the restaurant. How many other pancake house type restaurants are out there in the world? You certainly have to stand out from the crowd. Denny’s does an amazing job with a fun Twitter cover and account. Of course, an octopus can’t eat pancakes but it sure is funny. Their account also displays the silly tweets to show off their personality. They truly get customer’s attention and social media engagement.

An enticing offer to resolve a pain point

A fun image for a professional business can sometimes be hard to work out. How about adding a question or phrase that can tap into a customer’s pain point? People are looking for a solution to their business problem. Its obvious WordStream does a terrific job in using a fun photo on their social media cover and adding a typical question they most likely get, ‘How can I boost my PPC results?’ It’s enticing and will most likely get click-throughs to learn more about how a business can accomplish it.

McDonald’s is the boss on promotional ads, billboards, and even social media covers. They display their products and text to indicate they have a product in varying sizes for each person. It’s an enticing offer and they are resolving a person’s pain point – hunger.

Inspire your audience

A culinary institute can easily display mouthwatering food and people will follow. However, Culinary Institute of America has a Facebook cover that’s rich with color along with text that inspires cooking as an art.

Another form of inspiration is an authoritative-type cover to show expertise and leadership.

Mari Smith presents her Facebook cover with authority as a top Facebook marketing expert and social media thought leader. A business owner looking to market through Facebook and other social media avenues would be intrigued by her cover, as she clearly demonstrates she is one to follow and to learn from.

Show personality, resolve a point point, and inspire with social media covers!

Create Social Media Covers in Stencil

Once you’ve discovered the type of social media cover that’s right for you, then you can create them for a variety of social media platforms in Stencil.

First, choose the type of social media cover you’d like to design. Simply click below the canvas where it states the type of image it is. This is where a menu pops up with the option of Headers.

In the Headers section, it’s a simple click to change the image into a different social media cover.

You can have all social media accounts look the same or change it slightly. A goal of creating a social media cover is to keep it recognizable to the brand. You don’t want to have completely different images and have people guessing if they’ve landed on an incorrect account.

Just like Denny’s, you can find a photo that’s relatable to your audience with a bit of humor. In Stencil, you can search for an image that would be best for your business.

If you have a product, you can upload your product image and use text to include a fun quote related to the product.

You can also use a color background to keep it simple and use a business brand color.

Think of the text to display on the image. Will it be funny, a phrase/quote, a question (like WordStream), or accomplishments to indicate you’re an expert in your field?

Quick tip – When placing text, use the center for text and avoid the sides of the image. This will make it mobile-friendly.

Keeping it simple will be key!

Once you have one social media cover done, a simple click of the Header section to change it is all you need to do. Your social media cover is ready to download.

Are you ready to revive your social media cover?

Sometimes a social media presence can get a little stale. It’s always good to update a social media cover to promote a new item, inspire, resolve a pain point, and show emotion or personality to get the audience’s attention. Remember your social media cover is your window display and you want people to ‘come in’ to enjoy your product or services.

Are there any tips you’ve found in creating social media covers that have helped your business? Let us know in the comments! We’d love to know.

The post Social Media Cover Ideas to Revive Your Online Presence appeared first on Stencil.

Its no secret that Stencil wants its users to be able to create beautiful content as simply and efficiently as possible. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have any extra tricks up our sleeves. In fact, we want to share them with you now. Below are 5 next level tricks that will help you power up and use stencil like a pro.

1. Dynamic Text  – Adding shadow using color outline and drop shadow.

Our first two tricks should help you enhance the readability of your content. For making text that stands out more, use Stencils drop shadow to create an extra layer or shadow. Using this technique should add some depth to your text that really help the words to pop out at the reader.

2. Background Color – Creating a text backdrop using background color.

Using background color is great way to achieve a similar effect. For example: you may find an image that fits your content perfectly, but has visual elements that obscure your text. This often occurs in landscape images that have sky or trees sitting exactly where you want to place your text. Use a background color to make this text easier to read. Highlight your text and select background color to choose something that feels right.

3. Browser Extras – Optimize your work by using Stencil anywhere! 

Stencil has two great tools that can only be unlocked by adding our extension to your browser. Find the drop menu labeled “Extras” and click on “Extensions.” Choose the browser you currently use and you’ll be prompted to add our extension. Doing this will enable two handy features. No matter what site you’re on, you’ll now be able to easily add text to an image by right clicking that image and scrolling down to the Stencil option. You and your image will be taken to the Stencil app. Conversely, you can now select any text you find on the internet! This trick is currently available to Google Chrome and Firefox users only.

4. Watermarks and Logos

Watermarks and logos are a great way to brand your content or make simple images look more professional for your client.

Why are these tools important?

B&H, New York City’s favorite camera rental house, recently published a highly informative post on the matter. 

5. Upgrading accounts – Pro and Unlimited

Our last trick can be accessed when you upgrade to Pro service: Unlimited Favorites. If you have a small business and want to save time, treat stencil as your own personal inventory for royalty free images. Skip the search through online picture caches and stock up on all your favorites— right in stencil. This allows you to stay in one app while you select and customize images. With Pro, you can save an unlimited number of these favorites for quick and easy use at a later time.

If a new task pops up and you don’t want to take time to go search for more content, just stay in Stencil. Everything will be waiting for you.

The post 5 Stencil Tricks You Should Know appeared first on Stencil.

First, you need to devise a plan. Without a plan, it will be hard to create visual content for social media. Here’s a question for you – How do you decide what to share on social media? The answer will be different for every entrepreneur, small business owner, or corporation. Let’s stick to the basics! Use these 8 steps in creating a social media strategy as a guide. When you have these steps in place it will become much easier to create social media image templates.

You can share relevant source content you find from influencers of your audience. Most importantly you will have your content, which can be: your blog, videos on YouTube or another video source, testimonials, product or service images, and inspirational quote images. You can’t control the other source content, however you can choose to curate the best information for your audience, and even better is when they use visuals.

Your content has to be visually appealing and it can be done in a matter of minutes by using templates in Stencil. Here are some tips and tricks!

How to Use Social Media Image Templates in Stencil

We’ll go through the various areas of potential content you can use for social media.

Blog

First, let’s chat about your blog. Yes, blogging and social media go hand-in-hand. It’s important to use blog post images to that keep your readers hooked and sharing in the best possible way visually. Make it easy for your audience to share on social media with a blog post feature image. It’s best when branding is kept in mind in regards to creating the image for a consistent look.

Images in the body of a blog are just as important as a featured image. According to a study from Buzzsumo, you should include an image after every 75-100 words. Studies showed that articles using this method had double the amount of shares of other posts.

Answer the questions below to strategize your blog image templates in Stencil:

1. Branding – Every business is unique, therefore branding will be the signature look and feel of the business.
   What are your primary fonts?
   What are your main colors?
   Will you use icons, a photo, or color background?

   

2. Vertical or Horizontal Position
   Where will your main audience visit you?
   Will you need a vertical image for Pinterest or Google+?
   Will you need a horizontal image for Facebook or Twitter?

   

3. Watermark
   Will you use a logo or web address or both?

All of these questions must be answered prior to creating the blog image template. When you’ve made a decision, create the blog post image in Stencil.

After the image is created, click the up arrow next to ‘Save’ and click on Save as template. Now your blog title image will be saved so you can use it repeatedly as you write your posts. Just download and upload to your blog site.

If you plan to use a vertical image as a blog post image, then be sure to change the dimensions to Pinterest.

Even if your blog post isn’t written yet, you can share the image to social media immediately to give a bit of a spoiler to your followers!

Videos

YouTube is the most popular site for videos and where everyone searches to learn about everything.

If you’re uploading videos to YouTube, what will make users click on your video? An awesome YouTube thumbnail of course!

Again, branding comes into play, and you’ll want to use your brand fonts and colors. Title the thumbnail accordingly and when people see the consistent look on your YouTube channel they will know you mean business.

Looking for some pro examples?  Check out Brian Dean’s thumbnails for the Backlinko YouTube Channel.

With Stencil you can get just the right size for thumbnails like the ones used on YouTube and save it to your templates. As you create your videos, you can use Stencil every time to update the title.

All you need to do is download and upload to YouTube.

Testimonials

Having testimonials on your site is a crucial part of generating new business. Images can help small quotes and feedback truly pop! To get started, post the image of the testimonial in a social media platform that keeps the image pinned for all to see. For example, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are all great platforms to show off your testimonial image.

Every time you receive a testimonial, use the Stencil template to reuse.

Products or Service Images

With Stencil, all your products can be uploaded to create social media graphics. Keep branding in mind and save the image as a template. Swap out the uploaded product images and adjust any copy to the image. Be sure to save the images or download immediately.

For product services, its not easy to create an original social media image that draws attention. Stencil has featured templates that can assist you on your way in developing your own template. Remember to change the template to match your brand colors and fonts.

Inspirational Quote Images

Break up monotony and similar posts with quotes, ideas, and stories you like. Adding variety and inspiration to your content timeline will help keep customers interested in your site and intrigued by your posts.

Creating quote images in Stencil is the easiest and fastest way to get them done. Use this post as a guide on how to create beautiful quote images. When you have a concept for inspirational quotes, you can it as a template or use featured templates (there are some really fun ones ready to use).

Will Social Media Image Templates Improve Your Social Media Strategy?

Absolutely! Stencil is designed to not only improve your product, but strengthen you as a social media user. Creating visual content with Stencil in a variety of ways and for different social media platforms will make the whole game easier for you.

Image templates will make social media a breeze and it will make one item (visual content) on your social media to-do list checked off in minutes.

Question for you –

What social media image size do you use frequently that you can create a template for? We’d love to know!

Let us know in the comments.

Update:
If you’re looking for some ideas on some ideas for your business account, our friends at Bulkly have published this: 50+ Social Media Post Ideas for Your Business Account

The post Strategize with Social Media Image Templates in Stencil appeared first on Stencil.

First, let’s chat about how and why quote images are so important. You may have heard that visual content is more than 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. There are some people who still post a text quote but the potential of shares and likes are far fewer than quotes with an image. This fact should not be ignored and you should give your followers what they want. Inspirational quotes affect us on a primal level. Life is hard so it’s understandable how we look for inspiration and motivation through quotes of people we admire.

You can create quote images or graphics even if you’re not a graphic designer and Stencil makes it super easy. Let’s begin!

Using Stencil to Create Beautiful Quote Images

Choose a Quote and Enhance with Typography

What makes Stencil so unique compared to other graphic design apps is that it provides over 50,000 quotes (new quotes are added every week) to search and choose from. When selecting the Quotes tab on the left of the canvas, the Featured Quotes will be displayed, however if you have a quote in mind then the search bar can be used. You can search by author or topic.

The default font of Fredoka One will pop up for the main quote text and the font Leckerli One is the default used for the author’s name. Of course, depending on the type of quote, you can change the font that would best suit the image. For example, I chose an Audrey Hepburn quote, “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!” Fredoka One can be changed to a more feminine-type font or script font. Take a look below on how easy it is to change the fonts:

Stencil has a great list of fonts to choose from and if you’re new to typography (the arrangement of fonts) then you can check these quick tips out on font pairing. Basically having a contrast of fonts helps an image become easier to read and more appealing. For example, if you choose a script for the quote then use a sans-serif font for the author name.

The font can give an overall emotion to the quote, so it’s important to use a font to reflect the type of emotion you want to express.

You can definitely share a quote on a color background however the high resolution photos from Stencil are incredible. It’s possible to find a photo that would enhance the quote even further to evoke the emotion and expression you’re looking for.

Choose a Photo Background

At the moment there are more than 700,000 background photos to choose from in Stencil and we’re adding more each week! You can search a topic the quote is related to and peruse an image that would appeal to your audience.

Just click on the variety of photos to get a feel for how it looks with the quote. You may need to change the text color to make the image work or make the text smaller or bigger. All of these little changes happen within seconds and you can create a picture quote in a minute or two. Picking out the photo is a difficult decision sometimes as they are all fantastic images. Here are some great tips on how to choose the best photo.

The basics:

• Choose a relevant photo. For example, if the message is about creativity, then photos of paint or art would display relevance.
• Remember your audience. If your audience is into yoga, then show them yoga poses or meditation-type photos.
• Look for contrast or space in the photo where the quote can be easily placed for legibility.
• If the photo doesn’t have open space or contrast, then simply use a color background for the font with a bit of transparency. (Check it out below!)

Sometimes you’ll find a photo that represents the quote perfectly however the colors are a bit off and not giving the vibe you’d hoped for. Try Stencil’s filters to create the effect that you’re looking for.

Filters can lighten, darken, blur, and add many more effects to the quote image. Give it a try to see if your photo looks better with a filter!

Finding inspiration in articles and around the internet (Chrome Extension or Firefox Add-on)

There are times I’m searching on a topic on Google or Pinterest and I find the most perfect quote. I used to copy and paste the quote to my notes or add the page to my reading list to keep a copy for later. Those days are gone! Stencil has a Chrome Extension and Firefox Add-on so when you find a quote that you love you can simply click on the extension and choose the quote you want to create a picture quote for. How cool is that?! No need to wait later until you get into the app, just simply click on what you need and you’re ready to create.

If you find a photo that you’d like to use and it’s not in Stencil, no need to go to the app and upload the photo. You can use the browser extension as well, just right click on the photo and click on the extension. Stencil will pop the photo right in.

Creating Quote Images in Stencil is easy as 1-2-3 

Let’s recap how we can create beautiful quote images in Stencil.

1. There’s no need to search for a quote elsewhere. Everything you need to create a quote graphic is in Stencil. Quickly search for a quote by author or topic.
2. We touched on using the many fonts Stencil provides. We can pair them to make the quote images more appealing and legible.
3. Photos are superb in Stencil and there’s no need to go searching photo sites. Remember the photo needs to resonate with the audience, must be relevant to the quote, look for open space or contrast area in the photo for easy quote placement. Filter can enhance the image you’d like to create.

PLUS Stencil has a Chrome Extension or Firefox Add-on that goes with you whenever you’re exploring articles or images. A simple click and the quote or photo is ready in the Stencil canvas.

Now you’ll be ready to inspire and motivate your followers on social media!

Questions for you – Do you like to create quote images and have you tried Stencil yet? Let us know in the comments! We’d love to hear from you.

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