I blogged about some of my favorite visual marketing tools back in March 2015 and November 2015, but since then a lot of new apps have been developed to help us create appealing Graphics.

Earlier this year I was invited to try out the Pro version of Snappa for three months, and I was more than willing to see what it was all about.

At first glance, it doesn’t look much different than what’s already out there. They have preset image dimensions for social media, emails, and other purposes; pre-made templates, and access to free high-res photos. But once I got started, the differences were phenomenal!

Here’s what I found most remarkable.

Templates

The templates are super easy to work with. You can easily change backgrounds, colors, fonts, and even the position of various elements without messing everything up – and switch back, if you change your mind. Maybe it’s just me, but I find this very difficult in Canva.

With thousands of templates to choose from, the problem isn’t finding one that will work, but choosing the one that will work best!

This actually might be my downfall. I know in principle that to maximize my branding, my graphics should have the same look and feel, but I just have too much fun creating different ones! Just think how much time I could save if I were to come up with my *perfect* template and use it exclusively!

Resizing Graphics for Various Platforms

Snappa does an amazing job of resizing graphics. For example, you can start by creating one for Facebook. When you click the Resize button and choose Instagram or Pinterest, it not only resizes it, but repositions everything nicely so you only need to do minor edits, if any.

In the same scenario, Design Wizard, which I reviewed earlier this year, leaves blank spaces at the top and bottom of the resized graphic so you have to adjust your background, and it’s way more time-consuming. I haven’t tried it in Canva, since this feature is only available with a paid plan.

This feature alone makes Snappa the best tool I’ve used for creating marketing graphics. I’ve generally skipped the time-consuming process of creating custom graphics for each platform, but now I don’t have to!

Other Features

When you download an image, you can choose from web-optimized JPG, high-res PNG, retina JPB or retina PNG. Although Canva offers choices, there aren’t as many, and their recommended file type is high quality PNG. As a result, many of my clients have uploaded Canva images to their blogs only to suffer performance issues due to the huge file size.

Once you’ve created a graphic, you can save it in your account, download it, and/or share it on Facebook, Twitter, or Buffer. And since Buffer allows you to post to LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest, you’re pretty well covered!

Note: social sharing is only available with Snappa Pro, and Pinterest is only available with Buffer Pro and Business plans. Only you can decide whether it’s worth paying extra for these features.

My Samples

I’ve been using Snappa a LOT, so choosing which graphics to include here wasn’t easy, but I’ll start by referring to my recent post, What’s Your WordPress Personality?. On the post itself, I used a free stock photo from Pixabay with no text added. Then I uploaded it to Snappa where I quickly created versions for Pinterest and Instagram. I’ve followed this process for most of my recent blog posts.

In addition, I created this book launch poster for Kathy Stinson:

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and this email header for Sue West:

My Conclusions about Snappa

As I said, Snappa is probably the best app I’ve ever used for creating graphics. It’s so quick and easy that I will definitely continue to take advantage of it after my trial is over.

The free Starter plan has a few limitations which I can live with, but includes only five downloads per month. Since I typically blog a couple times a month here and every week on Your Organizing Business, I’ll need to either be more selective or invest $15/month or $120/year to continue using it liberally.

I was already sold before I discovered that Snappa is Canadian, like me!

You should give it a try if you:

• have been afraid to try creating your own graphics
• are spending too much time creating graphics
• are frustrated with the app you’ve been using

After you try it, please come back and let me know what you think!

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