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Do a little bit of Canva, get a whole lot of Instagram templates.
We love nothing more than saving time and creating beautiful content whilst we’re doing it! And this is ever so true with Canva. Since its release in 2013, Canva has taken the world by storm.
With pre-made templates, hundreds of graphic design features, and easy drag-and-drop functionality, creating content feels like a breeze. In this post, we’ll dive deep into creating Instagram templates with Canva, scheduling your content and graphic design tips for a beautiful Insta feed.
Let’s hop into it!
The importance of an aesthetically pleasing Instagram feed
[Inspo!: Take a look at how the peachy skincare brand Go-To Skincare creates a cohesive and consistent visual identity through their Instagram content. By playing on their signature colors and using this across all images, their posts instantly stand out in the feed!]
Before we dive into creating a template with Canva, let’s look at the importance of maintaining an aesthetically pleasing Instagram account (and nope, it’s not just for looks). Whilst having beautiful, crisp images is one fundamental way to engage your audience, there are various reasons to keep your visual identity on brand.
Your Instagram account is the “home page” of your brand on social media. From the second users land on your profile, your audience will make quick judgements about whether they want to stick around or run for the hills.
Maintaining your brand colors, tone, layout, and overall feeling conveys your brand’s voice and personality and helps your followers instantly recognize your content when it appears on their feed.
So when you’re thinking about blending crazy new colours, using a million different fonts and cluttering your content with stickers, take a moment to think about whether your content will resonate with your audience.
The best social content is guided by a clear set of brand guidelines. This brand book should clearly explain what fonts, colors and photography styles align with your business and how to apply them in a range of settings (from Instagram Stories to your email signature).
By remaining cohesive and consistent with your branding, you’ll boost the chance of users recognizing and remembering your brand.
Now that we’ve covered aesthetics let’s look at how you can create your own cohesive, beautiful, and results-driving content!
Step by Step Guide to Creating Instagram Posts with Canva
Canva has become loved by small businesses, creators and influencers around the world for its simple interface, huge template library and creative elements tab.
In fact, Canva’s user-friendly graphic design platform is used by over 30 million people every month, with a whopping 80 designs produced every single second. Here’s why so many users are obsessed with Canva’s suite of design tools:
- Canva empowers anyone to become a graphic designer: with a web-based application that is free to use, this tool is perfect for beginners or anyone who isn’t confident to dream up content or posts from scratch.
- Canva allows you to produce on-brand creative in seconds: with a library of pre-made templates ready to customize and make your own, Canva allows you to go from idea to execution effortlessly.
- Canva works across multiple content placements: from cover images to Instagram Stories to Pinterest infographics, Canva has stacks of perfectly sized canvases to help you produce content for all your marketing channels.
If you are a small business owner who isn‘t quite ready to hire an in-house graphic designer or aren’t fluent in Adobe Photoshop, then using Canva for your social media channels is a no-brainer!
This step-by-step tutorial will lay out the foundations for creating an Instagram template for your business.
Step 1. The first step is to create a Canva account! Head to www.canva.com, click Sign Up and proceed to make your account. You can also create content on Canva without an account, but the features are limited, so make to sign up for a free account.
Step 2. Once you land on the home page, you’ll see a world of content staring at you. But fret not! We’re going to streamline this process to make it seem less daunting. You can search “Instagram Templates” in the search bar, which will bring up hundreds of already pre-made templates. You can select free Canva templates or choose from paid versions.
Hot Tip: You can choose different templates for Feed Posts, Stories, Reels, and Ads (we’re going to focus on feed posts below!).
Step 3. Once you’ve scrolled through the pre-made templates and found the one you like, you can hop into editing mode by clicking “Customize Template.”
Step 4. This will pre-load the template into Canva’s editing suite. You’ll see a few options on the left-hand side of the editor—templates, Elements, Uploads and Text, Images, Audio, Gifs and more.
Step 5. You can edit your template with various fonts, images, and colors and even move the elements around the page. Make sure to add in your brand color palette to transform the image to suit your business.
Step 6. You can add pages as well! If you want to make a carousel post on Instagram, you can also do this from Canva. Click “Add Page” at the bottom of your image. Then edit the same way you’ve done for image one.
Step 7. You can save all of your Canva templates in their own folder to return to in the future. All you’ll need to do is click File > Save, or if you’re on the mobile app you can click the three small dots in the right-hand corner > then Save to Folder > Save to Existing or Create New.
Step 8. Once you’re happy with the final product, you’re ready to export! You can download all of your Canva designs at once or just one page at a time. You can choose whether to save your images in PNG or JPEG. Then” Click Download”, and they’ll save to your camera roll!
Hot Tip: If you want to create an Instagram Post from scratch, you can also do this from the template page. You’ll see “+ Create a Blank Instagram Post”. From there, you can add elements, stock images, text and more in the same way as editing a pre-made template.
Is it worth getting Canva Pro?
If you’re ready to take your graphic design up a notch, then it might be worth considering Canva Pro.
This premium version of Canva still has all the features of the free version but comes with some cool add-ons that’ll help your brand leverage your marketing collateral.
With Canva Pro, you’ll get:
- 60 million-plus photos and premium graphic elements
- More than 1,000 different fonts
- Ability to upload your own fonts and design truly custom content
- Premium animations to bring your static assets to life
- Access to the background remover tool (easily remove any background from your image)
- The Magic Resizer tool: want to turn a Facebook post into an Instagram Carousel? With the magic resizer, you can do this in a few clicks!
- The Animator Tool: this allows you to animate your graphics and make them more visually appealing (and engaging!) on social media
And not only that, but you can also access the Brand Kit with Canva Pro. What is this, we hear you ask? The Brand Kit Manager is a central location for your team to collaborate efficiently on Canva.
The Canva Pro upgrade allows you to work with an entire design team. The team manager can manage different templates from posts, reels and story templates and enable other team members to work off those templates.
The Brand Kit is also where you can store your business color palettes, fonts and other branding items. Essentially, it helps you streamline your content creation by empowering your team with the handy tools they need to produce branded, engaging content at scale.
In our humble opinion? Canva Pro is a non-negotiable for businesses and content creators in 2022. With infinite templates, incredible stock imagery and footage, bespoke graphic elements and customization opportunities make sure you’re giving yourself full access to the best of the Canva experience with a pro account.
How to schedule your Instagram content with Sked
Now that you have some fresh and exciting content ready to upload to your Instagram account, you’ll want to schedule your Instagram feed posts ahead to reduce manual posting. You can do this with Instagram’s number #1 scheduling tool, Sked Social.
Easily upload, schedule and track your Instagram posts from the Sked app. You can add captions, hashtags, locations and tags from your fingertips—a hassle-free way to give yourself more time to focus on growing your business.
Graphic design tips for non-designers on Canva
Now we all love simplifying life, so we’ve scoured the web to find the best-practice tips from designers and non-designers on how to use Canva efficiently and effectively, without a headache.
Here are seven proven ways to level-up your Canva designs and take your Instagram posts to the next level.
- Create clean, crisp and clean imagery. There’s nothing more distracting than a blurry image on social media. When designing your Instagram template, make sure your text is clear and the elements aren’t overcrowded. Canva has a library of thousands of stock photos you can choose from!
- Avoid overcrowding your elements, text and images. You can use the line spacer in Canva to give your text more room or minimize your elements to allow for more space.
- Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Keep the number of fonts, colors, and shapes to a minimum; this will help you capture your audience’s attention instead of forcing them to look away. By taking a less is more approach, you’ll be able to clearly communicate your post’s central message and inspire your audience to take action.
- Use the same design elements on every page. Whilst it’s fun creating new content, sometimes the creativity runs wild. You’ll want to ensure your Instagram stories, carousels and feed posts have the same look and feel. Be consistent with your brand fonts and colors and add a logo to your posts to build brand recognition.
- Create a mood board. A beautiful mood board will help you plan out your content, plus it’s great for research purposes. With a mood board, you can let your creativity free until you’ve found the best fonts, colors, and inspiration images for your content.
- Watch a Canva tutorial. There are hundreds if not thousands of helpful Canva how-to’s right from the app! If you’re stuck re-sizing an image or want to learn how to make wavy words, you’ll find this under the Learn section in Canva. Plus, we’re always sharing new Canva hacks on the Sked Social Instagram page!
- And finally, take a break. Giving your eyes and brain a rest will ensure you can create content that your love and your audience will love as well. Go for a walk, grab a bite, and take some time away from the computer to come back to your most creative ideas.
Wrapping Up
Canva is a fantastic choice for small businesses, entrepreneurs, creators and general graphic design enthusiasts! With such a user-friendly interface paired with pre-made templates, not only can you create Instagram posts, stories, and reels, but you can also make videos, other social media content, posts, flyers and more! It’s really a one-stop shop for your graphic design needs.
Ready to make your mark in the world of Instagram? Try Canva today and then streamline your social media strategy and plan visually beautiful Instagram content direct from the Sked Social App.
Free up time, check out insights and schedule from one app. Sked Social is the #1 Instagram-first social media scheduler. Try our 7-day free trial to get the most out of your Instagram marketing strategy.
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Why settle for a lackluster social media management tool when you could be using Sked Social? With unlimited collaborator access, streamlined approvals and advanced auto-post technology that lets you schedule to all major platforms, Sked Social offers everything you need.
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