** Friday Favorites **

Today’s Friday Favorite is my absolute, hands-down, current favorite app/technology tool, Canva!

Are you familiar with Canva?

It is basically a graphics design app, which allows you to quickly and easily create social media graphics, and so much more!

I am NOT a technology guru by any means, but I truly find this to be the easiest app I have ever worked with. I primarily use it on my phone, as I find that to be quickest and easiest, but you can also go direct to the website on your computer.

The free version of the app is plenty robust, but you can upgrade to paid versions very inexpensively based on your needs, or even just purchase some of the paid graphics and stock photos a la cart if desired.

Today’

s graphic, plus just about any other graphic that I share here in the group or on our team’s Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/platinumgrouprealestate/) was made by me on Canva. I made today’s graphic on my phone, and it took me less than 2 minutes, start to finish.

Here is my best piece of advice when it comes to Canva … make QUICK decisions. There are hundreds (thousands maybe) of templates that you can choose from for whatever you want to make. It can easily take you an hour plus finding the “just right” template, swapping out the fonts and colors. In my experience, you don’t need perfection, you need done.

Begin with the end in mind … when I get started I know whether or not I want to add my own photo to the graphic and how many (less is more … rarely will I add more than 4 photos). Then I just scroll through the templates and I QUICKLY select usually the first template I come across which takes the number of photos I want and/or using a font that is pleasing for my purpose.

Keep

in mind that you can change any and every color on the templates very easily. For comparison, I will post the original template I used for today’s post in the comments so you can see the difference.

One thing I rarely change is the font. There are so many choices, I could easily get sucked in trying to change to something that is “just right”, which is why I prioritize selecting a template with a font that works for what I plan to create.

You can also very easily delete any elements (text or otherwise) that are part of the template that you don’t need, and you can add text, shapes, graphics and more very easily.

One of my favorite recent discoveries with Canva is that you can “resize” anything that you create into something else. For example, if you create a graphic for an Instagram post but then want to turn that in to a flyer or poster, you can do that with a couple clicks. I’ve only done this on the Canva website, not sure if it can be done in the app.

A

n Important Note: Just because you CAN create things for yourself in Canva, doesn’t mean that you SHOULD do it all the time. Don’t let this replace a support person if that is what you really need. If you are spending hours creating your own things in Canva, that is NOT the highest and best use of your time and you should hire help with that so you can focus on prospecting and appointments with clients. I have a Marketing Director who designs all of our brochures and flyers and marketing pieces. I use Canva when I need a quick social media graphic for something … and the key is that I only spend a few minutes on each.

Do you use Canva? If so, tell us your favorite feature!

PS – Thank you to everyone who reached out to me yesterday will calls and messages from my post. I would say that I am glad to hear how it resonated with so many of you, but sorry that so many of us are feeling this same struggle! Whether you are brand new, or 20 years in, a single agent or a team leader, the challenges don’t go away, they are just different.