As an online fitness professional, by now you MUST have established social media pages for your business, right? (And if not, what are you waiting for?)
Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram or YouTube, social media is one of the easiest and most popular ways to grow your brand and expand your following.
But, if you don't present yourself and your brand in the right way, it can be just as easy to turn off potential clients as it can be to recruit them.
Increasingly, social media is becoming more visual. It's been proven time and time again that audiences are more quickly drawn to engaging graphics instead of just a bunch of text.
Catching the eye of your potential client is the first step in getting them interested in your services, so it’s important for you to package your business information and services in a way that is visually appealing.
But with all you already have to juggle running your personal training business, you're probably wondering:
Where do I find extra time or money for a professional photographer or graphic designer?
Well here’s some good news for you: There are plenty of tools that allow you create clean high-quality graphics for little to no cost!
Let’s take a look at 7 free tools that you can use to create professional-quality images for all your social media pages:
1. GIMP
The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP for short) is a free image editor that allows you to edit and retouch your photos, as well as create your own artwork or visuals. It's pretty much a free alternative to Photoshop.
GIMP is an open source software, and it’s totally free! It also gives you a ton of options for integrating into other platforms and software. All you have to do is download the program to your computer, and you’re ready to go!
This video tells you a little more about how to use GIMP:
2. Photoscape
Photoscape is another image editing software that’s super easy to use. In addition to the usual image editing features like colour and brightness adjustment, Photoscape also offers you features like editing multiple photos at once or combining more than one photo to create one final image. You can even create an animated GIF, which is super cool, as GIFs tend to attract a ton of attention and clicks.
Photoscape's Batch Editor allows you to edit more than one image at a time.
3. Pixlr
Pixlr is an image editing software that can be used via a web or mobile app. Just like everything on this list, Pixlr is user friendly, and completely free. Pixlr is a great tool for creating high-quality professional images that you can use to promote your personal training business.
With Pixlr, you can easily manipulate images by cutting parts out, as seen here.
4. Picmonkey
Picmonkey is another great tool that allows you to edit photos and create graphic images. Not only does it allow you to create super-professional images from scratch, but it also comes with plenty of amazing templates you can choose from if you only have beginner’s graphic design skills.
You can use the Picmonkey mobile app to quickly retouch your photos, and take them to the next level.
While there is a free trial version available that allows you to make amazing photo edits, you will need to purchase a plan in order to take advantage of all the app’s features.
5. Canva
Canva has quickly become one of the most popular online graphic design websites being used today, and it’s pretty easy to see why. Canva allows you to create everything from social media posts to posters and flyers to business cards to book covers!
It’s really easy to use, and just like Picmonkey, comes with a bunch of different templates for you to play with and choose from.
With Canva, you can create digital flyers like this one to promote your business.
While Canva does offer different paid packages for businesses, you can still do quite a lot with the free version. Some templates or graphic elements do come with a one-time fee (not usually more than a few dollars) to use them in your design.
6. Easelly
Easelly is a handy tool that lets you turn anything into an infographic. Instead of posting a bunch of text that no one will read about your services, you can format this information into an infographic, which will catch your audience’s eye and make it easy for them to follow along.
You can pack in a lot of content without overwhelming your reader; this way your message is more likely to be noticed, and clients are more likely to buy into your business.
Infographics like this are a fantastic way to get your message across without lots of text.
7. Klex
Similar to Canva, Klex allows you to create high-quality professional graphics, even if you have little or no design experience. Klex also gives you the added benefit of editing your photos, and it’s all for FREE.
With a huge database of effects, fonts and colours, your creativity can run wild without the hassle of learning to design from scratch.
Klex offers you plenty of templates to choose from so you can create the perfect graphics for your business.
While these are just a few tools which you can use to transform your social media, you can use them to literally do everything you need.
Yes, it does take a few minutes to create a killer image, but I challenge you to test it. Post a few pro images and watch your social insights to see if they garner more clicks, likes and shares. My guess is that you'll be pleasantly surprised!
