How to Cheat at creating visual content: Visual content tips and resources on a budget

1. How to "Cheat" at Visual Content

2. Wait. Can You Really Cheat at
Visual Content?
Ha. Not Exactly.
You'll have to do some work to create great visuals.
But there are a few ways to make it easier, cheaper
or faster to make your point with visuals.
By "Cheat" I mean "do it better/cheaper/faster"
(Without the major quality loss.)

3. Who's down
with OPP?
O Is for Other. P is for people
The last P? Well, as Treach would say, that's
not that simple.. The last P is for picture or
photo of course.
But you can't Always use other people's
property.
So look for images that have a Creative
Commons License.
O.P.P
I "repurposed" a hip-hop title for this slide
So much for rap music not being inspirational...

4. O.P.P. Resources
Creative Commons
Licenses spell out what
permissions you have to
use someone else's
image.
Foter
This tool searches Flickr for
images, and gives you cut
and paste code to place
them on your site that links to
the original.
Photodropper
WP Plugin
Creative common searches. This
does something similar from
within your WordPress blog, and
saves the image locally. You can go straight to
the source too.
Or use Google Images
with search tools on.
Don't forget pictures you've uploaded.
You could even set out to take pictures for your post if you plan in advance.

5. I tried to outsource
my homework in
grade school. Can
you believe I almost
got kicked out for this
valuable life skill?
Let someone else do it faster,
and better.
You don't have to do it all. Concentrate
on what you do best, and let someone
on Fiverr or Odesk do the rest. Outsource
How much is your time worth?
If your time is worth $100 an hour, hire people to do your $25 an hour work. Win/win.

6. You can use
Picmonkey to add
words to existing
images
Hold onto this thought for a second
"Thought bubbles."
Step one
Quote from
your
content..
Step two
Type that
quote on
an image
Try a meme
generator when
related news is
trending.
"Quote."

7. I'm so Flawless my
ideas have ideas.
Actually that idea is
why I picked this
template. Was it
worth it or nah?
A Visual Skeleton for your idea may
already exist.
Powtoon, Google Drive, Microsoft
Templates & Canva are all great resources for
visual content prepped for you in editable
templates.
Borrow someone else's taste if like me, creating a
visual isn't your jam. Thought bubbles are one of the
easiest visual templates from Canva, by the way.
Templates
Some tools make it as easy as editing a
PowerPoint template.

8. Colors. Colors. Colors. Colors
It's amazing how much you can jazz up a blog post,
document or photo by adding or even removing color.
Try adding a light colored background, changing the
color of header titles, or using a colored border in a
document. You can also use colors to emphasize a point
or as a cue to group concepts.
Palettes Help
I'm one of the rarer types who conceptualizes in words. It's harder
for me to visualize how things should look but easy to decide
what they should say.
If you share this issue, look in formatting menus in documents for
pre-set color palettes. You can also find color families by
searching "color picker" in Google.
Try Googling "color palette generator"
It'll give you families of colors that go together, often with hexadecimal
codes.

9. Present Data Visually
So many concepts are
easier to grasp visually.
Think Charts
You can use pie charts,
graphs, diagrams or even
shapes
Try Infographic Tools
Even if you don't want to
create a full blown
infographic,there are many
tools you can use to share
data, numbers or stats about a
topic.
Here are a few of my favorite data
visualization tools.
Some are completely free.
http://list.ly/list/2Of-infographic-resources

10. Video your screen
Shy? Don't feel like
prepping for the
camera? Capture
your screen with
SnagIt, or online
screen recording tools.
"Show Me."
Sketch & share
If you're good at
conveying concepts by
drawing, consider
capturing your Mind
Maps or Whiteboard
renderings.
Can you show
instead of tell?
How-to
information is still
some of the most
popular online.
Video yourself
Got a camera
that shoots in HD?
Go for it.
Remember sound
quality counts too.
People find watching you do it useful
You can't please everyone in terms of detail, so do as much or as little as makes sense.

11. Storify
Curate multiple sources of a
story, in various formats, into
one collection.
Thinglink
Ever want to annotate a
picture? Try it.
Curate.
List.ly
Lists gone both visual
and social - curate with
user input if you wish.
More Tools
Here's an article I wrote about this
with more tools & details, with
links.
5 essential (and free!)
content curation tools
Curation needs context for best results.
Add your insight, story, experience - don't just tell them what someone else said.

12. Get those
people
some
people
People like looking at other
people's faces
Typically happy, smiling faces, but
interesting or funny can work too
No one has ever said
"wow that stock photo
rocks"
Share real people's faces in
real situations whenever you
can.
Introduce them to your
staff
Tell employee stories - or
better yet, let them share
Meet Your Customers
Let them meet each other
too. Enable them to share
ideas, photos, videos.
Not just them using your
product either.
Don't forget video
Start with the shirt and sweet.
Attention spans are at at all
time--- SQUIRREL!

13. Not every joke I made was a good
one.
But they made ME laugh. Which
made this fun. So thanks for that.
Questions? Comments?
Really interesting story about a monkey?
Tinu Abayomi-Paul
support@asktinu.com
702.508.8468 (cell #)
Your story doesn't have to be about monkeys.
Or marketing for that matter. It might just be fun to say hi.