Are you wasting your time?
You research and carefully craft your blog posts. So, why is the current trend towards visuals?
Instagram, a photo-sharing social media site, and YouTube, a video sharing site, are continuing to grow in popularity. Pinterest seemed an overnight success.
Webtrends has suggested Snapchat, a video and photo sharing app, is the future of social media.
What explains all the fascination with visuals?
The answer is clear. Thanks to the Digital Age where choices are presented at lightning speed, people don’t have time to read.
You can capitalize on the tremendous popularity of visuals to bring traffic to your blogs.
This post will explain how to do it using three free tools, BeFunky, Nimbus, and Pablo.
According to Abraham Lincoln, “You can please some of the people all of the time.” If those people are a majority of your readers, would you want to please them?
If yes, then you must use pictures since 65% of all readers are visual learners.
Due to Pinterest’s changing algorithm, many readers are complaining it isn’t worth their time to use graphics since they won’t be visible on Pinterest anyway.
Is getting page views your only goal? Didn’t you become a blogger to empower your readers?
In order to do that, you must use visuals. Graphics are becoming the wave of the future. According to NinjaOutreach.com, “the Internet is becoming more and more visual”.
This post will offer tutorials on three tools that will help you offer visuals to your readers, BeFunky, Nimbus, and Pablo.
BeFunky Photo Editor
Anyone can use BeFunky since it doesn’t require a login or registration.
Step 1: Go to BeFunky.com.
Step 2: Decide what type of visual you want to make. You have three choices: a photo editor, a collage maker, or a graphic designer.
I have not used the collage maker. To make a graphic for my blog post, I choose between the photo editor and the graphic designer.
How to Make Visuals with the BeFunky Photo Editor
Step 3: Upload a photo.
By looking at the screenshot, you see you have an option of using one of BeFunky’s photos.
BeFunky is connected to Pixabay. According to blogger Kyla Osborne, you don’t have to worry about copyright restrictions as long as the photos you find on Pixabay do not say Shutterstock.
I used one of my photos. A photo of a rake seemed appropriate since a rake is a tool, and I was writing about tools.
Step 4: Apply Filters
Deciding which of the many filters you want to apply is a large part of the fun of using BeFunky.
This photo was auto-enhanced.
Step 5: Resize the Photo
I had trouble at Twitter. I made what was for me a masterpiece of a graphic the first time I used BeFunky only for Twitter to give me an error message that the photo was too big.
It is easy to change the graphic’s pixels by resizing it.
Another filter I applied was Beautify. The colors became more enhanced when I applied the filter.
Since I was writing a tutorial, I thought I should choose more filters. I applied Vintage Color 1. It seemed to brighten the picture.
You have so many more options, it feels like the combinations are endless. You can also pay for premium filters, but I feel like the free filters are enough for my needs.
I added a frame in the photo editor. It makes visuals stand out. At BeFunky, you get to determine the thickness of the outer frame and the inner frame.
You have seven choices for types of frames. I chose Border.
Step 6: Add Text
BeFunky has preset texts, but I like to choose my own.
I chose Yellowtail and Monserrat. These happen to be two favorites of mine. You would not believe how many text choices BeFunky offers.
The first two colors show I will have white letters with a black outline. The third color I circled shows I will have a third color, a transparent color, behind my letters to enable them to stand out in front of the picture.
Compare the finished graphic with the original photo I uploaded in Step 3.
How to Make Visuals with BeFunky’s Graphic Designer
Sometimes, it’s easier just to stick your photo in a pre-made template.
The site has templates for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest. You will find free templates as well as “plus” templates for paid subscribers.
Here is an example of a template I altered. The photo was mine. I just inserted it into the template and changed the wording. It took mere moments to alter.
There is one last trick I wanted to demonstrate using BeFunky’s Graphic Designer:
More and more I am seeing pictures with quotes on them.
This post opened with a quote from Abraham Lincoln.
Click Social Media Header, Image Manager.
I clicked Twitter, then Pixabay. A search bar came up. I searched for “people” since that would match Lincoln’s quote.
BeFunky has many resources for bloggers. Social Media Header is one of them.
BeFunky is gaining in popularity. Many graphic tools are defaulting to BeFunky as a way to open visuals.
BeFunky has a helpful video tutorial that might inspire you.
Nimbus Browser Extension
Nimbus is a free browser extension.
Step 1: Get Nimbus Browser Eextension.
Start the download by going to this link in Chrome and clicking “Start Download.”
In Firefox, you would go here to get Nimbus.
You can also go to Settings, Extensions, More and type Nimbus into search.
If you look under the BeFunky section of this post, all the screenshots were taken and edited with Nimbus.
Step 2: Get something on your screen that you want to capture. Nimbus is used to screen capture.
Step 3: Select what you want to do with Nimbus.
I always choose Selected Area.
Step 4: Edit the Screenshot
Choose the pencil to edit, the check mark to say the screenshot is fine as is, or the X to cancel.
Pablo
As indicated above, my graphic was too long for Twitter, and I wanted to have a graphic accompany my tweet, so I made one using Pablo.
Click Create an Image.
A search bar will come up that enables you to type in what picture you are looking for. I typed in “blog”.
I chose the photo I wanted to use. The text was already on it. I just had to alter it.
Although I didn’t modify the photo, you could change the contrast.
I did modify the text size. I made it larger and resized the text box. You could change the text font as well. Caption boxes are available and several graphic sizes are also offered.
Conclusion
In closing, Kinexmedia.com insists we are living in a visual age. You might as well take advantage of it by supplementing your blog posts with visuals.
Even the SITSGirls blog claims you can increase blog traffic with visuals.
Visitors, please share, so other bloggers know the value of the BeFunky Photo Editor and these other free graphic design tools.
What do you think? Which tool do you think you might try? Is there one you are already using? I look forward to your views in the comments section.
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Sources:
Visual Content for Better Conversion
